Quote:
Originally Posted by *Buzzsaw*
Salute
A real examination of the facts would show that Germany should have been defeated in the first year of a war with the Soviet Union.
Why were they not?
One answer: Stalin
The Soviets had one of the most advanced armies in the world in 1936, with tanks which were superior to others, aircraft which were on a par, and leaders who were innovative and far thinking. Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky was a brilliant tank theorist who was a leading Marshal in the thirties, he invented armour use doctrines know as "Deep Operations" which mirrored the German Blitzkrieg tactics of deep penetration by armoured forces and the surrounding and pocketing of enemy forces. He created the beginnings of a Soviet tank force which would have been a dangerous opponent for the Germans.
But Stalin perceived him as a political opponent, and set a series of false accusations during the purges of 1936 which led to a show trial and the execution of Tukhachevsky. With him went the needed reforms to the Soviet Army. Worse, almost all the innovative officers who were supporters of him were also purged, many executed or sent to the Gulags. In their place Stalin appointed old incompetent cronies of himself, yes men and toadies who were selected on the basis of their unquestioning loyalty, not for their skills as officers.
As WWII started, the Soviet army was in a state of paralysis, commanded by incompetents who were afraid to speak out regarding needed reforms or new ideas lest they too would be either shot or sent to Siberia.
And Stalin added to this failure by refusing to acknowledge the warnings the Germans were about to invade. He insisted troops not prepare defenses, not plan for a German attack and not make any movements which might give offense to Hitler. This happened despite reports from his own troops of German reconnaissance overflights, infiltration by German scouts, etc. etc.
The result was that on May 22nd 1941 the Soviets were caught completely unprepared, and the commanders on the spot were frozen in place because of Stalin's insistence no one had authority to respond until he gave his personal say so.
The Soviets had their armies on the Frontier nearly completely destroyed in a matter of a few weeks.
It wasn't till Stalin retreated into a depression in the fall of 1941, leaving most of the running of the war to his generals that the situation began to recover. That and the fact that many of the disgraced and purged officers were brought back to positions of authority. Generals like Rokossovsky, one of the premier tank commanders of the war on the Soviet side, and the man who led Operation Bagration, also known as the 'Destruction of Army Group Center', was an example.
All of the tactical doctrine formulated by Tukhachevsky was re-adopted by the Soviet Army and formed the basis of the tactics used at Stalingrad, Kursk and other major battles.
Had the Soviet Army been led by Tukhachevsky at the beginning of the war, with his armoured doctrine and formations in place, there is very little doubt in my mind the Germans would have run into a brick wall, and been soundly defeated.
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Yeah well, we'll never really know will we, because that isn't the way events played out. Hitler attacked the Soviets on the basis on the facts as he understood them to be at the time. The leadership of the Red Army had been all but annihilated throughout the 1930s, as you note. That he also knew. The consequences of those purges became apparent for all to see during the Winter War in 1939, when the Finns inflicted horrendous casualties on the Soviets (perhaps as many as 2 million men) by some accounts. It has also been noted elsewhere that Stalin's decision to systematically murder virtually the entire leadership of the Red Army may have come about through a dis-information campaign launched by the Germans. Whatever the truth of the matter, it was clear for all to see that the Red Army was in a very vulnerable state by 1941. Given that a confrontation between National Socialism and Soviet-style Marxist Leninism appeared inevitable, an attack on the Soviets in 1941 is not as absurd as it may at first appear. As events in the East unfolded, the Germans came very close to achieving their overall objectives. In 1942, very few people would have bet on a Soviet victory.
As regard's German so-called Blitzkrieg tactics, these are more myth than reality. There was nothing revolutionary about German combined arms tactics in 1939-41 and in reality these were just an extension of the tactics developed by the Germans in 1914-18. Although the Germans were no doubt flattered by the attention their endeavours received in 1939-40, they tended to attribute their battlefield successes to the fighting spirit of their soldiers, which they believed, and with very good reason, to be second to none (National Socialist furvour no doubt playing a role here). Blitzkrieg, as a concept, was essentially invented by the defeated western powers to explain and cover-up their dismal performance and subsequent defeat during the Battle of France.
Those who disagree with this view should have a hard look, in first instance, at the tanks the Germans were supposedly intending to use to spearhead their "revolutionary" new tactics in Poland and France. In the main these were composed of Panzer I and IIs, both essentially training vehicles and both essentially obsolete in 1939. The French Char B and the British Matildas, for example, easily out gunned and out-armoured their German counterparts and should have and could have easily eliminated their thin-skinned German opposition – if correctly used. The French air force, which was easily a match for the Germans on paper, simply failed to put in an appearance. The success of the German's Sickle-cut plan, which was an improvisation put together in haste in 1940, was very much due to the sheer guts and determination of the men charged with it's execution. A properly organized French defence could have and should have stopped it in its tracks, but in the face of German resolve, that defence simply crumbled away.