Russian WW2 interesting stats and facts

kai, when was the melitopol operation commenced. what difference was there between the T-34 and the Valentine tanks. in other words why did the russians favor the valentines over the T-34's, was it because of terrain or simply manuverability or what was the reason.

 

Onthe field,

I usually put the site as well with the posting so you can check the info I send from these as well.

Usually the problem with lend lease tanks was that they didn´t suit the Soviet landscape , the tracks were not enough wide and the tanks could not move. AS well the gun was too small and the armor too thin. Other details you can check on here per vehicle:

http://www.battlefield.ru/library/lend/index.html

 

On 6 October 1944 the president of the Bell firm (USA) awarded engraved watches with congratulatory letters signed in English to Guards Colonel A. I. Pokryskhin, Guards Mayor D. B. Glinka, Guards Kapitan Grigorii Rechkalov, Guards Mayor B. B. Glinka, Guards Mayor K. G. Vishnevetskiy, Guards Kapitan Klubov, Guards Starshiy Leytenant I. I. Babak, Guards Starshiy Leytenant A. I. Trud and Guards Kapitan M. S. Komelkov.
These pilots all had shot down twenty or more enemy aircraft as of 24 June 1944 while flying the Airacobra and were all decorated with the Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union (Pokryskhin three times, D. B. Glinka and Grigorii Rechkalov twice).
The watches were presented to the pilots by the commander of the 2nd Air Army, General Stepan Krasovskiy. Mayor Vishnevetskiy received his watch posthumously since he was killed on 30 July 1944 in an enemy air raid.
After the death of Aleksandr Pokryskhin in 1985, his widow Maria placed his “Bell” watch in the Central Museum of the Soviet (now Russian) Army in Moscow, where it remain on display to this day.

http://www.dalnet.se/~surfcity/soviet_klubov.htm

 

The map of Stalingrad air lift:

http://216.198.255.120/germanpart/map_airlift.htm

 

Finnish Tank Destruction Badge
By Juha Hujanen

http://www.skalman.nu/third-reich/axis-fi-awards-tank.htm



Badge with 2 stripes belonged to 1st Leutenant Gregotius Ekholm, CO of Jaeger Company/3rd Brigade.

Five classes of award are issued:

1 tank destroyed-one wide stripe with figure.
3 tanks destroyed-above figure stripe one narrow stripe without figure.
5 tanks destroyed-above figure stripe two narrow stripes without figure.
10 tanks destroyed-above figure stripe three narrow stripes without figure.
15 tanks destroyed-above figure stripe four narrow stripes without figure.

It is also interesting to note that while the Germans used a German (!) tank (a Panzer IV) to symbolize a destroyed enemy tank, the Finns used a Soviet T-34 tank.

When German award was given only for tank destroyed with hand held weapon, Finnish badge was given to gunners of tank/assault gun or gunner of anti-tank gun.

The highest award, badge with 4 stripes, was given to Lance Corporal Toivo Ilomäki. While being an gunner to 75 K/40 anti-tank gun in 24th Gun Company, he destroyed 22 Russian tanks.

Highest number of tanks destroyed with handheld weapons had Lance Corporal Ville Väisänen from 2nd Borderjaeger Battalion. He destroyed 8 tanks with Panzerfaust in one day. Later on same day he became MIA. Private Eero Seppänen destroyed 7 tanks with Panzerschreck.

In heavy battles during summer 44, 950 Russian tanks were destroyed by Finns. Of those 612 were destroyed by Army (Armoured Division and Infantry formations). Majority of tanks destroyed by army were credited to men operating Panzerschrecks and Panzerfausts. They were proud carriers of Finnish tank destruction badge.

 

Russian losses per quarter of year in WW2

http://www.skalman.nu/worldwar2/su-losses.htm

 

http://www.wssob.com/020divest.html

Feb 13 1944: Soviet Forces attempt to outflank Narva defences with landing at Mereküla; Soviet landing force annihilated. 300 Red Army troops killed on shore, 200 captured, plus an additional 50 found floating upside down in the Baltic. The Red Army assault troops had been wearing specialized rubber trowsers for the landing. Air trapped inside the pants flipped the unlucky soldiers upside down in the water, drowning them. Like some grotesque forest, their legs stick up straight, gently waving with the ocean swells.

 

From Frankson/Zetterling " Battle of Kursk"

Still in 1945 Germans caught 34,500 Red Army POW´s.(!)

They explain this as many soldiers were from faraway areas and did not necessarily feel the war theirs.

 

Some data from Frankson/Zetterling " Battle of Kursk"

Of the tanks built by Germans in 1941 only 15% had a cannon 50 mm or bigger, in 1942 this grew up to 35% (!)...

By December 3rd 1941 Germans had lost approx 4607 men ( wounded, dead, lost ) per day in the Russian front. From 4th of Dec 1941 till 31st March 1942 this count fell to 2947 per day.

By the beginning of 1944 130,000 German soldiers had died of diseases and accidents.

Red Army officers suffered huge losses all through the war:In 1941 the number reached 300,000 officers of which 1/3 was wounded. In 1942 the losses number was 550,000 officers of which over half were wounded.

 

Berlin 1945:

The Soviet armies succeeded in smashing their way forward and their advanced spearheads reached the outer belt of the city's defenses on 20 April, Hitler's birthday. To help celebrate, 299 B-17s bombed Berlin for two hours, followed by RAF Mosquitos and then a nighttime Bomber Command raid. Due to the proximity of Soviet troops, these were the last Anglo-American air raids on the German capital. The RAF and 8th Air Force were soon replaced in the sky by the Red Air Force. On 25 and 26 April, for example, over 1300 Soviet aircraft attacked targets in the city in a centrally orchestrated operation.

http://stonebooks.com/archives/000206.shtml

By this stage of the battle the Soviet armour had developed some ingenious methods of countering the prolific German anti-tank weapons. Their tanks were now festooned with sandbags, bedsprings, sheet metal and other devices to cause the projectiles to explode harmlessly outside the hull, and it was an inspired adaptation of one of these devices that finally enabled them to get their tanks across the Potsdamer Bridge. Sappers had first to remove the mines suspended beneath the structure, all the while working under heavy machine-gun fire. Initial attempts to rush the infantry across the bridge met with costly failure and the Soviet tanks found themselves helpless against the fire of a dug-in 'Tiger' tank covering the crossing from an enfilade position. More artillery fire and smoke were called for, and eventually some infantry managed to get safely across, but the tanks were still being knocked out one by one as they approached. Then someone had the idea of steeping the protective covering of one of the tanks in inflammable oil and adding some smoke cannisters. This tank then led the next armored assault, bursting into flames as if it had been hit as it reached the bridge. Thinking the tank was merely careering forward out of control, the Germans ignored it until it was too late and the Soviets were across the bridge and firing into their flanks at point-blank range.

SS General Steiner was ordered to organize an attack, but his superior HQ was not informed and could not even locate Steiner's command post. The level of disorganization and the confusion of conflicting orders reached the point of black humor:


General Weidling summoned his divisional and regimental commanders to a conference at Corps Headquarters in Kaulsdorf, where he told them that General Busse had threatened to have him shot if he failed to link up with the 9th Army, and that Hitler had threatened him with the same fate if he did not go to the defence of the city.

 

Thanks for the links and info, Kai! They were very, very useful indeed.

And specially thanks for that Glantz site. Those casualties figures are most useful.

 

A lot of info on Russian night operations in WW2:

http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/Sasso/SASSO.asp

 

Hitler´s biggest HQ bunker- and never used....

Riese-the Giant

http://www.fhquriese.mynetcologne.de/riese_aktuell.htm

When forced laborers began work in 1943, the war was already beginning to turn as the allies pushed the German army out of North Africa and the Soviet Union. With bombing raids beginning in Germany, Hitler planned to move his headquarters east to Poland. Near Wroclaw he began the fantastical project, at the cost of 150 million Reichsmarks.

Few in the Reich knew what the maniacal Nazi leader had in store for the planned 200 square kilometer (49,421 acres) complex of underground tunnels.

"The entire Reich leadership was supposed to be lodged there, round 25,000 people," said Jürgen Heckenthaler, a historian who studied the project. "There are six or seven separate underground lairs."

http://www.warsawvoice.pl/view/2878

There is proof of this in the memoirs of both the OT head, Albert Speer, the Reich's chief architect and minister of armaments, and Hitler's adjutant Nicolaus von Below, who wrote: "The plans that we kept criticizing in those months [early 1944] included the construction of a huge new Headquarters for the Führer in Silesia, near Waldenburg [today's Wałbrzych, near where the facilities were located], which was also to include Fürstenstein Castle [today's Książ Castle] within the estate of the von Pless princes. Hitler defended his orders and commanded that construction continue with the use of concentration camp prisoners managed by Speer. During the year, I visited this facility twice and each time had the strong impression that I wouldn't see its completion. I tried to inspire Speer to somehow influence Hitler to give the order that the project be stopped. Speer said that was impossible. The extravagant work continued-at a time when every tonne of concrete and steel was so urgently needed elsewhere." ( von Below, memoirs )

At a briefing on June 20, 1944, I informed the führer that about 28,000 laborers were working at the time on expanding his headquarters. The construction of the bunkers in Kętrzyn [Hitler's quarters in the then East Prussia, known as the Wolf's Lair] cost 36 million marks, the bunkers in Pullach, which ensured Hitler's safety when he was in Munich-13 million marks, and the Riese bunker complex near Bad Charlottenbrunn [today's Jedlina Zdrój near Wałbrzych]-150 million marks. These construction projects required 257,000 cubic meters of steel-reinforced concrete, 213,000 cubic meters of tunnels [today about 97,000 cubic meters of tunnels are known, which means that if we assume the construction was close to completion, over a half of the underground galleries and chambers have yet to be discovered], 58 km of roads with six bridges, and 100 km of pipelines. For the Riese project alone, more concrete was used than was earmarked in 1944 for the whole population for the construction of air-raid shelters ... The headquarters was never finished, and in early March 1945, soon before the Red Army took over Silesia, SS bomb squads blew the whole thing up." (Albert Speer )

http://www.wuestewaltersdorf.de/de/Riese-Plaene.htm

http://mitglied.lycos.de/Kundschafter/Projekt%20Riese.htm

 

Joachim von Ribbentrop, letter to Staatssekretaer Weizsaecker (29th April, 1941)

I can summarize my opinion on a German-Russian conflict in one sentence: if every burned out Russian city was worth as much to us as a sunk English battleship, then I would be in favour of a German-Russian war in this summer; I think though that we can win over Russia only militarily but that we should lose economically. One can find it enticing to give the Communist system its death blow and perhaps say too that it lies in the logic of things to let the European-Asiatic continent now march forth against Anglo-Saxondom and its allies. But only one thing is decisive: whether this undertaking would hasten the fall of England.

That we will advance militarily up to Moscow and beyond victoriously, I believe is unquestionable. But I thoroughly doubt that we could make use of what was won against the well known passive resistance of the Slavs.

A German attack on Russia would only give a lift to English morale. It would be evaluated there as German doubt of the success of our war against England. We would in this fashion not only admit that the war would still last a long time, but we could in this way actually lengthen instead of shorten it.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSred.htm

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Interesting to see Ribbentrop thought so differently compared to Hitler on the impact of Barbarossa in England....

 

Interesting seeing R. making sense (well, sort of )!

I always wondered whether this Weizsaecker is related to the recent President of the Bundesrepublik. Is this correct?

 

Quite incredibly, many of Hitler's close subordinates and henchmen were not very enthisiasts about the war... e. g. Goebbels, Göring, Ribbentrop —the latter one was only opossed to the invasion of the USSR, since it would mean the destruction of his master diplomatic work: the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact of 1939...

 

It's not nice playing dirty tricks like that on champagne salesmen

 

22/06/1944

The Luftwaffe launches a surprise night raid (60 aircraft) on the US 8th Air Force's shuttle base at Poltava in the Ukraine, destroying 44 B-17s and 500,000 gallons of fuel.

http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/war-in-europe/eastern-europe/eastern-europe-index-1944.htm

 

The first East Prussian Volkssturm units, including Volkssturm Bataillon 97, were mustered into service on 18 October 1944 by Reichsfuehrer-SS Himmler in Preussich-Eylau. Along with other Volkssturm units, Battalion 97 came under the command of the Gauleiter and Reichsverteidigungskommissar of East Prussia, Erich Koch. The unit assisted in building fortified positions around Koenigsberg, guard the NSDAP Headquarters, and perform reconnaissance patrols in the surrounding areas. On 20 October, seven of the newly formed battalions were sent to the front and were assigned to the 170th Infantry Division. The Volkssturm battalions were forbidden to be assimilated into the division, and into Army Group Center, under orders by Gauleiter Koch. During October there were two Volkssturm companies, along with the "Grossdeutschland" Division and other army units, defending Memel which had become a "Fortress."

http://www.adeq.net/unitvolk.htm

 

Another piece of the Nazi lunacy at work! How the heck were they supposed to fight? What was the chain of command? Were they to take their orders straight from Herr Koch?

Indeed, the nazi party was Germany's worst enemy, Hitler at the top!