Wednesday 2 June 2021

War Plans

The Red Army was undergoing a pretty radical reorganization in the summer of 1941. Fans of the theory that the USSR was about to attack Germany and Hitler merely delivered a preemptive strike will be disappointed to find out that not only did the Red Army not consider itself in any situation to fight a war in 1941, 1942 wasn't looking much better either. Compare the number of tanks on hand to the number of tanks required according to authorized strength.


Tank type

Authorized strength

On hand as of Jan 1st, 1941

% Authorized strength as of Jan 1st, 1941

Expected inventory as of Jan 1st, 1942

% Authorized strength as of Jan 1st, 1942

Peacetime

Wartime

Peacetime

Wartime

Peacetime

Wartime

KV

2100

2100

243

11.5

11.5

1093

52

52

T-34

4200

4200

350

8.3

8.3

2850

67.8

67.8

BT

5487

8273

7752

141.5

93.7

7752

141.5

93.7

T-26

13,802

15,872

9987

72.3

62.9

9987

72.3

62.9

T-50

 

 

 

 

 

500

 

 

T-37/

T-38

2420

3681

3596

152

100

3596

182

116.7

T-40

 

 

100

 

 

800

 

 

Armoured cars

5298

6853

4461

84.2

65

6271

118

91.7

Total as of January 1st, 1941: 22,530 tanks (of those 59 T-35 and 443 T-28), 4461 armoured cars


Via Yuri Pasholok

2 comments:

  1. That Soviet units were not at full authorized strength in 1941 cannot be regarded as conclusive proof that Stalin did not plan to attack. Let's leave aside the issue that even at the lesser percent of authorized strength in 1941, the Red Army massively outnumbered the Germans in tanks. If you read any of Glantz's books, you can see that Red Army units were almost never at authorized strength, and they routinely attacked at much less than their theoretically authorized strength. This was so not only in the early part of the war, when the USSR was in desperate situations, but also in 1944-45.

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    1. You can't just look at the numbers for strength; also look at the numbers for logistical. Many KV-1 units in 1941 had no AP ammo, and some had *no ammo for their main gun at all*! (They were reduced to having to use machine guns or even drive over German AT positions). That's even a more telling statistic on the state of Soviet capabilities than the numbers of hardware available. In addition, many those tanks listed on that piece of paper were not serviceable, and tanks that can't move aren't much good either (a big reason why the Germans captured so much Soviet hardware in 1941).

      Your comparison with 1944-1945 isn't quite true. Most Soviet formations in that time frame participating in a prepared attack (and isn't that the contention of the "Stalin was going to attack first?" hypothesis?--the Soviets would not launch an UNprepared attack, after all) were understrength in terms of manpower, much more so than hardware. That is simply the results of the wartime manpower drain on the Soviet Union. In fact, I recall an old article by Dunnigan and Nofi that said Soviet units in 1945 had a 50 % surplus in equipment, not a deficit.

      Even with that, by 1945, the Soviets were demobilizing units out of their order of battle, because they either lacked the manpower to field them, or to transform these units into training units to better prepare future soldiers, or to return the manpower to Soviet industry and farms. They weren't needed as front-line soldiers anymore.

      You mention Glantz. Glantz in particular is scathingly critical of Suvorov's hypothesis (joining the chorus that Suvorov does not reveal any source material to support his claims). I do not accept everything that Glantz writes, I think he rides the hobby horse of writing books about "a major failed Soviet offensive that failed and was covered up"--which can be true in some cases like Operation Mars, but probably not true in his description of the offensive into Rumania in May 1944 which, based on the data HE presents, looks like an improvised operation run on a shoestring and thus wasn't as ambitious as he makes out. But I think that he and others are right on 1941.

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