Operation Barbarossa - who knows ?

[Jolly Roger]

Hi folks.

Recently I´ve read a comment about the initial sucess of Operation
Barbarossa in Summer 1941, claiming the crushing defeat of soviet
forces resulted from the fact they were deployed for an attack on
Nazi-Germany. The author pointed out that all russian forces were
concentrated within a range of 50 km along the border, without
preparing any fortifications in the frontline or their rear.
He claimed this huge army would have run out of supply very soon,
if kept in this position for longer than a month.

Guess that´s anti-soviet propaganda and
another attempt to justify the attack on the Sovietunion.
In my opinion German High Command was unaware of the real strength of soviet border forces, so it couldn´t have been a preventive war.

But what was the soviet strategy in Summer 1941 ??? :conf:

Cheers, Klaus

[Ricky B]

Sounds like the book by the Russian writing as Suvarov, I believe the name used was. All I can say is it was a bunch of bunk, if you look at the actual Soviet deployment they had large forces throughout the country, not all within 50 km. The Soviets had called up some reserves earlier in the year, which were all deployed back inside the Russian borders, not in Poland.

Just look at it this way, the Soviets lost around 300,000 men at Minsk in the first big encirclement, while losing more at Smolensk - there is no way the bulk of their army was on the border.

Not sure what you are looking for on Soviet strategy - pre-attack or post? Pre-attack they deployed a reasonable potion of their forces near the border, nowhere near enough to attack Germany - Rumania was a different matter, and the Soviets had already taken Bessarabia from them.

Post attack, they seemed to fight to buy time for reserves to form up, and counterattacked as much as possible.

This is a very simple summary of how I see it, a lot more details are out there, depending on what you are looking for.

Regards,
Rick

[Jolly Roger]

Thanks, Ricky.

Guess the soviets started in the late 30´s with construction of the
Stalin Line. The Author is wrong to claim there were no defensive fortifications in the rear of the army.
But I found no reliable data concerning the deployment of soviet
armies in summer 41. The Author insists 3.500.000 men were
placed within 50 km from the border.

Could you provide reliable data ?

Cheers, Klaus

[Ricky B]

I am at work and don't have my normal resources. However, here is a discussion I have never seen before that summarizes the situation quite well:

http://leav-www.army.mil/fmso/documents/barbaros.htm

Key points, as it is a long writeup:
1. "The first echelon of the covering forces, 56 divisions, were deployed 20-80 kilometers. from the border. Their second echelon, composed of the mechanized corps and rifle corps, numbered 52 divisions and were located 50-100 kilometers from the border."

2. "The reserves of the western military districts, which might have provided additional forces for these frontier battles, were deployed behind the covering forces and numbered 62 divisions. In the month prior to the outbreak of war these units were on the move, many of them having been dedicated to support of the second strategic echelon. Located at 100-400 kilometers from the border..."

3. "Out of a total of 170 divisions and 2 brigades assigned to the four western military districts, only 56 were assigned to the first echelon and most of these were rifle divisions."

So this covers the full strength of the units assigned to face the general German front, with fewer than 1/3 of the divisions assigned being "close" to the border. Now this source is nearly 20 years old but I have not seen anything new since then to prove it incorrect on any significant points. There are the revisionists that say the Soviets were deployed for an attack but that is just plain false.

Just doing the math on Soviet losses supports the view that the Soviets did NOT assign the bulk of their forces to the frontier, as their losses grew after the first couple of weeks of war, rather than shrinking, as most of their forces were further back. If they were on the border, the bulk of their army would have been destroyed in the first 2 weeks and losses would have been significantly higher than they actually were in the very initial period of the war.

The division numbers above do not cover all of the Soviet army either, just those assigned to the fronts facing Germany and Rumania.

Rick

[Jolly Roger]

Hi Rick.

Great !! Thanks for information !!!

I´ll have a look at it !

Cheers, Klaus

[consume]

You are referring to a theory most notably promulgated by Viktor Suvorov in his book "Icebreaker".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icebreaker_(Suvorov)

The section on "Historians Views" details how serious researchers have debunked much of his frankly absurd statements.

J

[Mad Russian]

At War and Tactics you can get the OOB's for Operation Barbarossa. What the German tank strengths were and which Panzer Divisions had what. Soon to come are the OOB for the Soviets along with an article that puts some numbers and stats together for the operation. Once that is done I intend on doing a daily chronology for the Operation. One that will include Operation Typhoon as well to take the initial stage of the war to the gates of Moscow.

There are some interesting facts about Barbarossa and the early war years in general. Planning for Operation Barbarossa started as far back as the 1920's and the German attack plans, there were two, were made in just a month each. The German intelligence report for the operation was compiled in just four days. That report which was extremely faulty was the basis for both attack plans by the OKW and OKH. No wonder things went badly.

There are some surprises in the handling of the Soviet forces as well as German forces. The German side of the story has been well documented. I may bring out some points you haven't seen before about such things as the number of hard topped roads and effect that had on the logistical capabilities of the Wehrmacht to win the battle.

If you're interested come take a look at what we have to offer. I'm sure you'll find something of interest.

War and Tactics - One Place for all Times

Good Hunting.

MR

[Schwerpunkt]

This is a very interesting topic, even though it is argued constantly and in some cases with great anger and bitterness.

In my opinion, the Soviets were not planning an immediate "action" against Germany. But I also think that there is a clear sense that at some point Stalin would engage Germany. Just as some propose the above situation as a justification for German action, so to do others use this situation to show the Soviets as victims. Soviet aggression makes them just as culpable in the war as was Germany. The invasions of Finland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and Poland. The atrocities committed by the Russians in these areas are no less startling than German ones. And they were just as coldly calculated - at political leaders, police, military, academics - showing that they intended to stay without opposition.

A conflict at some level was inevitable, for ideological reasons (on both sides). Both Stalin and Hitler used each other. It was a matter of Hitler knowing he had to act faster than Stalin had to act. Supplies of war essential materials (nickel, copper, aluminum and even grain) was one major factor as Germany could not sustain on it's own. Soviet "sphere" building in Hungary and other states was an indirect threat to the German sphere of influence. The fear of US intervention growing more likely as the war continued. These greatly added to the German sense of urgency in dealing with the Soviets.

I may have strayed off of the topic somewhat, but I think that troop disposition is a moot point, when it is meant to show blame and/or who was the most aggressive...

[JasonC]

It really isn't an interesting topic, it is an exercise in excuse making and reguritated German wartime propaganda being recycled by ideological axe grinders. Present company excluded, of course; I mean those reselling it and peddling books about it. You will not find a single solitary point made in any of them that isn't already directly there in Hitler's speech announcing the invasion. Look it up.

The militarily interesting thing about Barbarossa is the rapid evaporation of every large Russian mech formation within days of making contact with the enemy. That, and the fact that Russian dispositions and orders were made under the assumption that Russian mech corps and armies would behave approximately like Germans ones, accounts for nearly all of the early shocks. The Russian high command then reacted to that new fact with a misdiagnosis of its cause - morale failure or cowardice or treason, all rolled into one big stew of suspicion of the men out at the pointy end. Needless to say that was exceptionally destructive in its own right, not helpful. It also led to senseless orders to stand fast or push west when backpeddling rapidly was the only sane course.

The Germans naturally put all of it down to their own brilliancies, and thereby set themselves up for a fall as soon as the Russians learned better. But that is a much later story.

The other significant piece of the Barbarossa campaign is how the Germans managed to get time working against them despite inflicting 10 to 1 loss ratios. Since Russia had at best twice German capacity, and in many measures no better than equality, this took some doing on Germany's part. Russian mobilization efforts were extraordinary, to be sure, but Germany's utter lack of them was even more extraordinary. To wipe out the entire initial starting strength of an enemy army in six months, and still have the odds ratio move *against* you, requires world-historical levels of complacency about own-side mobilization efforts.

The paradox must simply be faced - the Germans lose a tenth what the Russians do from the border to the gates of Moscow, but are weaker than when they started when they get there. The Russians lose 10 times as much and territory containing 40% of their prewar population and industry, but are stronger on December 1st than they were when the war began. This implies the Russian replacement rate exceeded their losses and the German replacement rate was less than German losses (by a large factor, actually) - which means the ratio between them was even more lopsided than the loss ratio. Something like 15 or 20 to 1 against Germany. With capacity differences a tenth that ratio of less, that must essentially all be put down to German lolligagging and hubris. They didn't get the replacement stream because they flat did not think they would need it.

Pride is a weakness...

There is much more of real strategic interest in those two aspects of the campaign, than in all the spun fantasies of justified German aggression from the day of Hitler's speech on the invasion event, to now.

[Finji]

The main strategy prevaled in USSR until German invasion was mostly described as "quickly stop the attacking force, counterattack and defeat an enemy on his own territory".
But huge success of Barbarossa campaign shuffled all cards of Soviet HQ.

There were made points about author Suvorov, also known under name Rezun. In Russia his writings mostly are dissmised as fictional and factless by serious historicians.