Defeat on the Eastern Front

You are over esitimating the German capability and under estimating the Russian capability.

 

I have heard that the kill ratio between German and Russian tanks was at least 5:1 in favor of the Germans. True or a dream? In one instance, 23 German tanks attacked around 100 Russian tanks, the Germans had 63 confirmed kills with a loss of none. Is this possible or has it been blown out of proportion? And also is it true that German production was at its highest in the last years of the war?
I'm not meaning to give more credit to one side. Its just I was part of another forum with a supreme dislike for anyone who picked a German view point so it was hard to get anything out of it besides, Russia rules.

 

There is a lot of mis infomation out there from all sides, Russian, German, Allied etc. The point of this forum is to try to correct these myths and im sure that if you stick around here a for a bit, you will come to appreciate the tightly nit group of members we got here (with the exception of those damn Texans! ) who are commited to correcting these miss interpretations.....

Not sure what the tank kill ratio between the Germans and Russians really was. I would imagine that in the beginning of the war margine was far greater then it was towards the as the tides had turned and it was now the Germans who virtually suffered from all of the same shortages and set backs which the Red Army had in the beginning. I do know that the ratio of soldiers killed was more on the lines of 2:1 and not 10:1 which other forums claim.

Hope this helps and welcome aboard.

 

Thanks. Can anyone suggest a couple book or website about the Eastern Front?

 

What is it your after?

A good start to finish or certain battles?

A good general one from start to finish....

Barbarossa
The Russian-German Conflict 1941-45
by Alan Clark

I belive David Glantz one When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler is simular and all his books are a good read.

The Battle of Kursk 1943 is one of his ones on a single battle.

Antony Beevor's
Stalingrad & Berlin: The Downfall 1945 are worth buying.

 

Just a few more to add...


The Road to Stalingrad, and the Road to Berlin.
John Erickson

Before Stalingrad
Glantz

Stalingrad
Michael K. Jones

Red Partisan: Memoirs of a Soviet Resistance Fighter on the Eastern Front
Nikolai I. Obryn'ba

 

I would recommend books by Paul Carrell:

Hitler Moves East.

Scorched Earth.

Also,

The Center for Military History has many books about the fighting on the East Front.

The Command & General Staff College has a Pamphlet called, "German Small Unit Actions on the Eastern Front". You have to search there site, but there are five (5) files that complete the entire book. GREAT info in this book.

 

how about one for Stalingrad?

 

My bad some where already given. Shoulda read the other page. Thanks for ya'lls help

 

Germanys treatment of Russian POW's was a huge propoganda boost to the slavs.

Think about it....On a march full of your comrades(exscuse the pun) a march heading west to what you think to be a POW camp.

you start to remmember the propoganda stories about captured soldiers not geting a scrap to eat,and no water at all to drink except snow.

But after awhile the snow hurts you more then helps,so you start thinking about drinking your own urine to warm you up.

Then you start to get hungry as you walk by a patch of grass and start to eat on your hands and knees like an animal,and your bestfriend shoves you away and starts to eat.

You get to the camp (which is little more then a barbed wire parimiter) as nightfall sets in and at night you hear men eating the flesh of a man who lived not more then five seconds ago.


I dont know about ya'll,but that would convince me more then anything in the world to fight and never surender.

 

1.its impossible to defend a 1000 mile front no matter how good your army is
2.simple attrition,the russians could replace losses far more easily than the germans
3.partisan activity in the german rear,the russians effectivly had an army behind german lines
4.russian equipment was more suited to winter conditions
5.the russians adopted defence in depth which was the right way to deal with blitzkrieg,if the germans made a breakthrough they were unable to exploit it.

 

Thats very true,in your opinion what do you think the wermacht could have/should have done in fighting the partisans?

I will say that the treatment of the civilian population/reprisals was doing nothing but pouring gas on the fire.

 

The germans should have kept their eye on the ball and stuck to their origional objectives instead changing at a whim.

If i was in charge of the rear areas the civilians would have been fed and housed but they would have been worked hard improving the infastructure and also would have had them doing lots of defensive works,the germans should of at least seen the possibility of a revearsal after they were defeated at moskow.

 

Bob;
The Wehrmacht should have shot Hitler and all the NAZI officials, then made an Anti Stalinist pact with any Soviet citizens who would rally with the aim of doing the same to Stalin and his clique.
JeffinMNUSA

 

Both North and South did it for a while in the ACW. The Soviet Union managed it in WWII. Several powers managed it in WWI.

Could they? They certainly did but it's not clear to me they did so "easily". Indeed they were facing a pretty severe manpower problem by the end of the war.

These to me to be problems to a large extent the Germans made for themselves.

The Germans were exploiting their breakthroughs right up to the end. The Soviets defeated the German offensives and moved over to the offensive themselves. They also on the strategic front out generaled the Germans.

 

#1 reason: A pathetic inability to perform civil engineering operations. The Wehrmacht was singularly unprepared to operate in a theater that did not possess a useful road network, rail system, etc. The Wehrmacht's construction engineering capability was limited almost entirely to non-mechanized construction using nothing but hand tools. Their construction engineers had great difficulty in providing semi-permanent bridging, repairing or replacing railroads, improving or maintaining roads, building shelters, and virtually any other construction function. This leads to

#2 A lack of appreciation for logistics. The Wehrmacht was very badly orgainzed and staffed in the field of supply. This leads to massive inefficenices and waste. The fact that duplicate lines of supply for the Luftwaffe and SS exist only make the whole system even worse.

These two factors more than anything else, including the Red Army, lead to Germany's initial defeat in Russia. The Wehrmacht simply could not press their advantage when their frontline units had no fuel, no ammunition, food, or other supplies with which to operate.

 

While making good point as usual T.A., to simply claim that these were the two main reasons the Germans lost in Russia would be to denigrate the "Ivan's" effort and ability to wage war and ultimately defeat the German soldier.

After the war numerous German accounts from ordinary soldiers, officers and even generals such Heinrici began to surface. All mentioned countless of reasons why they lost.... All said that the biggest reason was the underestimation of an enemy which they have never faced before. An enemy that would fight with out food, clothing or even ammunition. An enemy that would fight even when all seemed lost and would rather die then surrender. The biggest problem that the Germans encountered when entering Russia was the Russian infantry man.

Logistics and weather were more of inconveniences. After all, one can not repair a bridge, road or build an adequate defense when constantly under fire.

 

I love this

Regards
Kruska

 

The two reasons why the Germans did not bother feeding the people in Russia which they had conquered was because....

1. They themselves did not have enough food for themselves (even with the capture of Ukraine which they stripped of virtually all livestock,wheat and winter clothing).

2. Whats the reason for wasting your own limited supply of food and/or housing for the very same people who you are later going to enslave or exterminate?

So unless you are the owner of a farm the size of the mid west and have the ability to over ride Hitler's cleansing policy's in the East, I do not see how you would accomplish this.

Everything else you mentioned above, the Germans did.

 

I support you 100%,but i also think that it would have been hard to say the least to feed the civil populations.

The Wehrmacht should have tried to bivowack there troops in tents that are made strong to withstand the winter conditions,but they must also be very cheap and fast to produce.

I also agree that the whole "we will make them slaves in the future" does make it hard to think the population would treat the Germans as "communist liberators".