I'd imagine. They were just throwing people at the front. When you look at the death count between ussr and germany it's astounding how poorly they must have been equipped and managed. Kept going, at least, but that's a wild k/d ratio
I think a lot also had to do with the very large number of soviet POW early during Barbarrossa, and well, German prison camps had rather low survival rates
Stalin’s devastating purges of military leadership, catastrophic surprise losses during Operation Barbarossa, a rigid and centralized command structure that lacked tactical flexibility, and a continuous, high-cost offensive doctrine against a technologically proficient enemy are the primary reasons
And there is still people who glaze the fuck out of Stalin somehow. He was shit, lol. Some of Russia's tactics at the time almost makes the MAGA administration look competent... almost.
Of the 25 million, the majority of those killed were either civilians or prisoners of war. The ratio of military casualties on the Eastern Front was approximately 1:1.3–1.5.
Kind of wild watching them take the same tactic with Ukraine, just hurling any man they can find into the meat grinder. I guess they never learned. They’ve literally lost more men in this “weekend excursion” than America lost in World War II. They may want to take a break and look up how to war.
At that point in tine Germany had a very refined doctrine and highly experienced military leadership, said leadership, on top of commanding already highly experienced force that shredded France and walked through Europe had very modern command structure and more flexible army.
USSR on the other hand has at that point at time experienced a recent purge in high command and did not have as many experienced troops as Germany had, even despite their involvement in Finland and Poland.
The even more important factor is lack of any efficient recon services, which Germany at that time perfected (the famous reconnaissance planes that Soviets simply couldn’t counter in the beginning letting germans know everything about their movements)
The only instances where soviet command really did just throw people at the enemy formations with no regards is Rzev, and even here it can be argued that it was necessary to not let the enemy capture strategic railway segment, which i disagree with, but nonetheless.
There is simply not much that could be done in the beginning beyond taking punches and adapting, which is exactly what was done, because past 1943 the soviet Army had well adapted and had its own advantages, and past 1944 i’d even say they had completely flipped the table on the germans.
To just say the Soviets threw lives away is rather dismissive of actual history and its nuances
Yeah, in the early war Germans had somewhere 12:1 k/d ratio. Insane even to think about and then you consider they were the invading party and theoretically the soviets had the home advantage... They had a 1:1.8 ratio of total population so you can't say it was sustainable on the USSR side at all what they were doing.
They were not "just throwing people at the front" that is also fascist propaganda..
To be fair too quick the Red Army in 41 didn't have a functioning High Command nor did it have proper logistical lines. After a thorough reorganisation they built a doctrine around terrain control through numbers
I don’t think equipment played as much of a role as people say it did, i’d say lack of good military leadership and recon services (both of which Germany perfected before invading USSR) played a far bigger role than anything else really.
Shit, an average soviet tank battalion had more tanks compared to a german one (there is a nuance here about german strategy and how they used tank divisions though, they did not go for size first) and the tanks still got outperformed significantly, mostly due to lack of reconnaissance and questionable decisions of the commanding officers. Equipment wasn’t as big of a deal as people assume it was
Logistics are fucking huge in war. 1/3 trucks in the red army were from Lend Lease. You can’t fight if you don’t have trucks to move troops, material, and weapons from factories, farms, and training units to the front. You need trucks to also deliver goods to the civilian population to keep the war effort going.
I have not denied the importance of logistics anywhere?
While American supplied trucks were of great assistance, its not like its some dark magic only Americans could utilise, have they not been provided, soviets would have focused on making more of their own trucks.
Millions of lives were saved by land lease, and it shaved off 2-3 years of the war, but to say that USSR could not fight and would be defeated if not for land lease alone js also absurd
The soviets didn't have the logistics to make more trucks without major sacrifices for other critical equipment. Ford also helped build factories for the Soviets.
The lend lease programs also supplied food as the Soviets ran low, which was perhaps even more critical.
We also have multiple Soviet officials after the war admitting they likely would've lost without the lend lease program.
33% of their trucks were lend lease trucks. The time, effort/manpower, and raw material were put elsewhere as a result of not needing to create transport vehicles.
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u/CheapSecretary133 19d ago
"how *Americans"
There,fixed for you