Originally posted by sven:
I think the second most overrated army was the Soviet. I know I will take a lot of heat for that but hear me out. There are logical reasons for this viewpoint enumerated in several sources.
1) Uncle Joe taking his senior leadership out behind the woodshed in the thirties was not a good move for the implementation of professionalism, or new theory in the Red Army.
2) I am not meaning to imply that Ivan did not get results, only that Ivan got results at a prodigious cost that better training may have curtailed.
3) Soviet domestic production sucked in several strategic areas. (truck production, waterproof wire construction, supercharger production, advanced oil refining techniques.) If the UK and US had not loaned Uncle Joe those things there would have been an even greater strain placed on the Soviet people.
4) Uncle Joe's policy on being a P.O.W. was extremely reactionary and paranoid. He was almost Japanese-like in his abject hatred of anyone who got caught.(including his own son)
5) Any military that cannot handle an opponent it outnumbers twenty to one sucks. I will always have a special place in my heart for the Finns because they beat the hell out of Ivan twice. God bless that little country.
regards,
sven
I only partially agree with you, sven, and have some problems with your specific points. While I agree that the Soviets were very over-rated in the early years of WW2, by the end of WW2 they were probably the most under-rated army. Now, to your specific points.
1) Very true. The purges of 1937 decimated the officer core of the Red Army just at a time when highly advanced armor concepts were being refined. It took the Soviets until the winter of 1942 before they relearned the concepts of
deep battle and
deep operations, theories that were even more comprehensive than the German Blitzkrieg.
2) By mid 1943 Soviet troops were surprisingly well trained with lower level commanders (battalion-level) being expected to take the initiative rather than call in for orders to higher command.
3) The Soviets outproduced the Germans in many areas despite possessing fewer raw materials than Germany. Pretty good when you consider they had to move 60% of their heavy industry to the Urals. Lend Lease was extremely helpful to the Soviets, but it was not absolutely vital to Soviet victory. But it certainly helped the Soviets to defeat the German ground forces in a timely manner.
4) Yes, it was a very counterproductive order, but the fact remains that many officers and soldiers were in agreement with it. I think it has something to do with the Russian character about never giving up.
5) Yes, the Winter War was directly after the purges and the Red Army's performance was a direct result of their officer corp being wiped out. However, Finland did lose each time, in the end.
BTW, are you aware that active German forces actually
outnumbered active Soviet forces in the summer of '41? German accounts in 1944 of being outnumbered 10 to 1 had more to do with Soviet operational art than literal numbers. The Red Army didn't even possess 3 to 1 odds over Germany until about 1945.
