German miscalculation of Soviet unit avaialbility

Why is there talk of Patton, Montgomery and North Africa in this thread gentlemen?

Dont want to be a buzz kill but this hardly seems the right place for such a discussion. Let get back on track please.

 

A good source (and available on the web) is :Creation of the Soviet reserves and the 1941 campaign

 

The following is from some one I never would recommend:V.Suvurov ,but very exceptionally(only once,as would say Michelle of the resistance in "Allo Allo" ) :Suvurov V.:Inside the Soviet Army art IV :Mobilisation :types of divisions

 

Let us see the actual numbers (Glanz):
Axis forces 1941 on the Eastern Front: 3,767,000 + 900,000 on the West
Red Army 1941 on the Eastern Front: 2,680,000 + 2,820,000 elsewhere
I don't see the problem in numbers, anything could happen, depending how the available units perform overall.

The problem, for Nazis of course, is elsewhere. Soviets as a nation have not collapsed under the pressure of the initial setbacks like the French nation did. France could afford defeat while Soviets knew: it was either victory or total annihilation.

 

Listen to this very carefully:
[video=youtube;A4I9DMSvJxg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4I9DMSvJxg[/video]

 

Why is there talk of Patton, Montgomery and North Africa in this thread gentlemen?

We wandered on to the significance of generalship as compared to numbers and material, but point taken; at least we should have found some Ostfront examples!

The following is from some one I never would recommend:V.Suvurov

I'm also skeptical about Suvorov's theories, but that doesn't exclude him presenting useful factual information; thanks for sharing.

 

To me it was a very easy thing to do to smack the Germans down and throw them out. It wasn´t a thing where you have to use the intelligence of Einstein. It was only to have a short look at the map of my country ( Russia if i were Stalin) and than i could see the solution of that "German Problem". And he did it, with some differences as i have did it. Solution is to go more or less hard fighting backwards into my country keep them busy at all places and wait til they have overstretched their frontlines and have to long ways to supply their troops just in time with things they needed. In the meanwhile i can produce high numbers of tanks, Aircrafts, guns and so on and as soon as the point is reached, you can push them back and throw them out with the sheer dominance of men and Material.
To me it wasn´t a miscalculation of the Soviet unit availability, it was the blindness to the naked facts of the Soviet country at its dimensions. The country itself has beaten the Germans as it has done earlier with the Grande Armee!

 

Was that really so simple?

The defeated German generals wanted us to believe that they have lost due to the numerical superiority of their counterparts. Comparison of the actual quantitative data indicates that the both sides had realistic chances to win or lose the war on the East. In reality, Wehrmacht was superior to the Red Army in the first stage of the war when their counterparts were in dissarray after the initial surprise strike. Besides, in 1941 Red Army was the weaker opponent in both material and human resources. The Russians have quickly understood deficiencies of German ever repeating routine and have created efficient techniques to neutralize them. After the invention of Blitzkrieg, Germans failed to show any kind of substantial creativity. Since late 1941 the Germans never understood real incentives of the Red Army. They have always mistaken deception actions for real events and real actions for deception. They have been outfought by their Russian counterparts by more intelligent and more creative warfare.

It is true that there were immense losses on the Soviet side but Russians had no other choice but to rush to rescue their compatriots from the certain death under the German occupation. Otherwise they would have deliberated uninhabited western territories.

 

Tamino, it is simple but not as simple that any kid could do that. What is the biggest problem that you ill have after invading a country? It is controlling the country and the citizen and it is the supply. Take Afghanistan as a actually sample. It isn´t to control for 2 reasons. ! is that the people self won´t it and the most important is the terrain. I gives enough space for Partisans or in that case Talibans to organize them and taking action against the UN Troops. In case of Russia it is a easy example. Take the border length of the occupied territory and divide it through the number of German soldiers in that area. If you have done this you will see that the distance between the german soldiers is big enough to transport whole Divisions through it. The extrem long supply routes are not to control and always a easy target for Partisans or regular Army units. You can give them a really hard time at there. The next is that for the sheer sice of the country whole Russian Armies could move around and the Wehrmacht weren´t able to catch them up. Than with that number of soldiers and material you can have the luxury to create a weak point in your frontline that your enemy has to find and to use. Let him marching in and try to reinforce the flanks and you have a nice trap. And Stalin made it similar. The Red Army made a withdrawal with the exact good mixture of retreat and fighting. The Wehrmacht was moving without a rest which isn´t good for men and material. They had often enough to stop for the reason that no fuel for the tanks wasn´t available.....for the long supply routes and to less transport capacity. A typical sign that you´re at the end of the line. So to me it was easy and the more than this tactic worked for Napoleon too.

 

What you've just said are the real reasons for the failure of the Blitzkrieg on the Ostfront where the force/space ratio was inadequate and the Germans have failed to provide suitable answer to that problem. On the other hand, despite all difficulties, Soviets had an advantage of superior organization of war production. As a result Germany was hugely out-produced and her Army was embroiled in Materialschlacht at the same time. In that unbearable situation Germany simply couldn't have won that war.

It is interesting to note that in 1942 Germany had huge margin in steel production over Soviets (32MT vs. 8MT) but much lower production of armored vehicles (9,200) then Soviets (24,446).

Stalin was right: »This war will be won by industrial production«.

 

IMHO,there is another(more likely) explanation :after the victory against France(and the Gritish decision to continue the war) Germany was preparing 2 wars
1)the big one :the war of the continents against the US (+ possibly Britain) which would be a long one,a war of attrition
2)the war against the SU,which would have to won in a short campaign,because the preparations for the big one were claiming a lot of (or most) resouces:after the fall of France,and even in 1941,the LW and the KM still got priority,not the army .
source:Nazi Germany's preparation for war :evidence from revised industrial investment series

 

Yes that is right. The war against the SU was only to win with enough of material and men or extremely superior technics. And we all know that non of all where at the hands of Germany.

 

If the Germans wanted just to use Soviet resources then it would have been much more appropriate to stick with German-Soviet treaty. Germany received more Russian products under the contract with Soviets than it gained after capturing Soviet territories. Actual data support this claim. Even though the Germans have captured a large part of Soviet industry they managed to achieve just 10% of its pre-war production. Agricultural yields in German occupied Soviet territories were below 50% the production of the pre-war period. French aircraft production under the Nazis has attained just 10% of its pre-war capacity. This clearly indicates incompetence of Nazis in fields of managing the economy. But their real plans were quite different, I am afraid.