Stalin's Aggressive Plan in 1941

Of course not everything there are lies. However it is difficult to know which ones are - and how much - and which ones are not.

Few examples:

- Molotov 29th March 1940 about the soviet losses in the Winter War: "KIA and died after being wounded 49.000 and wounded 159.000". In reality the first figure is at least 150.000 (according to Saharov) and the second somewhere 300-500.000.

- About the Finnish losses Molotov lied as follows: "60.000 KIA, died for wounds not included and at least 250.000 wounded". In reality the Finnish losses were 26.000 dead soldiers and 44.000 wounded.

- according to the official soviet air forces kill figures Finland lost much more planes that what she had in total - all the trainers included!

- Soviet partisan attack in Piiloniemi, Lapland, official soviet report: attack towards Finnish "garrison", destruction of the "barrack" house, "radio station", four "ammunition storage houses" and 47 Finnish soldiers.

Reality: attack towards a lonely Finnish civilian house. Four (4) Finnish armed civilian men fired towards the partisans and escaped. No (0) Finns were killed.

- partisan attack in Lokka, Lapland, official soviet report: attack towards Lokka "garrison", killed 131 Finnish soldiers, destroyd 2 "barracks", 2 "head quarters", 2 storage houses, two "post offices". Own losses 5 KIA. Battle lasted for 1 h 20 min.

Reality: attack towards ordinary small, remote civilian village without any garrison nor soldiers. 21 civilians were killed - women, children and men. Ten partisan were killed. Only two Finnish civilian men were fighting against the partisans.

Practically all partisan attack reports are similar - full of lies.

 

I must say im a bit shocked really.. Do you know what archives are? Are you just making this information up?

There is a big difference between what Molotov may have stated and what the actual records contain. Where do you think Saharov got his information on the Soviet Union from?

Can you show me where in the Soviet archives you found this "official Soviet air kills" info? Where can I find this info?

Can you also show me where in these archives it shows a phony Partisan attack?

There is a big difference between Soviet propaganda and Soviet archives.

 

Rodina's Soviet aircraft losses come from the Soviet Archives (not bad huh).

 

Found this thread without my response...

Of course I was not making it up. Is that something you often do...?

Here's a list of the books about those partisan attacks, alhough I don't know what the ones in Russian language write:

http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luettelo_Neuvostoliiton_Suomeen_tekemi%C3%A4_partisaani-iskuja_k%C3%A4sittelevist%C3%A4_kirjoista

According to the book - Veikko Erkkilä, "Vaiettu sota", 1998, page 199 - the original coded telegram of the commander of the partisan gang responsible of the Lokka village attack is in the archives of the Karelian "republic".


According to the same book - Veikko Erkkilä, "Vaiettu sota", 1998, pages 181-182 - Gennadi Kupriyanov (big communist party and NKVD boss in Eastern Karelia) wrote about the Piiloniemi attack, that this was the information given by the responsible partisans themselves.


Surely Saharov's numbers are somehow based on the soviet archives. He just seems to find/reason something, which the previous soviet "researchers" have not found from the same archives. However I'm not saying that these Saharov figures numbers are correct either, since at least in the Winter War the commanders were not always aware of their troops. Some examples:

In the book: Timo Vihavainen et al, "Tuntematon Talvisota", 2009 pages 78 and 441

”Yksiköiden esikuntapäälliköt eivät kiinnittäneet miehistökirjanpitoon riittävää huomiota. Kaatuneita, haavoittuneita ja kadonneita ei laskettu.”
"The chiefs of staff did not pay enough attention to the head count. KIA, WIA and MIA were not counted."

Same book, page 442:

”150.D 469.JvR esikunnan tietojen mukaan etulinjassa oli 500 miestä. Tarkastuksen yhteydessä etulinjasta löytyi vain 145 miestä. Pataljoonien ja rykmentin johto ei tiennyt, missä loput olivat.”
" According to the HQ of the 469. Inf. Reg/150. Div. there were 500 men in the front line. After inspection only 145 men were found. The leaderships of the battalions and regiments did not know, where the rest of the men were".

”7.A, 24.D, 274.JvR otti täydennykset vastaan laskien pelkän kokonaismäärän. Miehiä tuli rykmenttiin ryhmissä ilman mitään luetteloita ja heidät lähetettiin pataljooniin ja komppanioihin ilman mitään ohjeistusta.”
"274. Inf.Reg./24 Div./7.A received the replacements counting only the total number. Men came to the regiment in groups without any lists and they were sent to the battalions and companies without any instructions.
"

 

The tanks Russia had before and up to Barbarossa were mostly out-dated and not up to par... They only had about 1200 T34s. Their plans were also obsolete, even though they had large numbers, and the Germans made mince meat out of them. And when Jodl said Russia had 150 divisions at the border, when the Western Allies never had more than 100, he's not taking into account that Western divisions were much larger in number than Russian divisions, and Russian divisions would also run understrength. Also, almost half of America's combat troops were in non-divisional format.

 

And,of course, Jodl was wrong : there were never 150 Soviet divisions on the border : most Soviet divisions were 100 or more km far away from the border .

 

I meant their planes were obsolete. Even the P39s and P40s we were sending worked out better for Fighters than what the Russians had to start with until after they started building their good fighter-bomber and fighter well after the invasion.

 

Not up to the bar against what? The few Pz IV's and III's of Germany in 1941? AFAIK the "out-dated tanks of the USSR" is only a myth.

The soviets had abt 1.600 T-34's and KV's, out of c. 8.600 total. The Germans had c. 1.150 tanks (Pz IV's and III's) with guns at least 50 mm and c. 1.040 tanks (incl. Pz 38(t)'s and III's) with guns at least 37 mm, out of c. 3.270. It seems, that in numbers of up-to-date tanks the soviets were quite well up to the German par.

The soviets had also plenty of divisions further back from the border, so counting only the soviets troops in the first echelon is misleading.

 

The second echelon troops were not known by the Germans so the 150 is what the Germans had counted in the first echelon. Even though the Soviets had lots of tanks, about half were out of service because of a lack of parts and repair capacity. The Bt series were discontinued so no more parts were being made. Add in the lack of trained crews, poor communication capacity, and the fact that the commanders were usually two levels above their training since large tank formation had been disbanded and were just reforming.

 

At the start of the war, the Germans and their allies had a temporary numerical majority : axis : 3.5 million/SU : 2.7 million .

 

This is an outdated POV,,from the epoch of the tank lovers : it is totally useless to compare German to Soviet tanks .German tanks were not made to fight against Soviet tankd (neither the opposite) :the number of German/Soviet tanks destroyed b.y Soviet/German tanks always was a small % of total tank losses .

The only serious comparison is to compare German tanks to Soviet ATW and Soviet tanks to German ATW .

 

I still find it rather odd that the Soviet tanks could not cause more damage with the 45 mm gun on so many tanks if I have got it correct. They did not need to move just bury them in the ground as they did later in 1941 with rather good results I recall. Perhaps the AT shell was not so good? then again the Germans Blitzkrieg was based on surrounding the enemy not attacking face-to-face and leave the putsch to Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht. Even if the older tanks were not a match to KV-1 and T-34, they still had a reasonably good gun in barrel size.

The gun size on tanks:

http://militera.lib.ru/h/stolfi/10.html

Also one must remember that Hitler created the new Panzer divisions mostly by dividing the tanks to these new divisions and leaving several close to half of the normal tank number compared to the offensive in Poland and France. Something that Hitler did later on again and again. So the striking power was lower than could be expected but Hitler would not listen, instead of replacing the destroyed tanks in units he kept on creating new divisions one after the other.

 

This is not correct : this is what a very unreliable person (= Guderian) claimed after the war .

1)There was no such thing as normal tank number for a division .

2) In september 1939,the Germans committed 7 PzD with a total number of tanks of 2060 =an average of 295 tanks per division,but,there was a division with 150 tanks and one with 395 tanks

In may 1940 : 10 PzD with 2570 tanks -an average of 257 per division,but,there was a division with 153 tanks and one with 341 tanks

In june 1941 17 PzD with 3246 tanks=an average of 191 per division but there was a division with 146 tanks and one with 265 tanks

3)The striking power of a PzD did NOT depend on the number of tanks:there is no proof that in 1939 10 PzD (&(à tanks) did worse than 3 PzD (395 tanks);the same in 1940 for 9 Pz and 3 Pz;the same in 1941 for 4 Pz and 7 Pz .

The PzD of 1941 did not worse than those of 1940 or 1939 .

 

And,in may 1940,the Germans lost 649 tanks and received 217 replacements (33 %),between 22 june and 31 december 1941,they lost 2417 tanks and received 500 replacements (=20 %) .

The figures are from Jentz .

 

The fact that the soviets were not able to service their tanks, train their crews, communicate with each other nor have adequate commanders does not mean, that their tanks were out-dated.

 

If you count the first echelon only.

 

Was not saying anything about tanks fighting against each other. My point was, that the often heard statement of soviet tanks being out-dated in 1941 is not really true.

Most of the soviet tanks were not the most modern ones, but neither were the German ones. The soviets had at least as many "modern" tanks as the Germans did, but obviously Germans were much better in using theirs.

But if you want to talk about ATWs against tanks, the soviet ATWs were able to handle all German tank models, but not the other way round.

 

This is not correct : at the start of the war,the Soviets had 900 T 34 ,produced till 31 december 2200 T34,and ...lost in the same period ...2300 T 34 .

Besides,everything can be a ATW,even a lonely sniper .

 

Right, well you attack that tank with a wet piece of toilet paper.

 

Without the protection of infantry/artillery,a tank is a lame duck and the crew is vulnerable even to a sniper .