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Superior tactics my ass. It was meat waves all the way down. The difference is that by the late war their materiel superiority was so huge that the outcome was a foregone conclusion.
Soviet deep battle was well-developed and, perhaps more importantly, well-practiced by 1944. After Stalingrad was over, the idea of Soviet forces using ‘meat waves’ is a popular, but incorrect presumption. The Soviets were running short on manpower (without resorting to the kind of insane gambits that Nazi Germany was at the same time during the war) in 44 and 45, so they had every incentive to be (relatively) sparing about their troops, even if their tolerance for losses was still much higher than we would regard as acceptable today.
I’ve never understood how bagration has been considered operational art. They advanced roughly 10km per day for the same daily casualties as Paschendale (though casualty numbers varies). If any other participant in the second world war would have such a slow advance at such a cost of life it would be considered a strategic disaster. Especially considering the material superiority the Soviets enjoyed at the time.
I’ve never understood how bagration has been considered operational art. They advanced roughly 10km per day for the same daily casualties as Paschendale (though casualty numbers varies).
10km a day is extremely fast against a dug-in foe before mechanized infantry were the standard. And they were operating with about double the troop numbers, on both sides, that were involved in Paschendale.
If any other participant in the second world war would have such a slow advance at such a cost of life it would be considered a strategic disaster. Especially considering the material superiority the Soviets enjoyed at the time.
Combat casualties between the Sovs and the Nazis were roughly equal - when on the offensive in modern combat, that’s a good sign. Bagration, furthermore, completely broke the Nazi army on the eastern front, and forced it into a humiliating, and ultimately war-ending, retreat.
Acceptable today by whose standards, though? The russian army is literally doing meatwave tactics these days…
It’s curious - when that started happening, I remember a few folks online musing that Russia had undone years of work by historians fighting the pop culture myth of Soviet ‘human wave’ tactics.
But the Russian Federation isn’t known for its… well, for its anything but corruption and incompetence.
Explanation: Early on, when Nazi Germany first turned on the Soviet Union, their ally of convenience against Poland, the Sovs were caught off-guard and performed poorly. Many units were in the process of re-equipping (a process that was, thus, interrupted by rapid German advances), command was in disarray, and the entire front was in chaos for months. Literal millions of Soviet soldiers were lost in these opening stages - also the grounds for many later myths about the Soviet military. The T-34, for example, was actually superior to most German tanks - but between the chaos of the opening invasion, and the fact that the Sovs had been unreasonably secretive about the tank to their own forces, it could not be used to its full capabilities.
However, by 1944, the Soviet army was in fighting shape, having stopped the Nazis through sheer desperation at Stalingrad, and then marshalled their resources (and understanding that the war was on their goddamn doorstep) to reform the Soviet military machine to fight the war that was happening, not the one they hoped to happen in a few years. Between that and US Lend-Lease, in which the US lent massive amounts of material aid to the Sovs, especially trucks, the Soviet army then consistently pushed back and outperformed the Nazi invaders, culminating in the end of the war with the red flag raised over Berlin.
What’s still mind boggling to me is, after these initial stages, with unfathomable losses and setbacks, they still came back.
Losses and setbacks that would’ve utterly crushed almost any nation on earth.
From 1941 to 1942 - around 1000 km of land ,10 million casualties in soldiers, 30.000 destroyed tanks, 34.000 lost planes, 85.000 artillery pieces, estimated 6-10 million civilians killed.
From a perspective of the Germans, if your enemy can take those losses, those unimaginable gigantic losses on every scale, and they still find the manpower, equipment and will to go on a COUNTER OFFENSIVE, you’re just fucked, no way you’re going to win this war.
The total inability of the Nazis to operate without (or, at least, operate while hiding) their ideological delusions screwed them out of their only chance to win the war in the east, since there was genuine and deep anti-Soviet sentiment in the occupied territories which the vile terror of the Nazis quickly managed to change into pro-Soviet sentiment, but had the Nazis not got lucky in knocking out some 4.5 million Soviet troops in the initial surprise invasion, even that probably wouldn’t have mattered.
Dumb motherfuckers chose to go on the offensive against an enemy twice their size, over a vast region that they had poor logistical capabilities through, alienate all potential allies in the territory they took, and juggle fighting the UK and the US at the same time.
Utter morons. High on their own supply. Too much goddamn meth in their rations. A good thing for everyone else, but terrible for the Nazis.
Pervitin. It’s what plants crave.
They came back because the US and allies pumped billions of tons of material into them. They %100 would have been fucked without the allies helping them. We should have let Hitler take over completely so that failed state wouldn’t be what it is today.
We should have let Hitler take over completely so that failed state wouldn’t be what it is today.
That would have come at an unacceptable human cost. Even just another year or two of Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe would have resulted in a massive extension of their planned genocide of Slavic peoples - and only a year or two’s delay of victory for the loss of the entire Soviet war effort would be a very optimistic view.
Yes because the ussr didn’t starve and kill millions for another 50 years in mainly slavic countries…and putin and Ukraine are just super allies now…
Tankies gonna tank I guess.
Okay, let me get my calculator and we can figure out who would’ve been preferable, because numbers are apparently the only deciding factor here.
Stupid nonsense. Maybe don’t argue FOR Hitler? You can argue against the soviet’s all day long, fine and dandy, but maybe don’t argue for hitler as the better choice?
You ‘whatabout’ types don’t seem to grasp that you can’t calculate evil against one another? You know that it is possible to analyze both those unjust regimes just on their own, without getting into some sort of “kill ratio dick measuring contest” one can come to the conclusion that BOTH those system were unjust and cruel.
I’m not arguing that one or the other was less evil. I’m arguing against this bullshit tankie logic that the soviets and modern russia are in anyway good. That’s the difference. Pug and other tankies act like the USSR was somehow better than nazi Germany and literal hitler
Pug and other tankies act like the USSR was somehow better than nazi Germany and literal hitler
I don’t know what kind of history you and the other user have, but nothing in their comments in this Threads indicates that to me. In fact YOU brought it up unprompted.
I’m not arguing that one or the other was less evil
Yes you were.
Your first comment:
We should have let Hitler take over completely so that failed state wouldn’t be what it is today.
Implying that Hitler would’ve meant the better outcome for the Soviet Union.
That’s the difference. Pug and other tankies act like the USSR was somehow better than nazi Germany and literal hitler
Because they literally fucking were.
That’s not high praise for the red fascist regime of Stalin which imprisoned and murdered millions under horrific conditions.
It’s an acknowledgement that the Nazi ideology whose pure and highest purpose was industrialized genocide, not even as a means but as an end in and of itself, was uniquely horrific and damaging.
Regardless of the cruelty of the Soviet machine, it doesn’t hold a candle to the plans of the fucking Nazis.
Fix:
1944: Soviet Union
I mean, properly both 41 and 44 should be labeled ‘Soviet Union’ instead of Russian. But I’m far too lazy to make or edit memes.
You’re forgiven
I go through the same problem sometimes. Translating from my native language to English without losing the essence is difficult and sometimes I leave it aside
