Russians 1941

[OZ77]

I find many people talking on this forum about Soviets this way: "Soviet early war ammunition was notoriously bad" or "russians musvaloured".

I think you should remember that even this amazing game cann't show us the real picture.

Russians had very strong army in 41. Red Army was the only army in the world who had heavy tanks (KV-1 KV-2)And of course they had their excellent T-34. The best tank of WW2. More then that they had 1750 of this modern tanks(22june1941)!!!!

Their atrillery systems were modern in contrast to German artillery, simply and cheap in production. For example the most famous are ZIS and 120mm mortar.

I think it is not necessary to list the good skills of Russian infantry

But this strong army has suffered a defeat in 1941 because they were preparing to ANOTHER WAR!

Probably you will say... what the...?

But russians had prepared themselves to ATTACK not to defend.Thats why they had such a big ammount of light tanks and 500.000 paratroopers.

(there is no doubt that both of them are useless in defending war)

The reason of Russian invasion was "desire to liberate the European proletariat from capitalistic and Nazi oppression".Hitler have broken this "red dream" Of course Russians were trying to hide their preparation. Thats why the myth of Russian weakness was born!! As a reult of this people think that "Soviet early war ammunition was notoriously bad" and Red Army was weak.

My grandfather(he was lucky to survive this bloody war) was 120mm mortar platoon commander in June 1941(near Fastow) and he was saying to me that artillery officers had no maps of their own soil :eek: BUT THEY HAD THE MAPS OF POLAND AND GERMANY. :confused:

I've got the other evidence of Russian aggressive designs. Look carefully on Soviet positions at june 1941. All Russians armies are as much as possible close to the wesrern border and the stongest Southern font were deployed only 250KM from the Axis heart-Romanian oil fields. :confused: (in june41 all this armies were surrounded and destroyed (3.000.000POW))

WHY????????

If you are afraid from your neigbor will you get close to him? The same reason Soviet air force was almost destoyed at the first day of war.

[Wisbech_lad]

Hi mom

Here in Indonesia life continues as normal, despite the bomb blast at the airport. Sources reckon it was related to the breakdown in talks in Aceh with GAM.

SARS is killing my business, so I might be coming home sooner than planned.

Your loving son

[Ant]

This one has been debated before:

http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=006464#000023

[SgtMuhammed]

You either need to re-read your texts or buy better ones.

[Schoerner]

Hi OZ77,

good aspects, but i'm afraid it's not worth it.

You'll get no serious answers in here.

Regarding what your grandpa told you about the maps: Suworov showed, that the Wehrmacht found tons of maps about Germany, but no maps of Russia among the defeated russian troops!

If you're further interested in this topic, i suggest to read Suworov. In his books he presents a huge amount of undoubted military facts (troop concentrations, kind of troops), almost all 'historians' are bashfully withholding - many of them from newly opened russian archives.

Suworov covers it all in depth, for example:

- the 2000 destroyed russian fighters (50% of the whole russian airforce) within the first 24 hours, because they were already stationed close to the german border (only girls believe, this is a defensive placement); there do exist excellent german color-movies showing Bf109 strafing over the runways, beside with threaded fighters like on a carrier

- the 3 million russian POWs within the first weeks of Barbarossa, when the Germans encircled whole armies, that were stationed furthest west in their preparation areas (although the system's propaganda here in Germany is primitive enough, to claim, that the germans deliberately gave the millions of Soviet POWs so less to eat, that many of them starved, but ofcourse they don't explain to the people like Wisbech_lad, how it is even possible to make such a huge amount of POWs within 6 weeks, against a 'defending' army in such a huge country, while the next News on TV are reporting from the Iraq war, and are mentioning, that the US-army even today had problems to look after a few thousand iraqy POWs... You can tell every unlogical crap to the people and they will believe it, instead of using their brain)

- the missing of any defensive preparations

- the russian troop-composition

- instead of using the strange allied megalomania propaganda against Germany, Suworov shows, how the unbelievable german success, within the first weeks, made the OKW, highest german command and Hitler think, the russians are already defeated - even the USA saw, if they don't jump in as fast as possible with huge deliveries, the Soviet defeat will be only a matter of time.

I highly recommend Suworov books to you.

That everything is done, to ignore him, is logical, but decide yourself after reading his books, who uses facts from documents and who uses assumptions and simply repeats, what someone already claimed (not that hard with all the media- and system-power behind) ...

After reading his books, i recommend to read the replies of 'historicans', too. Very amusing, to see, how military historican's suddenly become very, very calm when talking about the showed facts, but how emotionally they are defending the old hitory's picture of the winners, with political arguments.

Have fun.

[ April 29, 2003, 07:08 AM: Message edited by: Schoerner ]

[Wisbech_lad]

Hi Mom!

Crap, just when you think you've only got one pet neo nazi apologist on the board, up pops another so they can reinforce their happy little group think.

But good news is that WHO has said Vietnam is now safe from SARS, so hopefully the end of the nightmare is in sight.

Your loving son

PS, and didn't Poland start the whole thing by attacking German border posts in the first place?

[Schoerner]

Oh Wisbech_lad,

how could people dare to forget your wise and useful arguments and have another opinion?

[OZ77]

Schoerner

Thanks for your replay.

Yesterday my friend sent me an intresting article(11 pages)

After reading it I was shocked :eek: :eek:

I thik it is the summary of Suworov's book

I'm sure that "will get no serious answers in here". It sounds incredibly and people will not belive it.

[Björn Eriksson]

[Grisha]

OZ77,

So, you've read Rezun (Suvorov is his pen name). Okay, he presents a view that is stunning, doesn't he? But, is it true? That is the key point. Noted historians such as Glantz and Gorodetsky have refuted Rezun's claims as scholarly unfounded. In fact, each wrote a book in response to Rezun's sensationalism. Glantz' was "Stumbling Colossus" and Gorodetsky's, "Grand Delusion." Another vaunted historian of the war in Russia was John Erickson (recently deceased). Here is an article he wrote a few years back, regarding this whole issue [click here]. In the end, while Rezun wrote an exciting story, it must be recognized as nothing more than fiction.

[ April 29, 2003, 10:14 AM: Message edited by: Grisha ]

[Bartokomus]

thank you for the link to the article Grisha; a very strong counter-argument.

[coldmeter]

Cheers lads for letting me hear both sides of this story, it's all news to me!!!

[Mud]

Both sides? There's only one that matters -- the truth. Go read John Erickson's "The Road to Moscow" and "The Road to Berlin", for instance, which go into detail into such matters as the continued shipments of materials and the deliberate LACK of preparation for war in order to avoid providing any provocation.

As for any alleged skills or competence, the results speak for themselves.

[Schoerner]

Grisha,

indeed an interesting article.

Did you read it?

I thought the peaceful Soviet-Union was surprisingly attacked by Germany?

No more the tale of the peacefully, surprisingly attacked Soviet-Union?

Even this article, showing exceptionally the retreat-skirmishes of the system-conform and well established old winner-propaganda, has to admit, that the Soviet Union wasn't surprisingly attacked.

Beside the obvious tendency of this article, several key-questions stay unanswered:

1. the hard facts, Suworow made public, stay once more completely untouched (see this thread above, for only a few examples).

Once again, (for distraction i guess) only conclusions are discussed.

2. It's amazing to see, that the author sees Suworow in certain conclusions wrong (btw, without making any references), but he doesn't critizice all the hundreds and thousands of 'historicans' during the last decades and today, having repeated all the tales of the peaceful Soviet-Union, that had no idea about war against Germany and the few Soviet troops were more or less randomly stationed on the german border.

Although the author doesn't defend the primitive, original propaganda anymore, from the unknowing peaceful Soviet-Union, it's strange, that he criticizes Suworow, but he doesn't criticize the system-conform 'historicans', which are still defending (esp. in Germany) the - thanks to men like Suworow - already prooven wrong, primitive tales, heself isn't defending anymore.

This article is really quite interesting, 'cause it shows the actual stand of the discussion:

the old tale, so many in here are still believing in, too, is already dead, the front in science is already broken down, while mass-media and schoolbooks are still trying to hold it, while the second, and last defensive line is built up:

yes, the Soviet Union knew about it, therefore the soviet troops in the west, but it wasn't willing to attack Germany.

Also a hopeless venture with todays already available facts, 'cause with every step closer to the truth, the propaganda is becoming more and more absurd:

nowadays, propaganda admits, that we already have millions of russian troops, ~150 divisions at the german border (only years ago, we learned, there were no Soviet troops and the three million Soviet POWs made by the Germans during the first weeks were only a product of Goebbel's propaganda all our german grandfathers were either liars or idiots; seems they were idiots, but for believing the propaganda after the war), more than 3/4th of the Soviet airforce is stationed there, too, the Soviet Highest Command knows since beginning of May, that around 100 motorized German divisions are as fast a possible moved torwards the border, but the Soviet Highest Command has no plans about attacking Germany.

Even more, the adapted actual propaganda now tells us, Soviet HighestCommand knew that they are not well enough prepared for war with Germany, but it (and therefore? ) strangely kept the troops in classical attack-preparation areas, because the evil Stalin (suddenly Stalin is becoming more and more evil; years ago, he wasn't that evil and decades ago, he was even a liberator), was so stupid to understand, that preparation areas and provisional front-airfields full with fighters are not really good for defensive operations (ofcourse, the evil is stupid, too)....

[sarcasm off]

Ridiculous.

More archives to be opened in the next years...

[ April 29, 2003, 12:19 PM: Message edited by: Schoerner ]

[Aaron]

Man, I'm confused. I'm about 1/3 the way through Glantz's When Titans Clash and he's talking about how the Russians were reorganizing their army for an offensive in '42. How does this refute any claims of a pre-emptive soviet invasion? Is this just a question of a late '41 invasion versus an early '42 one?

Aaron

[Keke]

Originally posted by Schoerner:

only girls believe, this is a defensive placement

What kind of hard facts Rezun presents to support this claim? :confused:

[mike_the_wino]

What is a "historican"?

Why is Gaylord Focker posting and not sending me turns?

Come on peeps, I need answers here.

[Grisha]

Schoerner,

This scenario of the "peaceful USSR attacked by Germany" is yet another simplification of the complex political developments prior to WWII. However, your arguments are very Rezun-like, and I 'commend' you. The USSR was anything but an innocent lamb put to the Nazi slaughter, but if there was anything Stalin wanted less, it was a German invasion in isolation. The difference between Soviet and German war plans before WWII is that while Soviet war plans were predicated on enemy invasion, German war plans were rooted in lebensraum.

[Wicky]

'And Stalin's one million paratroopers would have made short work of seizing the airfields of southern England to clear the way for a full-scale invasion.'

------------------------------------------------------------------------

From one of the thankfully few 'extreme' sites that find substance in Suvorow.

[url=http://www.zundelsite.org/english/zgrams/zg1997/zg9705/970513.html1984 Victor Suvorow book with the English title "The Icebreaker: Who Really Started World War II" as summarized in an insightful (not) essay by Paul Ballard:

From what I've read of Glanzt, (When Titans Clash) he suggests the soviets would have had a better chance attacking Germany just a acouple of years earier or potentialy later but certainly not around the time when Germany attacked. Glantz did find, with access to Soviet records, was a plan* submitted by Zhukov to Stalin on 15th May '41 calling for an immediate attack on the German build up which obviously Stalin ignored.

*Report on the Plan of Strategic Deployment of Armed Forces of the Soviet Union to the Chairman of the Council of People's Cummisars on 15th May 1941"

[White Phosphorus]

I don't get it, in the end the Soviets won their defensive war with an offensive army. Offense is the best defense. I mean their defensive battles against the Japanese were rather mediocre, the threat of a Japanese invasion wasn't eliminated until the Soviets took the fight to them in offensive battles. So they got a little overconfident, and thought they could do the same thing with the Germans. Are there any similarities between the Soviet troop deployment on the western and far-eastern fronts?

Also, there was an article that I can't find right now, discussing the invasion plan. The jist of it was that the plan was a one page handwritten paper, without any tables graphs or maps to accompany it. Plus, it was written not by Zhukov, but by Vassilevsky, and Vassilevsky was not an authority on such matters in 1941. It would not be possible for a man of his rank and position to write an actual plan of such magnitude.

And Schoerner, if Hitler was launching a preemptive strike against massing soviet forces, then surely he would have made plans to feed all those prisoners. I don't understand how the prisoners came as a surprise if the Germans were launching a preemptive strike against massing enemy forces?

[OZ77]

[Flesh]

Here's a couple of links on this subject.

http://newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/4/29/135936.shtml

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/6/4/110510.shtml

Just thought I'd attempt to provide some more material for this interesting discussion.

[OZ77]

web page

[OZ77]

www.ihr.org/jhr/v17/v17n4p30_Michaels.html

[Soddball]

Sing a song of Nazis....

You people make me retch. Lock this one up, please. It belongs in the bin, with all the neo-nazi filth that it seems to summon in.