Russian Infantry Anti-Tank Weapons?

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Sgtgoody:

Well when you go from 1 or 2 incidents to 3 or 4 I guess you could call that a rising trend. This has to be one of the stupidest statements I have ever heard from a professional historian.

Well, I don't think he is a professional historian, but I maybe wrong. Pretty weak excuse though.

[Grisha]

Originally posted by ichadwick:

Perhaps I should clarify: I really meant armies. The initial offensives using tank armies in 1942 were disatrous because they were not properly coordinated. It really wasn't until Kursk that they had sorted out all the command and control issues. And that battle was in a rather confined space. Once the Soviets broke through Army Group Centre, they tended to go back to old rivalries.

True, the TOE of early Soviet tank armies was not conducive to smooth C&C and operations in general. It wasn't really a command and control issue, but one of compatibility of services. Once the Soviets did away with rifle and cavalry subunits, tank armies functioned much more smoothly. Also, the TOE of tank armies was further refined, adding more support subunits within tank/mech corps as well as tank armies. I'm not sure what "old rivalries" refers to.

Due to the very competitive nature of Soviet command (encourage by Uncle Joe), there was little cooperation between commanders and marshals except where dictated by the Stavka or Stalin himself. There was also the pressure of both personal glory and pleasing Stalin that did not encourage cooperation.

This is not true, though a case could be made regarding Zhukov and Berlin. Generally, cooperation was the order of the day, and one of the most thoroughly planned aspects of an operation was cooperation/coordination of units/services. In fact, any reading of Soviet works on operations in WWII are filled with the need to finalize cooperation plans with different services or units. Just as wargaming during operational planning was a Soviet form of parallel planning, cooperation plans were a method of creating a form of initiative and versatility between Soviet units.

Regarding Zhukov and Berlin, this was a unique situation. The taking of Berlin was a very serious issue among the entire Soviet people. It was literally necessary that the Soviets take Berlin in order to vindicate the tragedy of the war. Because of this, the Berlin operation was a very important and even emotional task for the Red Army. Also, Zhukov was known for his extreme harshness towards subordinates and his 'command style' lost him many friends and even made him many enemies. This is well known.

The animosity between Konev and Zhukov is well documented. Chuikov hated Zhukov too.

It is not only well documented it is unique. Again, the focus is Zhukov. There may be a reason for Konev's intense dislike of Zhukov, and while it is conjecture, there may be cause for consideration. I've heard that Konev was made the scapegoat for Mars within Soviet military circles, and if this is true it would go a long way to explaining why Konev felt the way he did. However, outside the circle of Zhukov, there were no great animosities among Soviet generals or marshals, at least nothing that has warranted publication in the last 60+ years.

Tank armies did not cooperate well with infantry armies in this period (although units integral within tank armies worked well together). And by late 44 and into 45, many tank armies had outrun the infantry armies by a coniserable distance in many places. In fact, Beevor mentions the rising number of Soviet causalties in 45 caused by T34 drivers falling asleep while driving their tanks chasing Germans.

By period, do you mean WWII? If so, your statement is patently false, Chadwick. Utterly false. I'm really not sure where you're getting this idea from, but as offensive operations go, the Soviets handled the cooperation of their main and mobile groups in 1944-45 with greater skill than the Germans did in 1941-42. The use of forward detachments was crucial to this. And as for mobile groups outdistancing main groups, this sort of thing was inevitable given the level of mechanization in the Red Army. Same thing happened to the Germans in 1941-42. The key point is, were Soviet tank forces able to secure their gains until the arrival of the main forces? In the great majority of case in 1944-45, the answer is 'yes'.

Your use of Soviet operational art as a definition of poor tank-rifle force cooperation is particularly perplexing. The very nature of Soviet offensive operations was to conduct an attack through the entire depth of enemy defenses. The Soviet use of tank forces to develop the exploitation from tactical to operational depths was key to insuring a swift overall advance. By doing so, the main forces were spared some very intense fighting as German forces chose to retreat rather than risk encirclement by the mobile groups. Once German forces were in retreat, mobile groups would race for key geographical points that would make either important jumpoff points for subsequent operations, and/or created operational level choke-points for retreating German forces. All this facilitated the advance of main forces. Soviet offensive operations in 1944-45 were also unique in the method of creating many small encirclements, rather than a few large ones. I've already explained the advantage of this method, but it should also be noted that such operations are generally more complex, requiring a great deal of cooperation and coordination of forces and services.

Of course, the alternative to all this would've been to launch broad front operations, using vast quantities of ammunition and material to create a general, slow but inexorable advance. In this case, cooperation between forces would be much easier to conduct, since maneuver is simpler and more direct, but the results would've been modest, requiring more time to achieve victory. There's nothing wrong with this strategy, so long as one has the edge in material, and the western allies chose this form of operations in Europe, secure in their production capabilities as well as in the advance of the Red Army.

Finally, I don't know that Beevor makes a good source for military references. After reading his book on Stalingrad some years ago, I came away with the impression of someone who was more interested in the political history of the Soviet Union and was using the military situation as a backdrop.

[ January 27, 2003, 10:45 AM: Message edited by: Grisha ]

[Andreas]

Nice post Grisha