Operation Barbarossa vs Operation Bagration

Both attacks inflicted disproportionate losses on their enemies and both aggressors marshaled tremendous resources.

While one ended in failure and the other ended in victory, which was the greater attack: the one by the fully mature Wehrmacht at the height of its power or the one by the fully mature Red Army?

 

What do you mean by "Greater"? Amount of forces? Amount of land taken? Amount of casualties inflicted and prisoners taken? Amount of aircraft,materiel and vehicles destroyed or captured? Cities and towns taken?

 

I mean in terms of "greater military achievement" as a whole. It is more of a holistic comparison between the best offensive capabilities of the reborn 1944 Red Army compared to the seasoned 1941 Wehrmacht. In the end, which of the two institutions finally produced the more capable offensive military machine?

 

Simple then. The Soviets did.

 

At initial glance, at least to me, it's hard to say. In 1944 the Soviets faced a weakened and third-rate Wehrmacht (Just like the Germans faced a disorganized Red Army in 1941). They had serious numerical and material supremacy against their opposition and overwhelmed them...and fought German forces into Berlin in less than a year.

The Germans in 1941 inflicted giant losses on their enemy and pushed very deep into enemy territory well in 1942.

 

Bagration was more effective and the ". The war was pretty much over after...



Cheers...

 

Why?

 

After Bagration there was no more Army Group Center.

It is true Barbarossa took awhole lot more prisoners than Bagration, alone in Kiev some 600,000, but it did not stop the Juggernaut.

 

The Germans had nothing offensive left after Kursk and after Bagration ceased to have any effective defensive capabilities as well....

Till this day Bagration is considered the greatest loss for the German army.


All the best

 

I know that, but the question is about the military machine. If the fully mature Soviet Armed forces attacked in the same circumstances as the Germans in Barbarrossa 1941, would they achieve similar results?

 

Wolfy, im not sure I understand.

When the Germans invaded the SU, the Russians were in far worse shape militarily then the Germans at Bagration. Yes, the Germans were all but beaten, but they were still a force to be reckoned with.


The Russians at Barbarossa on the other hand had no leadership, no food, virtually no weapons or ammunition, no air support, no experience, were not mobilized and had been caught completely by surprise by an adversary who had just virtually conquered all of Europe.

The Germans couldnt have attacked Russia at a better time.

 

Not really. The Germans that defended against Bagration were outnumbered several times not only in men but in material.

This is incorrect. The Russians lost 20,500 tanks and a similar amount of aircraft in 1941 against the Germans. The Germans only deployed a fraction of these numbers against their adversaries.

While the Russian forces were poorly organized, during the course of the next half year they deployed more men and material (much of which was destroyed) than the Axis.

 

3 in a half million battle hardened troops with superior leadership, weapons, motivation and full advantage of surprise is hardly considered a "fraction" when comparing to a disorganized military with no leadership or experience food and weapons. Not to mention having 90% of their air force destroyed in the opening days while still on the ground.

T-24's, T-26's, T-28's, BT-2,5,7's can hardly be considered tanks.... 3000 T-34's and a hand full of KV series are the only ones worth mentioning.

 

You are incorrect again. I stated that the Axis only deployed a fraction of the tanks and aircraft, which is rather contradictory to your false claim that the Red Army had no weapons.

90% of the Russian air force deployed in 1941 was not destroyed in the first few days. By implication, that's over ~18,000 Russian aircraft , which is false.

Secondly, much of the German Panzer force was composed of lighter tanks as well.

 

Yes but the Logistics of the Russian army were in tatters. Just to give you an example, they were thinking in reversing to the old 18K horse supported infantry divisions, then they opted for not doing it. that ought to create confusion! Weapon development was chaotic, tank parks were too small for the amount of tanks making a single bomb destroy a lot of them in a row, same with the airplanes. Plus, their supply depots were out of commission before the war even started.
So, all in all, you had an army with no support from artillery either by the lack of artillery pieces per se or by the lack of munition (average was around 20% needed irrc). Anyway, as the others put it, the German initial onslaught wasn't able to put the Russians out of commission while Bagration ended the war.



Cheers...

 

In a way, I´d say yes.

The Red army has been accused of learning the attacking doctrine from the Germans, thus the Red Army attacking method towards east in 1941 would be based on the same principles, besides if they had the guns,tanks and planes of 1944, they would be better armed than the German army in 1941.

 

Don't forget "Great Comrade Stalin's" famous words.

"The conclusion is that it is time to stop the retreat. Not a single step back! This should be our slogan from now."

He managed to organize a tattered, low morale army, weakened by officer purges and the like, into a powerful war machine, and tear down much of the Wehrmacht's strength at Stalingrad and onwards.

I think Bagration.

 

Both Operation Barbarossa and Operation Bagration were the largest ground operations in history. And both were part and parcel of the greatest land war yet waged. Barbarossa, though, had more of a desperate nature to it in that Hitler needed to end the conflict he had started quickly. And, I might add, with the minimum of loss in men and machines. For Nazi Germany was armed for breadth, not depth. You can see this same philosophy with Israel. Israel must win her victories quickly. She cannot afford a full-fledged conflict of attrition. Ditto the Third Reich.

However Operation Bagration did not have the same sort of desperation attached to it. Very simply the Red Army, the biggest land force unleashed in war, was moving inexorably west. The Wehrmacht could not stem this tidal wave of armed might. For at this point in the war, Germany was not only losing the war on the battlefield, but on the factory floor as well.

That Operation Bagration put paid to the German effort on land is the important thing here. By comparison, D-Day is not really the turning point it is usually painted to be. True, Eisenhower's forces served Hitler his eviction notice in France and the Low Countries. And by doing so, Overlord did help move the European conflict to a speedier conclusion.

But by June 1944, the issue was virtually decided. The Soviets were coming and there wasn't much the Germans were going to be able to do about it. And this is what makes D-Day so important as a turning point. It is not that Allied forces kicked the Germans out of France and the Low Countries that makes it important; rather, by doing so, the Allied armies prevented the Soviets from steamrollering Western Europe. Just picture for a moment how the Cold War would have been if the masses of T-34s had made it to the English Channel.

 

One must recall, in my opinion, that the Red Army did not "just attack". They used maskirovka very cleverly and Germans were quite unaware of the main attack point once the offensive started, even so that one tank corps came practically out of nowhere.