Arabs at War - Syrian Chapter

[Oleg Mastruko]

My reviews of your games in local magazines speak for themselves Steve (all in high 80s), though you most probably never saw them. I was really just getting off with "you need to read more books" because I know enough of your track record as game developer to conclude you did your reading

Still, your above post (first in this thread) just hit my nerve. Comparing the army that defeated Wehrmacht in WW2 to some rag-rag undisciplined third world bunch was just too much...

I would also respectfully disagree with some of your notions form the last post:

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

[QB] Oleg, I consider myself an expert on only a few things in this world. WWII Eastern Front is one of them. If you think the Soviets acheived their victories through excellent tactical leadership, excellent information management, excellent weapons handling, and excellent maintenance you need to read a LOT more books.

Actually I think Sovs had very good "weapons handling", on average. Just very recently, on some other web board we were discussing Soviet mortar and Katyusha crews, and - without going into much detail - those guys did some fantastic top notch, Olympian-athlete stuff with their equipment. Soviet mortar crews were capable of having as many as 6-8 shells in the air at one given moment, and one guy posted photo of five brother crew that held the record with (IIRC) 12 shells in the air with their 120mm mortar. Not exactly what I would call "bad weapons handling", and certainly different world from Arab armies.

Sure they had their share of illiterate peasant conscripts incapable of handling Nagant rifle (oh the stuff I've seen on infantry training!!) but it's not something I would rely on to get me peaceful sleep when facing Guards Army of the First Ukrainian Front.

They also adapted to the use of foreign LL equipment remarkably well. Some of their Guard divisions walked into Berlin on Sherman tanks (something, cough cough, US Army didn't do ) and aircraft like P-39, almost despised in its homeland, were loved, and used with great efficacy by Sov pilots.

Also, there's this dude Zaitsev, whether legendardy or real

Tactical leadership wasn't all that bad as many take it to be either, it's just that they were pitched against the army with the best tac leadership on the planet, so mano a mano vs Germans on tac level they always get worse of it, but not because they were particulary bad (certainly not as bad as any Arab army) it's because Germans were excellent on tac level so they outshadowed them. They outshadowed just about everyone else on tac level too.

Information management one could also contest. There are some excellent articles from Glantz & co. that argue Soviet centralized system of information management (and information "feints" ie "maskirovka") worked very well *for Soviets* (it would probably not work very well for, say, Brits or Dutch so using western etalons is simply unfair). But it worked just fine for Sovs.

In the end I'd agree about bad maintenance

The Germans excelled at the tactical level, the Soviets at the strategic level. Operational brilliance, and stupidity, was about even for both.

Tac and strategic levels aside (because I agree) I would say Sovs won the battle on most important, operational level, if we take 4 year war average. By 45 they were undisputed masters of operational level warfare.

Oleg

[Michael Emrys]

The problem is not conscription, but who is getting conscripted. The point has already been made that better educated and motivated conscripts make better soldiers as a general rule. A band of brigands might be all volunteer, that won't necessarily make them good fighters.

Michael

[Peter Cairns]

I think the issue of conscription is of less importance than education and motivation.

It is difficult to train a conscript army to the level required for modern warfare if most of your intake can't read or right and have little or no formal education.

in 1941 the average german was far more educated than the average russian and was then introduced to a military that had one of the finest traditions in europe. The Germans not only knew what they were doing but also how to pass that on to those they trained, and conscripts who had the educational background to absorb it.

As steve points out by 39, Stalin had dessimated the Russian officer corp, and since the end of the civil war the army had become more and more an instrument of internal security and repression.

In this context the foundations for training were eroded and the raw recruits barely literate, with many having had no real schooling at all.

Between 41-45, the Russians, effectively had to start from scartch and as Steve rightly pointed out, as the war progressed the Russians produced better troops while, the germans lost far to many of their best to replace, and also run out of quallity people to train them and enough time to train them properly before sending them in to combat.

In some respect the soviet doctrine might be appropriate for a nation with limited resources with an ill educated agrarian pool of conscripts and limited training experience and resources, just as long as it doesn't come up against a highly motivated western trained well resourced opponent with a fine military tradition and well educated conscripts.

As to motivation, just how many arabs whether they hated Israel or not, were willing to die for corrupt governments they hated or in armies where they were sometime treated like dirt.

Peter.

[Battlefront.com]

Sergei,

What's wrong with conscription? USA still had it in Vietnam. Finland still uses it. Conscription does NOT equal poor training.

Correct in that it doesn't automatically equal poorly trained and/or motivated. However, I think there is a difference betwen universal conscription and random type conscription systems. I would think a universal system would be better than a random system.

I think the real issue is who are you conscripting? The more a country's population is generally educated, homogenous (culturally and linguistically, sharing a common history, "modernized" (familiarity with things like machines, communications, organization, etc.), a strong sense of national bonds, decent economy based more on Capitalism than Socialism (individual actions rewarded), and very established governmental systems... the better. Finland and Israel are exceptionally well suited to conscription.

An Arab/Muslim state that might only have existed for a decade or two, with conflicting cultures, major religious rifts, perhaps major differences in language, perhaps even anti-nationalism feelings, poor standards of education, poor familiarity with "modern" lifestyle, terrible economies, command style government, etc., etc., etc. ... not good.

I am reminded of a quote from a senior SS officer regarding the 13th SS Handschar Waffengrenadier Division. Something to the extent of "8 months of basic training succeeded in doing nothing except teaching them to not steal from each other". Undboubtably a racially biased statement, but the fact remains that the division performed terribly when faced with decent opposition. Murdering Christian civilians and burning down their houses... that they did very well. Heck, if the SS feel that a division has to be disbanded because of atrocities, you know it has to be bad! My point here is the amount of energy that had to go into basic stuff was energy not spent on tactics, weapons training, communications, maintainence, etc.

Steve

[Oleg Mastruko]

In my not so humble opinion, some guys are terribly subjective and prejudiced when it comes to Soviets.

For instance, same guy who will use well known quote about "a rifle behind every blade of grass" as best deterrent from invading America (this quote is oftenly attributed to Yamamoto), will laugh at Soviet army for being conscript based?

Well then who would hold the rifle ehind every blade of grass in America? Professional soldiers or armed citizens ie militia, ie conscripts? :cool:

Again, Soviet kind of warfare is very well served by conscripts. And their post-WW2 literacy and education reached levels well above most western countries.

I am not sure about motivation and morale though, proved to be undoing of many modern armies

O.

[hellfish]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Sergei,

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />What's wrong with conscription? USA still had it in Vietnam. Finland still uses it. Conscription does NOT equal poor training.

Correct in that it doesn't automatically equal poorly trained and/or motivated. However, I think there is a difference betwen universal conscription and random type conscription systems. I would think a universal system would be better than a random system.

I think the real issue is who are you conscripting? The more a country's population is generally educated, homogenous (culturally and linguistically, sharing a common history, "modernized" (familiarity with things like machines, communications, organization, etc.), a strong sense of national bonds, decent economy based more on Capitalism than Socialism (individual actions rewarded), and very established governmental systems... the better. Finland and Israel are exceptionally well suited to conscription.

An Arab/Muslim state that might only have existed for a decade or two, with conflicting cultures, major religious rifts, perhaps major differences in language, perhaps even anti-nationalism feelings, poor standards of education, poor familiarity with "modern" lifestyle, terrible economies, command style government, etc., etc., etc. ... not good.

I am reminded of a quote from a senior SS officer regarding the 13th SS Handschar Waffengrenadier Division. Something to the extent of "8 months of basic training succeeded in doing nothing except teaching them to not steal from each other". Undboubtably a racially biased statement, but the fact remains that the division performed terribly when faced with decent opposition. Murdering Christian civilians and burning down their houses... that they did very well. Heck, if the SS feel that a division has to be disbanded because of atrocities, you know it has to be bad! My point here is the amount of energy that had to go into basic stuff was energy not spent on tactics, weapons training, communications, maintainence, etc.

Steve </font>

[Oleg Mastruko]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

An Arab/Muslim state that might only have existed for a decade or etc., etc., etc. ... not good.

I am reminded of a quote from a senior SS officer regarding the 13th SS Handschar Waffengrenadier Division.

Historically Muslims are ferocious opponents regardless of education levels, and I'd say on average non-Arab Muslims are much better soldiers than Arabs. Pakistanis, Iranians (Persians), Turks etc are to be reckoned with in any of the last 6-8 centuries. Arabs in 20th century though are just plain bad - with Iraqis perhaps having the best modern military tradition of all Arabs (a fact that speaks for itself).

13th SS was made of Bosnian muslims (not Arabs) - Bosnians are good soldiers, but this is Balkan quagmire, something that needs fine touch not German heavyhandedness, I am sure they would have performed well if employed against enemy they hated enough (not vs Tito guerrilas which had lots of Bosnians themselves).

Some facts about obscure muslim units you perhaps didn't know...

Some of the best Chinese units in WW2 were Muslim ethnic minority cavalry units. Japanese avoided them.

Bosnian muslims (fathers of 13th SS guys) fought exceptionally well in Austra Hungarian army and Bosnian regiments were much feared on the WW1 Italian front (where they were - smartly - employed).

O.

[Battlefront.com]

Oleg,

My reviews of your games in local magazines speak for themselves Steve (all in high 80s), though you most probably never saw them.

I've a couple of Croat game magazines, but I don't think you were the reviewer. Plus, my knowledge of Croat is rather limited and rusty. It got me around Croatia for 2 weeks, but that's about it

Still, your above post (first in this thread) just hit my nerve. Comparing the army that defeated Wehrmacht in WW2 to some rag-rag undisciplined third world bunch was just too much...

That is an overly simplistic argument and it is certainly not one I made. The comparison was about low level competency. You can win all your tactical battles and still lose the war, just as you can lose all the tactical and still win the war. All depends on the balance of factors. The Soviets would have lost the war if they had many millions less people to feed into the war effort, less land to sacrifice for time, less natural resources to wage war, and less help to make up for whatever it was they couldn't do on their own. The only nation on Earth that can compare to the Soviet Union in this regard is the United States, so obviously no Arab/Muslim country can achieve victory using the Soviet methodology. They simply lack the required strategic elements to do so.

Actually I think Sovs had very good "weapons handling", on average. Just very recently, on some other web board we were discussing Soviet mortar and Katyusha crews, and - without going into much detail - those guys did some fantastic top notch, Olympian-athlete stuff with their equipment. Soviet mortar crews were capable of having as many as 6-8 shells in the air at one given moment, and one guy posted photo of five brother crew that held the record with (IIRC) 12 shells in the air with their 120mm mortar. Not exactly what I would call "bad weapons handling", and certainly different world from Arab armies.

As with all my points, the comparison of Arab/Muslim fighters to Soviet soldiers is more relevant in the early part of the war vs. the later. You have to keep in mind that the Soviets fielded soldiers in the tens of millions throughout the entire war. It would be against all rules of nature that there weren't many tens of thousands of fantastic soldiers in that mix. Even when given next to no training before being committed to battle. Therefore, anecdotal stories of this or that Soviet soldier doing this or that thing is not impressive. I am sure Arab/Muslim forces have similar boasts to make, though in proportion to the total number of forces deployed.

The issue is generalized standards. Early on the Soviets had terrible training and concepts of how to use the weapons to their best effect. Overall. The Germans found this to be frustrating because they would get used to this and then BAM... would run into a group (large or small) that actually knew what they were doing. As the war went on the general level of competency with weapons handling increased and the Germans decreased (though not proportionally to each other).

Sure they had their share of illiterate peasant conscripts incapable of handling Nagant rifle (oh the stuff I've seen on infantry training!!) but it's not something I would rely on to get me peaceful sleep when facing Guards Army of the First Ukrainian Front.

Your singling out a force that was by its very definition not typical of other Soviet forces. The Syrian Republican Guards divisions are actually thought of as being half way decent, as were the Iraqi Repub Guards. But they are also not typical.

They also adapted to the use of foreign LL equipment remarkably well. Some of their Guard divisions walked into Berlin on Sherman tanks (something, cough cough, US Army didn't do ? ) and aircraft like P-39, almost despised in its homeland, were loved, and used with great efficacy by Sov pilots.

Yes, they did adapt well to the new equipment. However, the troops using them were generally experienced with Soviet equipment already. They were, in effect, trained. And unlike the Arab/Muslim forces, the Soviets (and Germans) had YEARS of military contact in order to weed out those who could handle it and those who couldn't. So when significant equipment reached the Soviets in 1943, they had already had 2 years of Darwinian survival of the fittest. So I'd expect nothing less.

Tactical leadership wasn't all that bad as many take it to be either, it's just that they were pitched against the army with the best tac leadership on the planet, so mano a mano vs Germans on tac level they always get worse of it, but not because they were particulary bad (certainly not as bad as any Arab army) it's because Germans were excellent on tac level so they outshadowed them. They outshadowed just about everyone else on tac level too.

Here you are dead wrong. Low level tactical leadership was almost nonexistent in 1941 thanks to Stalin having pretty much anybody with half a brain and training killed. Mid level leadership was also in tatters. High level, however, had been preserved to a large degree. That is what saved the Soviets from defeat in 1941 and 1942, not tactical leadership (which arguably didn't dramatically improve until 1944). And this is what they started with! The loss of millions of soldiers and their leaders in 1941 and 1942 meant that retention of leaders who got "on the job training" was very low. 1943 is generally seen as the beginning of general improvements over 1941's standards.

The other important thing is that Soviet doctrine, by its very nature, discouraged low level initiative. Partly because the doctrine was based on ridged concepts, but also because of fear. Stalin was not at all interested in having the masses be free thinking, self motivated individuals. That ran contrary to his notions of power and control. So even if a low level leader knew better than to do something, if he was ordered to do it he did. If he was not ordered to do it, he didn't. That sort of system is what is found in Arab/Muslim militaries.

Information management one could also contest. There are some excellent articles from Glantz & co. that argue Soviet centralized system of information management (and information "feints" ie "maskirovka") worked very well *for Soviets* (it would probably not work very well for, say, Brits or Dutch so using western etalons is simply unfair). But it worked just fine for Sovs.

No, it worked better for the Soviets than the alternatives. It resulted in all sorts of problems which resulted, at the very least, in excessive loss of men and material. In 1941 it almost lost the Soviets the war because the losses were so massive and rapid that the replacement and economic system (which was also ridged) couldn't make up for the losses.

Think of it this way. If someone has one hand you don't teach them to clap when at a performance. Instead, you would instruct them to stomp their feet. When on a wooden floor it probably is just as good as clapping, perhaps superior. But on a carpeted floor or outside in the rain it isn't as good. You can teach someone with two hands to clap as well as stomp their feet. So you have more options in that case. The Soviets, as well as the Arab/Muslims, don't have many options available to them.

In the end I'd agree about bad maintenance ?

The problem with maintenance is the equipment quality, the ability of the individual/s assigned to it to maintain it, the resources to invest in spare parts and repair equipment, the organizations to support proper maintenance, accountability, and other things all need to be in place. The Arab/Muslims lack almost all of this stuff, as did the Soviets (especially early on).

Tac and strategic levels aside (because I agree) I would say Sovs won the battle on most important, operational level, if we take 4 year war average. By 45 they were undisputed masters of operational level warfare.

I'll challenge that. Berlin was a disaster for the Soviets from a tactical and even operational standpoint. They lost nearly 1,000,000 men taking a ruined city of a ruined nation defended by the last scraping of a ruined resource barrel. It was so bad that the Soviets lied about the results of that campaign for a long time before they admitted how badly it was conducted. Yes, they ultimately won... but there was almost no way they could have failed.

The Soviets screwed up operationally plenty of times all the way up to Zitadel. From that point on they didn't make many big mistakes, but then again the Germans didn't do too badly either. Massive defeats, such as Bagration and Kurland, were the results of terrible strategic planning on the German side and excellent strategic and operational execution on the Soviet side. The Germans in 1944/45 also had key strategic problems that the Soviets didn't have to deal with, such as oil shortages, equipment shortages, manpower shortages, and the defection of key Allies. Oh, and of course the Germans were fighting a three front war at this point while the Soviets were fighting only a one front war.

My point here is that the Germans completely bungled the strategic layer of warfare. They managed to do OK with the operational level even into 1945 (the Ardennes and Hungary offensives prove that), but nothing they could do at that point would have done anything strategically. Do not confuse the German's inability to respond effectively in a strategic way with the Soviet's ability to always dominate operationally. Again, Berlin shows they still could have significant problems at the operational level, though of course they were generally excellent by this point.

Steve

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by fytinghellfish:

...the historical US/Soviet/Arab style of conscription where most smart people, if they're willing, can find a way out of it. Be it they go on to college, have a family to care for, have connections, etc.

You are aware, I presume, that that statement applies to the US only after WW II. During that war, the sons of the wealthy and well-connected were, for the most part, also expected to serve where they were able. This was also true of the UK. It was even true that quite a few movie stars served in that war.

Michael

[hellfish]

Yup. I'm not a WWII grog, so I never say anything about WWII unless I point it out specifically. I've been around these boards way too much to realize any number of people can contradict any WWII statement I make and I don't have the time or interest to seriously back up my claims. After WWII I can usually hold my ground though.

I was actually thinking about Vietnam in regards to US conscription.

[Battlefront.com]

Oleg,

I meant to add...

In my not so humble opinion, some guys are terribly subjective and prejudiced when it comes to Soviets.

Oh, I agree with you 100%. In the discussions about CMBB, prior and post release, you'll see that I tried to wreck many of the incorrect and unfair assumptions about Soviet capabilities. Mind you, the crap out there is not limited to Soviets. I also had to correct many a misconception of Romanian and Hungarian capabilities. And believe it or not, American forces too. Tons of baseless negative crap about their performance swirling around there as well. I didn't need to correct the Commonwealth or Finnish fighting records much, though, because plenty of others here did that work for me Sadly, one force I didn't need to correct many people on was the Italians. Although they come off worse than they should, the general perception is close to what the reality was.

I also knock down people that try to put Soviets, Americans, CW, Germans, or anybody else up on a pedistal. Every fighting force in WWII, except for the Finns of course , had their flaws. It is just as bad to overlook the flaws as it is to blow out of proportion their negative qualities.

Steve

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by fytinghellfish:

I was actually thinking about Vietnam in regards to US conscription.

By the time Viet Nam was over, the injustices of draft had become a scandal. Worse than that, they were a joke. It was a major reason why respect for the services had sunk to a historic low. Man, it was bad.

Michael

[Tagwyn]

Steve: Don't you attribute some of the Soviet success on a strategic level to their use of the broken German Code system (Enigma?) If you know where and when the German's are going to attack and what their strengths are,etc. then you can lead them into a steel trap, like at Kursk. The Soviet troops were brave and capable. Thier courage was the major factor in defeating Nazi Germany. Tag

[Michael Emrys]

The Soviets did not so far as is known have direct access to Enigma. There are stories that the Brits were feeding select decrypts to them, but that is disputed. What they apparently had were humint resources placed high enough to get important intelligence to them from time to time. They also had a very good system of battlefield intelligence utilizing organic local recon as well as partisans deeply in the Germans' rear.

Michael

[Peter Cairns]

On the strategic level it's worth noting that that was very much in the hands of the politicians and the Nazi party where as operational and tactical was the army with it's prussian tradition.

As well as not doing a very good job of gearing the economy for war a lot of people at the top of the Nazi party were pretty corrupt and in it to line their pockets. People made money on our side too, but not to the same extent.

Steve made the point that he felt conscripts from a capitailist background had better motivation, which i doubt, as some of the most selfless and dedicated fighters in the last hundred years have been communist or socialist, but it could be argued that in a war of attrition, a command econonomy that can focus on the war not the market, has advantages.

In WW2 certainly in Britain and to an extent the US, we acted far more like a command economy than in peace time. I suspect that meant that the changes needed were easier for the soviets than us. German production didn't really reach the levels they needed till 43-44 and by then it was to late.

Peter.

[Sgt Joch]

Back to the topic.

When evaluating the Syrian army, you have to remember the quote in Runyan99's first post.

In general, Syrian military effectiveness showed many of the same patterns of behavior as other Arab armed forces. On the positive side, the Syrians consistently demonstrated superb unit cohesion and individual bravery. Indeed, the Israelis always remarked on the ferocity and determination of Syrian soldiers and pilots. Syrian forces fought well in static defense roles and performed adequately when conducting set-piece operations."

I am currently reading "Six days of War" by Michael Oren on the June 1967 war. You see the same pattern, Israeli forces running circles around the Arab armies at the operational level but facing tough tactical battles against individual Arab units.

Also don't forget that Israel suffered 800 dead in 6 days of fighting in 1967. Proportionally, that is the equivalent of 80,000 US dead.

At the CMSF level, I would expect the Syrian army to be a tough opponent.

[Battlefront.com]

Tag, the Soviets had better intel for sure, but it wasn't from Enigma. They had the "home field" advantage. The German's intel gather was, most of the time, inept.

Soviet soldiers were, in general, brave and good fighters. The Germans hated that aspect of them BIG TIME. However, it did not make them good tacticians. Like I said, the Soviets lost 1,000,000 men taking Berlin in 1945. That is twice what the US lost in both the ETO and PTO if I recall correctly. The Soviet losses were on par with some of their 1941 defeats. No excuse for that after 4 years of war, the enemy is on the defensive, and the enemy is totally exhausted.

Peter, the strategic level of the German war effort was more mismanaged than anything else. When Speer was put in charge things really got cooking. In fact, despite all the losses, shortages of materials, bombings and loss of territory the German industrial output in 1944 was higher than at any point in the war. Scary to think what would have happened if they kicked it into gear in 1940 instead of 1943!

Steve made the point that he felt conscripts from a capitailist background had better motivation, which i doubt, as some of the most selfless and dedicated fighters in the last hundred years have been communist or socialist, but it could be argued that in a war of attrition, a command econonomy that can focus on the war not the market, has advantages.

I'd agree that brainwashed conscripts are easier to mold into stubborn, motivated soldiers under some circumstances. Defending the homeland is the #1 situation. But when you look at the Soviet performance in Afghanistan or later Russian performance in Chechniya, it is clear that there are also bad situations for conscript use.

In WW2 certainly in Britain and to an extent the US, we acted far more like a command economy than in peace time. I suspect that meant that the changes needed were easier for the soviets than us. German production didn't really reach the levels they needed till 43-44 and by then it was to late.

Correct. A command economy is the best economy for short term goals. Long term it is disasterous.

Steve

[Peter Cairns]

Steve,

I'd take issue with you on the idea of brainwashed conscripts, Soviet performance in Afghanistan had more similiarities with vietnam, in that the conscripts just didn't want to be there, they didn't believe in the war or at that point their own politicans.

As to the capitailist background bit, I'd still place a far higher emphasis on education than the economy, if we take Finland, by conscription age kids have been in school since about 3, thats almost fifteen years of formal education they haven't just learned a lot, "They've learned how to learn".

In some respect that has to do with the whole ethos of the scandinavia countries, who's education system has in some respect more in kin with social countries than the US. There are no shortage of people on the right who frown on the Scandanavia social democratic model, whether it be on the issue of tax levels or the role of a large state, but at the end of the day it provides the military with young people of the highest quality, something the US education system seems to struggle to do.

OK it's a bit flipant but it seems that in Scandinavia people ender military service with an education and in the US they enter to get one.

Peter.

[Amedeo]

The real negative impact of Soviet doctrine on Arab armies performances lies in the fact that the manuals suggested: "lure the enemy in your territory and wait for the snow to counterattack!"

Jokes apart, Soviet doctrine/equipement is, of course, a part of the equation but I don't think it's the most important.

For example you know that most Arab armies were heavily influenced by British doctrine and organization. How comes that no one is attributing some of the Arab debacles to this? Or you want con convince me that Iraqi officers only read the Dunkirk Chapter?

For what concernes Soviet hardware I think that bad performances were exacerbated sometimes by the fact that equipement was not always used the way it was intended to. E.g. if you use a MiG-21 as a point defence interceptor with a good GCI coverage you may end up with some good results (NVAF), if you use it as an air superiority fighter, well...

Regards,

Amedeo

P.S. One million irrecoverable casualties for the Red Army during the battle of Berlin? Krivosheev gives less than 10% of that figure.

[MikeyD]

our areas of military effectiveness stand out as consistent and crippling problems for Arab forces: poor tactical leadership, poor information management, poor weapons handling, and poor maintenance.

Tactical leadership, information management, weapons handling, and maintenance appear to be just what the U.S. military stresses and stresses and STRESSES, some might say even to the exclusion of other abilities. A fifth item that is stressed in the U.S. but deficient in Arab armies might be called soldier welfare. Its easier to work up the nerve to walk into battle when you've got a couple thousand dollars of body armor protecting you.

Four of those five items cost money. They cost a LOT of money. Most of the world's armies can't affort the tooth-to-tail spending ratio of a major superpower (the U.S. is spending 20 billion a week in Iraq). Most countries cannot even affort to fire-off a significant fraction of their gross domestic product on the rifle range every year! At this very moment India is wrestling with the choice of either fielding 3,000 obsolete unmaintainable tanks or a third of that number that are properly supported. It makes you wonder how our own armed forces would compare if they weren't propped-up by a bulwark constructed out of dollar bills.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Amedeo:

One million irrecoverable casualties for the Red Army during the battle of Berlin? Krivosheev gives less than 10% of that figure.

That's what I was thinking too. Perhaps in his enthusiasm for the subject, Steve got carried away and tossed in an extra '0'.

Michael

[Peter Cairns]

Mikey

Check your sums mate, $20 billion a week is £1 trillion a year, or just over twice the total US defence budget.

And you guys are saying steve stuck in an extra zero. £20billion a month is still half the budget so i suspect £20 billion a year is the one you wanted, which is about half the entire UK budget.

Given the Uk has 200,000 in unifrom that may well be about right.

As to the "Bulwark" supporting the US military thank the Chinese they are paying for it.....

Peter.

[Battlefront.com]

As for Soviet casualties in Berlin... I'm away from my library for a few days so I can't double check. All can say is that 100,000 figure is the original, wildly underestimated amount given at the time. I can't remember when (post Soviet era I think), but it was officially moved upwards by a lot. A quick search of the 'net brought up this link (see bottom):

http://zhukov.mitsi.com/Seelow.htm

Other websites generally mentioned casualties in the 200,000 to 400,000 range, though this sometimes included the prelude actions that the attacking force fought on the way to Berlin itself.

The 1 million figure I gave is probably incorrect for just Berlin, rather it is inclusive of other losses suffered along the whole front for the final phase of the assault on Germany. However, my point stands. Even the outdated official claims speak of 2000 tanks lost. This is from a nation that had fought several epic urban battles and won and yet in the final days of the war they lost nearly as many tanks as they did in Zitadel with the Germans on the attack and near parity in armor.

When I get back I'll try and look up the revised figures. I know I've got 'em somewhere

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Also... it is often tough to say when an operation started and stopped, and what the scope of the battle actually is. Berlin is one of the toughest to do. Some call The Battle for Berlin as just the assaults within the city itself, not the battles just outside of them nor the other battles fought around the flanks to defeat the relief force. So for something like this you have to first ask "what is the Battle for Berlin"? before talking specifics. For me, I've always considered the battles in and around the city as being relevant, just as the battles around Stalingrad were relevant. One could not have happened without the other, so they must be considered (generally) to be parts of a whole.

Steve

[Michael Emrys]

I think some writers include everything from the crossing of the Oder onward.

Michael