Well, it is surprising for me, that as a chief of the Red Army General Staff (January - July 1941) he had no authority to anything?!? Stalin indeed must have the last word to confirm any major decission, but someone had to make plans etc. and bring them to Stalin, am I wrong? And this is Staffs work to make plans, place units... And the staff worked very hard, about 18-19 hours per day (Zhukovs Memories... page 241)(btw, it was again Zhukov, who wrote on page 110 of his memories, that not the staff, but the Komunist Party Committee was the brain of the RA)(it is very hard for me to expres in English most of informations I want to). One old strategist (Sun Tzu, I think) wrote something like that: "if you place your units bad, at the start of the battle, it is nearly impossible to retrieve it" And, maybe its only my wrong idea, whos signature was on orders and plans of the Red Army in first six months of the 41st year? After all, if ignoring commands from the General staff (and who was in charge, if not the staff??), only this dislocation of army and first days orders (signed by Zhukov, of course) did make him responsible at least of a part of those defeats.
It was allways Zhukov, who said: I couldt do anything, I did not know about.., I had not authority.., I disagreed with Stalin etc.. Interesting is, that after war he claimed he predicted this and that (and where is some evidence of it and some evidence about his disagreeing with Stalin is missing too, except Zhukovs statements) and simultaneously he did not know, his own inteligence officer "was not under his command"... This seems to me as a great pile of excuses or evasions. In addition, if I consider all of these Zhukovs exclamations, Zhukov looks like either dumb, or incapable. (I am sorry for such a sharp judging, but I dont know how to write it other way)
T-26 and BTs are another story for another topic, because I dont think these were as inferior as you wrote here.