The myths of WWII (Eastern Europe)

I don't like the way this discussion is going on :it is resulting in calculating the evilness of a regime,by counting the numbers of its victims :it is resulting in the "argument" :regime A is less evil than regime B,because it killed 10 millions and B 20 millions.

 

I have just read it's neither what I posted and neither you. There are different views regarding the Holodomor question.

 

There are topics which I'm more passionate about and then others, which I'm not so. The exact number of victims killed by each dictator belongs to latter, because I don't think we well ever have exact numbers which everybody would agree on.

Those numbers gave the general scale. I didn't give them as an absolute truth. Maybe I should have explained that.

Maybe it wasn't, but that was the logical message I got.

You don't have to agree with me. I'm sorry if you were offended by my sarcasm. I'm used to include that as one part of a normal discussion/argument.

I still stick to my original statement where judging the evil dictators' thougths/plans are difficult to value, because thougths cannot be known for sure and plans might be changed. Even attrocities that actually happened can be difficult to measure.

Different numbers exist.

Not in all countries, as a matter of fact. For example in Finland it hasn't been so far, but luckily the legistlation is about to change soon.

 

It's hard to read all almost 500 postings... has this one been discussed yet?

If this is a myth, well, what do you deem the consequences of Japan attacking Russia to be?

 

IMHO,the consequences for Japan,f it was attacking the SU,would be :a big defeat .

 

You are another considerating the popular view of the Nomohan Incident as basis for comparison about a Japanese-Soviet war?

 

Well,I have found a US estimation of the Japanese strength in Mandchuria,and this was very low (I have to search for my copy).
The fact is that the logistical problems for Japan were unsoluble .
I don't see how they could have any success.

 

Well, did US estimations predict that the Germans would be stopped less than an hour's drive from Moscow?

 

The SU had in june 1941 in the Far East:23 divisions (500000 men),3200 tanks and 4100 aircraft .
How many had Japan?

 

This is irrelevant:
1)The Germans were stopped at the end of the summer,hundreds of km away from Moscow:at 31 august 1941,only by miracle could they enter Moscow .
2)They were again stopped at the end of november:at 25 november,they had no possibility to enter Moscow .

 

In june 1941,the Kwantung Army had 13 divisions and 56 squadrons:thus,Japan was numerically inferior.
And,if we add the facts that the Kwantung Army twice was defeated (1939/1945),it is obvious that the chances of Japan to defeat the SU in 1941,were almost inexistant .

 

The main factor for the Japanese not attack the Soviet Union was lack of oil by the embargo. The IJA wanted, but was unable. So, they decided the attack would only be made in case the Russian colapse was clear under German hands, which needless to say didn't occured.

Strategies and tactics in Japanese plans of Siberian invasion

The lines of strategies and tactics in Japanese plans to Siberian invasion basically after the Indochina occupation, with some reinforcements from Japan proper, the Imperial forces planned the next operations:

*Naval bombardments preceded the subsequent disembarkations from Shumushuand Paramushiro in Kamchatka, to occupy Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky other forces from Karafuto enter in North Sakhalin and make some landings in Alexandrovsk and Ohka; optionally other forces landed in Kommadorsky islands and Anadyr in North Pacific area.

*As similar naval operations from Hokkaido and North Honshu against Nikolayevsk, Soviet Bay, and Vladivostok. Some naval forces navigated inside of Amur River against Konsomolsk and striking Khabarovsk.

*Later if followed with landings for occupying Ohkostk and Nagaevo; another option was possibly occupation of Southeast Yakutsk area also

*Aerial operations were leaving against Petropavlovsk, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, Konsomolsk, Blagoveschesk, Chita, Ulan-Ude and possibly Ulan-Bator and Irkutsk. The principal points Trans-Siberian (Vladivostok/Ulan-Ude and/or Irkustk-Krasnoyarsk lines) and Baikal-Amur lines (incomplete in period) was taken with airborne or paratrooper forces

*Land operations was simultaneous leaving against Khabarovsk, Birobidjanand Blagoveschensk with massive artillery strikes and entering infantry accompanied with Armored forces at same time other forces advance from East Outer Mongolia to occupied Ulan Bator.

*Other advances were the entry in West Outer Mongolia, along the land incursion at Irkutsk area for taken the Trans-Siberian and Baikal-Amur link.

*Another optative operation implied the finalizing the occupation of West Outer Mongolia, enter in Tannu-Tuva andinvasion at Krasnoyarsk how springboard of possibly operation against Novosibirsk and Central Asia.

Japanese observations over nature of Siberian front

Although the Kwantung Army had been reinforced, the Russo-German War-about which the Japanese Army had held such great expectations-was not turning out favorably for Germany, despite Hitler's boasts. A serious problem consequently demanded resolution: How could the beefed-up Kwantung Army pull through the rigorous cold of a Manchurian winter?

By their very nature, armaments must be perfectly adapted to combat methods and to battlefield topography; the optimum application of military force cannot otherwise be manifested.

There was thus a strong requirement that operations and armaments be linked together. In the Japanese Army, however, military material was geared to hypothetical mobile operations against the Soviet Union. This implied fighting on the Continent, in severe cold, amidst sparse population, and with inconvenient transportation facilities. Operations of such a type were characterized by light weapons, large-scale logistical systems, and a plethora of horses.

http://wikibin.org/articles/japanese-planned-republic-of-the-far-east.html

This excerpt of the link is interesting:

The Army High Command had traditionally strong tendencies of watchfulness toward the Soviet Union. There thus arose criticism that the settlement of the China Incident by force had been incomplete because Japan was nailed down by Russia. At the root of the High Command's attitude toward the U.S.S.R. lay the following considerations: conflict between Japan and Russia was just a matter of time. It was taboo for Japan to demonstrate weakness toward the Soviet Union. Armaments were therefore the only means of stabilizing matters with Russia.

I always know the Japanese didn't feared the Russians. The defeats in 1938-1939 were caused because the IJA was attacked with overwhelming Russian numerical superiority. Even so, in Changkufeng the Japanese managed to take the disputed hill in a night assault, only to witdraw because IGHQ didn't supported them. I don't understand what those people who say that Nomonhan "proved" the IJA was vastly inferior have in mind. The Japanese didn't expected the scale of the attack they suffered, and were totally unprepared. They were vastly outnumbred and without air support. I would like to see if the Russians would resist a similar attack by the Japanese. Those people seems to think the Japanese were supposse to do a miracle there.

 

An interposed question: When did the Sovjets start to redeploy troops from East Asia to fight against the Germans?

 

on 22 june 1941

 

Well, then it is irrelevant whether the Japanese were outnumbered in June 1941. Much more interesting is the relative strength in, say, September 1941. I can hardly believe that there wasn't a point of time of good attacking chances for the Japanese.

 

Some where on this board there's a list of Soviet strength in the Far East over time. It didn't drop much from what I recall. I believe the Soviets sent well trained units West and trained new units in the East. Certainly the Japanese never had the numbers or logistics to hope for success in anything much more than minor offensives. Then there's the Soviet intel system. Historically they knew that the Japanese were going south, had the Japanese decided to go north there's a very good chance they would have known that as well eliminating the chance for the Japanese to gain much in the way of surprise.

 

This is from the AHF(Soviet Far East):the Soviet strength in the Far East:
22 june 1941:703.714 men with 3188 tanks and SP guns and 4140 aircraft
1 december 1941:1.343.307 with 2124 tanks and 3193 aircraft
19 november 1942:1.296.882 with 2526 tanks and 3357 aircraft
1 january 1944:1.102.991,2009 tanks and 4006 aircraft
9 may 1945:1.185.085,2338 tanks,4314 aircraft
There was no possibility for Japan (even WITHOUT a war with the west) to gather a force that could defeat the Soviet forces in the Far East .
Even before PH,Japan was broken .

 

Absence of a war with the West would meant the Japanese would be focused in China. If they could finish the war in China by any means, perhaps the situation could change.

 

I make no apologies for pulling this wholesale from AHF but it put's an interesting point of view.

It's not easy to discuss competently what the Red Army had in the Far
East during the first two years of the war. Most of the old soviet
sources provide data that is obviously wrong, post-soviet era authors
give more realistic view but they often contradict each other. So do
not expect from me any complete, hard figures on early Soviet OOB.
It's amazing that this is still a very poorly researched subject.

Official OOB indicates that on 22 june 1941 Far East Front and
Zabaikalsky Military District (actually another front) had 719228 men
in total. According to official sources the following troops had been
transferred from two soviet Far East fronts to the west armies during
july 1941 - july 1942 period: 28 rifle and cavalry divisions, 5 tank
divisions, 1 mechanized division, 5 rifle brigades, 14 artillery
brigades and 8 independent regiments (344676 men in total), during
almost the same period (august 1941 - october 1942) from the remaining
units in the Far East 235518 men more had been sent to the west as
"marching reinforcements".

So overall, from the outbreak of the war till october '42 Far East
Command transferred 580194 men to the west. These troops took almost
2/3 of Far East arsenal with them - 247382 rifles, 38921
submachine-guns, 2824 heavy machine-guns, 1210 AA guns, 4928 artillery
pieces, 4425 mortars, 2822 tanks, 13101 motor vehicles, 2563 artillery
tractors and 77929 horses, 65% of ammunition and supplies was taken
from the Far East Command warehouses and send in the same direction.
Most of the Far East competent commanders were also transferred to the
west armies, and very average men came to replace them.

It's easy to figure out what has been left in the Far East by summer
'42 - 139034 men with 2420 artillery (only 88 152mm howitzers left,
almost all others were 76mm field guns and 45mm AT guns), with just
428 light tanks (exclusively t-26) , very limited transport abilities
, ridiculously low on supplies and ammunition.

Officially, on 1 september 1942 soviet ground forces in the Far East
contained 1446800 personnel. However, it is well-known fact that not a
single man drafted in the european regions in 41-42 has been sent to
the Far East during that period. Thus one should suppose that Far East
Command under Josef Apanasenko had managed to locally recruit 1308966
men in just 13 months (and send almost 45 divisions to the west in the
same time), this just cannot be true. Wartime mobilization in the Far
East gave only 682515 recruits by late 1944 (Russian Far East is still
barely inhabited compared to european areas), there was also another
manpower source - prison camps, but again, out of 320000 or so gulag
inhabitants in the Far East in january '42 only ~80000 could have been
drafted theoretically.

There are some sources that describe in detail what General Apanasenko
did to maintain his forces during first two years of the war and how
difficult it was. For example "Sickle and Hammer Against Samurai
Sword" by К.Е. Cherevko and "Final in the Far East" by A.B.Shirokorad,
those are in russian obviously. Both authors are skeptical about
official figures for 1941-42 period they try to analyze how Apanasenko
had managed to double his forces during such a short period of time
with almost no manpower in the area while his armies had been used as
reinforcement source and what NKGB and GRU with their numerous agents
in Manchuria, China and even in Japan (Richard Sorge for instance) did
to convince Japanese of the presence of a large fully-equipped force
guarding soviet Far East during entire 1941-1942 period.


Far East Command ordered total mobilization in September '41, but it
brought too few recruits to replace those who had already left ,
during the second mobilization round in late november Apanasenko
called up even 40-55 aged men, so actually all who were able to carry
a weapon. In january '42 personnel bureau officers were inspecting the
camps of Kolyma and the whole Far East in order to seek out military
officers and soldiers who had fallen victim to the purges and tried to
put them back in service. How many men had they managed to draft that
way is unknown, since all these activities were barely legal and thus
undocumented, Stalin was unwilling to interfere and was determined to
protect Apanasenko from NKVD bosses. It just shows how dramatic
situation was.
Apanasenko really did an excellent job by keeping strong cover forces
at manchurian borders, but their numbers never exceeded 365000 men
during 1942. He really tried to replace leaving divisions with the new
formations, but none of these had full complement before late 1943.
Circumstantial evidences of this can be found in the open sources.

Monthly allowance directives of the Far East and Zabaikalsky Fronts
HQs in august-october 1942 are referring to "regular allowance order
#4/120", this means that all but one Far East rifle divisions were
"reduced formations" and did not contain more than 5800 men, 9 rifle
companies instead of 21 in full division (regular allowance directive
#4/100 - full rifle division with 14483 men).

Almost 38000 soviet soldiers, captured by germans in august 1942 in
Stalingrad area, were supposed be in the Far East according to their
papers, but instead were "temporary assigned" to the 62nd army units.
Take it as an educated guess - there were up to 200000 such "temporary
assigned" men, if 38000 such soldiers became POW.

In many personal accounts of the war written by far-easterners
interesting stories can be found, during 1942-early 1943 Far East
command practiced "false reinforcement" tactics, several temporary
formations of 1000-5000 men each were constantly moving from one
fortified region to another, imitating serious military activity in
those sectors. They were usually moving into positions visible by
japanese during the daylight with their "flags high" only to leave
them secretly by night.

In november '42 Apanasenko did a little sabre-rattling when he staged
in Kharbarovsk on the anniversary of the revolution "the largest
military parade that has been held in Russia since the outbreak of the
war". The Far East Command quietly allowed the Japanese to hear of
this force demonstration by publishing a short story of the mechanized
equipment that took part in the parade. In reality only one regiment
took part in this parade with heaviest armament in form of manually
towed Maxim MG.

Stavka directives #170149 and #170150 issued 16 march 1942 for the Far
East fronts clearly show what kind of war Soviet Command expected in
the case of Japanese attack. Far East troops should do their best to
wear down Japanese in fortified regions during first 7-10 days of war,
"defend at all costs" several key positions deep in the soviet
territory until reinforcements arrive.

All such facts do not correspond well with proclaimed soviet military
superiority over japanese. 1,5m battle-ready force simply did not
exist in the Far East in 1942. Officially recorded OOBs and some Far
East Front documents are just residual artifacts of brilliantly
executed by GRU disinformation campaign, which was never officially
announced. With japanese absolutely sure that there is numerically
superior force in front of them in 1941-1942, Soviet General Command
was able to freely move larger part of Far East forces to the West and
had a luxury to do nothing to rebuild that force until mid-1943. After
the war, Soviet historiography used false numbers to claim that USSR
was never on the verge of collapse during the war, since it was
capable to maintain such a big force in the Far East during crucial
period of war and kept "larger part" of Japanese army at bay. Abwher
advised IJA that there were no battle-worthy soviet troops in spring
'42 trying to persuade Japan to join the war, but they strongly
believed in soviet myth, they could not see beyond the soviet
trenches, had no abilities to collect data on Soviet territory
themselves and were unwilling to risk.

Even if there were only 365000 soviet troops maximum, they still could
be, theoretically, a force to be reckoned with. But in reality only
40th Rifle Division was adequately trained unit (almost untouched by
autumn '41 troops requisition), others being understrength, poorly
equipped, barely trained formations capable of only stationary defense
against equally weak opponent. As I've already mentioned, Far East
Front lost most of its heavy artillery, almost all tanks and transport
to the west armies, and received very little to replace that loss
before 1943. Apanasenko organized small arms production in major
cities, but that was never enough. In fact the need for armament was
so sheer that Apanasenko ordered to put back into full working order
thousands of training rifles in late 1941. Supplies situation was also
critical during first two years of war. There is one well-known
wartime letter written by certain Nikolay Soloviev, sergeant 1148 AT
battalion, he said that in 1942-43 soldiers at the front were
virtually starving, and some of them were so weak that they could not
hold rifle for more than 10 minutes, those in critical conditions were
usually sent to the regional collective farms or the "military state
farms" to recuperate.

So here is the picture - 360000+ poorly trained men, some 50+ aged
some former prisoners already exhausted by gulag, with refitted
training riffles with very limited supplies, guarded soviet Far East
for almost two years. That was a blueprint for disaster. Of course
situation has changed dramatically in 1943, and even before the
"autumn storm" armies arrived in summer 1945, Apanesenko already had
far more capable forces. But the fact is, in 1942 Japanese had a clear
cut chance to grab soviet Far East, Kwantung army was more than
adequate force to do the job.

 

The non-agression pact between the SU and Japan occurred before the oil embargo went into play. I can only attribute the non-aggression pact between the two states resulting from a Japanese defeat and nothing else.

IMO, Japan realized that the risks far out weighed the rewards in Russia. Even had Germany been more successful in Russia I find it difficult to picture Japan attacking while stuck in China.

Japan was a naval power and would not be able to utilize her best asset in the SU. Regardless of the planning she might have done, a country such as Japan (with limited resources) had to chose which basket to put all her eggs in. She did not have the luxury of spreading them out.

It is for this reason, why Japan had a great navy and airforce but her land army resembled that of a WW1 nation.

The oil embargo IMO simply made it clear about who she would "beef" with.

Japan had nothing to gain from a war with Soviet Russia.