The final meaning of operation Barbarossa?

The total number of 26,869 tanks is by far the largest number I've ever read. If you check the various sources almost everybody arrives between 22,160 (Allen/Loewen) and 24,000 (Werth) tanks. Your # of T-40s and BTs are way too high, if you ask me. Any source?

Agree. The percentages are based on G. Allen and P. Loewen's study: "Prelude to Operation Barbarossa", I guess. They arrive at a number of 3,800 frontline tanks being fully operational.

This number is based on Krupcenko's 23,300 tanks, who mentiones thatg 63% were operational, IIRC. If I apply your percentage of 27% (with 29%+44% being unoperational) to the most probably correct number of 23-24,000 tanks, I arrive at 6-6,500 operational tanks, of which only 62 % were deployed in Western USSR and more than 50% being T-26, T-37/38 and T-27. A little too less in numbers and especially quality to invade Germany.

Not true. On June 22, 1941 out of 3,648 German tanks, 281 tanks (or 7%) were reported to be not operational. (Source: Report GenQu/Abt. Heeresversorgung dated 20/6/41 and OKH/GenStdH/ Org.Abt. I No. 702/41).

Too bad that only the 4th and 8th Mech Corps had 45mm shells at Barbarossatag. "The entire Baltic, Leningrad and Odessa MD's had practically no 45 mm shells." (Allen/Loewen). And I wouldn't consider the lousy T-26 as a match even for the light German Pz.II or Pz. 35(t). Especially if he's crawling through the landscape "powered" by 9 HP per ton (90 HP, max. road speed 30 km/h) and no ammo and radio .

The cruical question on Soviet tank strengh is the percentage of operationality. I'll try to find out whether Krupcenko's 62 % (arriving at 9,000 operational tanks facing German tnaks) or Allen/Loewen's 29% (4,000 tanks) are on the right side. Whatever the percentage might be, it's sure that almost the half of it were lousy T-26s.

Cheers,

[ 06. January 2003, 09:11 AM: Message edited by: AndyW ]

 

Thanx, Andy,

Quite interesting. I mean getting to the troop qualities, as I earlier was not sure how the Russians lost the ground with such huge amounts of soldiers and tanks...??

I´ll get to the source later on, as I don´t have the book now, but it´s by a Finnish ex-Panzer colonel who´s dedicated his life to studying Russian tank army.Very good, I think.

That´s interesting. Anyway, wonder if they did have those shells as I think that even if your armor is not so good but yet your cannon can panetrate the enemy´s tanks´armor, you have something to use.You can always have the tanks dug in the ground ?

I also read that the Russians used the tactics by then that the tanks must stay with the troops, i.e. they cannot attack as a seperate entity. So once infantry was eliminated the tanks were forced to retreat.

later on, the tanks were given more room to move, and as well more T-34´s KV-1´s appaered, but if the T-34´s would have been used with the same tactics they would not have had as good effect as they did.

Not operational="huge repairs", I would say. I wonder, how many tanks would need good repair, or were seen as "over" used for action, after the German factories were not very productive on tanks by the time, I seem to recall??The campaigns must have caused some wear..and all the possible tanks were put into action?? For instance Guderian told of his tanks they´d drive to Moscow but not anywhere further because the tanks would be finished for good. Yet he managed to make an attack towards Kiev which was not in the plans, and attack Moscow as well.




[ 07. January 2003, 03:55 AM: Message edited by: Kai-Petri ]

 

A site for German panzer troops after 7 weeks in the battle:

http://orbat.com/site/data/historical/germany/pzdivs062241.html

Total for Eastern Front
1596 In service
542 In repair
696 total losses
3391 initial strength

Source: Mueller-Hillebrand, Das Heer. 1933-1945, vol. III, p. 205.

 

Heh...

Looking closely at the webpage Kai posted on Barbarossa numbers...

In the first chart, Panzer Divisions in Operation Barbarossa 1941, some numerical strengths are listed...
1st Panzer- 145 initial strength
3rd Panzer- 215 initial strength
9th Panzer- 143 initial strength

The second chart, "operational tanks seven weeks after the start of Barbarossa", also deals with tank strengths, and ALSO lists initial strengths.
1st Panzer- 154 initial strength
3rd Panzer- 198 initial strength
9th Panzer- 157 initial strength

Hmmm... discrepancies- 9, 17, 14.

Kai's page also lists the total initial strength for the beginning of the campaign at 3391; interesting, seeing as how AchtungPanzer lists it at 3483.


And that's just from a quick edit.

As time passes, I find myself putting less and less faith in internet sources.

 

Well noted, CrazyD!

But you noticed that those two were from sources, the latter from Mueller-Hillebrand, Das Heer. 1933-1945, vol. III, p. 205.And the first one from Achtung panzer like you said! It is interesting but does that mean that Actung panzer is not to be trusted like you said? At least that´s the only point I see in your sentence?


I am sorry if I at times put sites that are not trustworthy but I try to warn.Sometimes I do not know myself if the site is safe but you can always say that.

 

The "trustworthiness" of AchtungPanzer is part of the problem with the page you noted (and web info in general- in this case, from what I know AchtungPanzer is one of the better-quality sites out there, so it does not necessarily provide the best example of an "untrustworthy" website).

For one thing, AchtungPanzer (like many webpages) does not list much of it's source material. Which of course leads one to question where they got their info. Just like picking up a book on WW2 and finding that the author has not included a source list or bibliography. Right off the bat, one has to wonder about reliability of the source.

We do find webpages that do cite sources, and that's definetely a good start. But back to the example of the page you posted... Regardless of the sources, there are relatively major discrepancies between the sets of info. I would tend to believe that which came from a book, because at least it is cited. BUT- my main issue is with the author of the page. Why did said author not make note of the discrepancies? Not necessarily "fix" them, but at least note that "sources differ" or something. It would seem to me that the author of the page did not even check over his own work, since he (or she) missed such obvious discrepancies.
And if said author did not check their own work, I find it hard to imagine that said author thoroughly checked the sources they used.

I just tend to look VERY sceptically at information from the internet.
It takes much time and effort to publish a book. Writing, editing, and aquiring publication. Certainly, some inaccurate and poor quality books do get published; but in general the publishing process tends to weed out much of the real garbage.
But internet info? Someone only needs access to a webpage. People can post/write whatever they want and present it as the truth. There is essentially no editing, no outside input, nothing. Very little effort is required to make a webpage with whatever information someone wants.

I guess I have far more respect for/faith in a source that someone really worked to put together, a source that has been assessed by other historians. Any hack can put together a webpage...

As far as the pages you post, Kai, please don't apologize! Generally, the info you post is very good. (Although those two neo-nazi-ish ones were a bit too much) I think my main issue with the web info comes from being an editor. I'm sceptical of anything that isn't cited enough...
And as soon as I see a few minor errors, things that should have been noticed by authors, that instantly makes me wonder about the rest of the source.

(I do need to make clear that the above are generalizations , and certainly do not apply across the board. There are certainly piss-poor books out there, just as there are well-researched and accurate websites. This is more of a general impression based on my readings and my work in publishing.)

(last thing--- an interesting experiment with the page Kai cited a few posts ago... Does anyone have access to a hard copy of Muller-Hillebrand's work on the german army? I would be curious to compare the two, see if the webpage author cited his info correctly there...)

[ 07. January 2003, 01:20 PM: Message edited by: CrazyD ]

 

I'm not that afraid of minor discrepancies in the German accounting (may it be tanks, losses, trains, material etc.). If you deal a little with the german side of Barbarossa by using primary sources, you'll soon notice that the numbers in the primary sources almost never match. So f.ex the tank strength reported by the General Quartermaster as of 22/6/41 might well be different from the report of Armament Office (Waffenamt), or the simple addition of the Army Groups reports or any other administrative accounting. One office counts tanks on transport as "ready", others count tanks in repair at the unit as "operational", other take a deadline of one week earlier while others add an estimate of anything to arrive until the date the reports is written, etc. etc.

Overmans showed that the German reporting system for menpower losses was a complete mess until 1944. I guess the same applies for all the reports dealing with the "material" side.

In fact if the numbers match in two primary documents, you'll can be sure like hell that the author of the later report used the other report to copy that number.

Basically it's a good sign to have many different German sources all counting "around" 3,300 operational tanks.

And old and basic statistical rule is: "Beware of exact numbers!". If one source mentions approx. 1,000 tanks and another "900-1500 tanks" the "averaged" 1,133 tanks sound like physically counted to the damn last tank.

Cheers,

[ 07. January 2003, 02:23 PM: Message edited by: AndyW ]

 

Andy, that is certainly a valid point. In fact, a while back I brought up a thread here on "the numbers game"... exactly what you mention, the impossibility of finding an exact number. (It was actually really amusing- an "easy" example I used was the "exact" number of Tiger tanks produced- and one of the replys someone left was "this is simple- the exact number of Tigers produced was 1537 or 1538."!!! Don't remember exact numbers, but you get the idea- ).

SO maybe "numbers" are not the best way to demonstrate my issue here. Although- you're quote is a good one- "Beware of exact numbers"... so wouldn't this mean that every source that cites specific numbers without clarification should be called into question? I have seen books that discuss the exact numbers issue we are looking at here...

My issue is far more with the general lack of review/recognition for internet sources. Essentially, on the internet, there is no "quality control". There is absolutely NO standard that information is held to. And to repeat from my last post, when I see even minor mistakes within a piece- "And if said author did not check their own work, I find it hard to imagine that said author thoroughly checked the sources they used."

Certainly both books and internet sources contain errors, bad writing, and all of the above.

I would just say that in general we seem to see far more outlandish, incorrect, or just downright retarded information coming from the internet.

(You should all keep in mind here that I am, by profession, an editor. So errors and stuff like that tend to stand out more/make more of an impression on me!)
(Just ask some of our friends from Texas! )

[ 07. January 2003, 03:03 PM: Message edited by: CrazyD ]

 

Actually a good point. If a historian or author is publishing an essay, study or book filled with utterly nonsense or mistakes, he'll get ripped into pieces by reviewers, critiques in periodicals, letters to the editor etc.pp.

No such thing on websites perverting military history.

Guess it's up to us to "discuss" the validity of certain sites.

Cheers,

 

Crazy has it in a nutshell.

I dont think the majority and I mean the majority of Internet sites on any subject not just our interest here can be relied on without further investigation in most cases.

Crazy you might say your biased, but with the written word, editors, proof writers, in most cases the people incuded in interviews ets and the good ole guy who you ask to write the foreward and the rest of your family even Betty aged 2 and a half that appears in the acknowledgements has probably given their 2 cents worth before Joe public gets to see a copy. Plenty of time to catch most problems if there are any although this in not guaranteed 100 percent.

I look on the Internet as I look on maybe not the daily press...otherwise I wouldnt trust anything on the net, but more like a glossy magazine, in most cases....not all...not too much depth..appealing to the eye, and the editor taking the writers word in most cases, as long as it sells...

Take for example any major anniversary of a major operation in ww2, D day 50 years on, Dunkirk 50 years on, Arnhem etc, suddenly lots of glossy mags for sale, nice pics, no depth to the writing, lots of inaccuracies, still worth buying as a collectors item to store on my shelves, but not the place Im going to look for consice information. Many examples of this, one I brought up in another thread a while ago....London newspaper produced a lovely looking magazine on the Anniversary of Arnhem, good to glance at, some nice maps, pic of paras retreating across Rhine at Arnhem in daylight, on a motor gun boat staffed by Royal Navy with Lewis guns, and hey theres John Frost in tin hat on bridge of gun boat...I think not...it was a pic of exercise for Bruneval, but just example of many more..

I treat the net in same way I treat those glossy mags.

Then there is the conspiracy theories....I actually surfed looking for some of my old bases, and was surprised to learn that one of the bunker sites I served in for some time, turned out to be the biggest UFO secrecy site in UK at the time I was there....Blimey...Lots of green people but I didnt realise they were aliens...