The New Whats Wrong with the Russian Army

[1168]

One thing I wonder about...

Do the Russians have the will and talent in place to learn from their mistakes? The Red Army suffered greatly due to Stalin's purges, and experienced a steep learning curve during the Winter War and Operation Barbarossa, but they learned from their mistakes and ended up steamrolling the Wehrmacht.

Will they come out of this war better and stronger?

It really wasn’t quite as much of a steamrolling as we tend to think. They made a lot of tactical, operational, and strategic errors, and prevailed because: allied support, poor support and morale in the Wehrmacht, bodies with pulses, defense in depth due to territory, police/propaganda state, home-field advantage, weather and terrain, and strategic and operational errors by the Nazis.

They didn’t win WWII; the Nazis lost. They did learn as the war went on, and definitely improved, and obviously prevailed in the end. But the Stavka (sp?) and NKVD were executing/imprisoning Colonels and Generals by the pile for a) failure and b) not following (bad) orders.

[seb5]

One thing I wonder about...

Do the Russians have the will and talent in place to learn from their mistakes? The Red Army suffered greatly due to Stalin's purges, and experienced a steep learning curve during the Winter War and Operation Barbarossa, but they learned from their mistakes and ended up steamrolling the Wehrmacht.

Will they come out of this war better and stronger?

I'm not sure they learned anything really. To win the war they used massive amounts of lend/lease equipment and used artillery to pound the Germans into the dust and then advanced. I've read books that speak about even when outnumbering the enemy 10-1 the Russians to still took astronomical casualties. Look at thge total military losses or the Eastern front and there is a huge disparity. Also itr doesn't appear that the Russians possess the ability to care for thier troops, even today.

[C-grunt]

I think the only way the Russians will actually learn and improve from this is after a complete overhaul of their system. I think this would first require a complete overhaul of the government.

[C-grunt]

Im thinking something like post WW2 Germany and Japan. Not necessarily us occupying Russia, but a couple decades of the population living out from under the current regimes rule.

[alx01]

They didn’t win WWII; the Nazis lost. They did learn as the war went on, and definitely improved, and obviously prevailed in the end. But the Stavka (sp?) and NKVD were executing/imprisoning Colonels and Generals by the pile for a) failure and b) not following (bad) orders.

Numbers I recall from official history books: 80% of the German (and probably Italian/Hungarian/Finnish/other axis) troops were on the Eastern front. American/British/French/Canadian forces only faced 20% of German forces in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

Equipment % allocation varied, but I recall that Germans definitely had proportionally larger air and naval power allocated to the Western front for obvious reasons.


I disagree with your claim for two reasons:
- a lot of "Superiority of German tactics" were written by and under the direct supervision of Wehrmacht Generals after the war in their attempt to whitewash German military from war crimes/holocaust and provide false reasoning and assurance to U.S. and British that Russians simply won the war by the numbers.
Good reference on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_o...lean_Wehrmacht

[sic]
Both myths glorify the Confederate military and the Wehrmacht as superior fighting organisations led by deeply honourable, noble and courageous men who were overwhelmed by inferior opponents by sheer numbers and material together with bad luck.

- By the same logic you can say that Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan didn't win, it's just we lost. For some reason our failures in any of those countries nobody attributes to poor officer or troop performance. We did everything right, soldiers and politicians. It's just somehow we awarded medals to soldiers for successful operations, spent billions of dollars, magically lost those campaigns and moved on.


Nobody, even Russians, question that NATO equipment and manufacturing power outweigh Russian capabilities. Each military campaign is unique and I think it's not always appropriate to apply U.S.-Iraq experience, and especially often falsified historical WWII references.

IMHO, at the end of the day I think it only depends if Russia is willing to commit another 400k-800k troops to win in Ukraine quickly. If not, some claim it might be a slow burning conflict like in Syria. Regular, non-radicalized Ukrainians, at some point will realize that in a current state they are fully dependent on Europe/NATO and their boys even with Western equipment might not be coming back home.
Attitude in Russia - hard to know for sure, I hear conflicting stories of both strong opposition without objective reasoning and strong support with some political reasoning. Despite Western press showing Ukrainian unity, I heard from a first hand source that at least 25% of Ukrainians strongly support Russia and are not happy at all with their own government (not just now, but overall).

[AndyLate]

Numbers I recall from official history books: 80% of the German (and probably Italian/Hungarian/Finnish/other axis) troops were on the Eastern front. American/British/French/Canadian forces only faced 20% of German forces in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

Equipment % allocation varied, but I recall that Germans definitely had proportionally larger air and naval power allocated to the Western front for obvious reasons.


I disagree with your claim for two reasons:
- a lot of "Superiority of German tactics" were written by and under the direct supervision of Wehrmacht Generals after the war in their attempt to whitewash German military from war crimes/holocaust and provide false reasoning and assurance to U.S. and British that Russians simply won the war by the numbers.
Good reference on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_o...lean_Wehrmacht




- By the same logic you can say that Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan didn't win, it's just we lost. For some reason our failures in any of those countries nobody attributes to poor officer or troop performance. We did everything right, soldiers and politicians. It's just somehow we awarded medals to soldiers for successful operations, spent billions of dollars, magically lost those campaigns and moved on.


Nobody, even Russians, question that NATO equipment and manufacturing power outweigh Russian capabilities. Each military campaign is unique and I think it's not always appropriate to apply U.S.-Iraq experience, and especially often falsified historical WWII references.

IMHO, at the end of the day I think it only depends if Russia is willing to commit another 400k-800k troops to win in Ukraine quickly. If not, some claim it might be a slow burning conflict like in Syria. Regular, non-radicalized Ukrainians, at some point will realize that in a current state they are fully dependent on Europe/NATO and their boys even with Western equipment might not be coming back home.
Attitude in Russia - hard to know for sure, I hear conflicting stories of both strong opposition without objective reasoning and strong support with some political reasoning. Despite Western press showing Ukrainian unity, I heard from a first hand source that at least 25% of Ukrainians strongly support Russia and are not happy at all with their own government (not just now, but overall).

It was closer to 66% in Eastern Europe on average, but certainly the bulk of Nazi forces.

It doesn't matter who wrote the texbooks, the staggering number of Soviet battle casualties were absolutely caused by overwhelming Nazi tactical superiority aided by brutality on both sides. Stalin purged the military of any promising leader to remove perceived political threats before WWII even started.

Andy

[1168]

It was closer to 66% in Eastern Europe on average, but certainly the bulk of Nazi forces.

It doesn't matter who wrote the texbooks, the staggering number of Soviet battle casualties were absolutely caused by overwhelming Nazi tactical superiority aided by brutality on both sides. Stalin purged the military of any promising leader to remove perceived political threats before WWII even started.

Andy

And then kept purging the mediocre leaders during the war. Some of Stalin’s generals were chosen for their rabid love of communism, rather than any military potential. The others were babysat by political babysitters with no military experience, who would sometimes call the shots as if they were generals. Hell, one of their generals, who rose via red allegiance, still insisted that horses could not be replaced by tanks in the cavalry. How freaking stupid can one be?

Its certainly not my only source of history on the topic, but I recently watched some videos that were originally produced for a Russian television audience for state media. Even they painted a picture of incompetency for the Russian army and navy in Ukraine and the Black Sea, though that did not appear to be the intent. It also discussed the above executions, but spun it as if these were legitimate legal consequences for their failures in battle. And though they avoided mentioning lend-lease, or any Allied support whatsoever, Russian incompetence showed through, because some of the pictures had American made aircraft in them that the editors must have let slip.

One of the few things the USSR got right in Ukraine during the Nazi offensive was bombing fuel production in Romania. Fuel was a problem for the Nazis, and that problem was growing. Those bombers were based in Sevastopol, or at least they were, until the Nazis destroyed the Russian army and navy there, as the Soviet generals escaped by submarine as their men watched in horror. Afterwards, the Russian army was literally pushed into the sea. Some tried to escape the slaughter by raft, and most of those were shot, as well.

Speaking of the sea, did I mention that even ROMANIA defeated the Soviet navy in at least one battle on the Black Sea? It was a long time before the Russian navy was able to approach the shore with surface vessels again. They tried, but coastal defenses. Sounds kinda familiar.

I disagree with your claim for two reasons:
- a lot of "Superiority of German tactics" were written by and under the direct supervision of Wehrmacht Generals after the war in their attempt to whitewash German military from war crimes/holocaust and provide false reasoning and assurance to U.S. and British that Russians simply won the war by the numbers.

My understanding of Wehrmacht tactics, equipment, logistics, and vehicles comes primarily from US and British analysis when they were coming up with good counters. I never called their tactics superior. By the time they invaded the USSR, their tactics were known, and no longer revolutionary like when they invaded France. And they certainly made some mistakes on the Eastern Front. Some of their generals were stripped of rank and relieved.

- By the same logic you can say that Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan didn't win, it's just we lost.

Our military was not bested on the battlefield in those conflicts. It was saddled with unachievable or unsustainable political objectives. Afghanistan is a great example. We kicked the SHIT out of the Taliban. But once the objective became to build and prop up a central government there, we were doomed to repeat the conclusion of the war in Viet Nam.

BTW, I’m not so sure we really lost the Korean War. At the end of WWII, our goal in our occupation was to establish a sustainable government and to build an economy and infrastructure to support that. The Reds had a different plan, and concentrated their resources on a military buildup. Seoul has done fairly well in comparison with Pyongyang, though the war is not technically over. I think we’ve come closer to achieving our objective there than the Reds did. I’m not calling it a stunning success or anything, but maybe not a loss. Yet.

I heard from a first hand source that at least 25% of Ukrainians strongly support Russia and are not happy at all with their own government (not just now, but overall).

even if this is true, it is totally irrelevant in this thread. As I point out above, military performance ≠ politics. If you’d like to discuss whether or not Russia is legally or politically justified in invading Ukraine, go start a new thread. This thread is about the Bear’s military performance, or lack thereof.

[The_War_Wagon]

After watching it again yesterday, maybe Red Dawn wasn't that far off in portraying avg. Russian infantry capabilities.

[SeriousStudent]

Let's try to keep this thread on topic, discussions about whether we should be helping Ukraine, Russia as the good guys, etc should be out of scope.

This should be purely discussions on military performance and news in the war, ideally with confirmed sources.

Yeah, let's not eff this up with a lot of purse-swinging and hair-pulling.

Carry on.

[WillBrink]

One thing I wonder about...

Do the Russians have the will and talent in place to learn from their mistakes? The Red Army suffered greatly due to Stalin's purges, and experienced a steep learning curve during the Winter War and Operation Barbarossa, but they learned from their mistakes and ended up steamrolling the Wehrmacht.

Will they come out of this war better and stronger?

Have they ever? What saved them in WWII (yet again...) was the winter, and the Lend Lease Act. That winter has ultimately saved their A$$ in every major conflict they faced to varying degrees. It's their primarily tactical advantage along with a huge land mass.

Hitler made that same deadly assumption others had, would win quickly, didn't need to prep gear and have winter stuff for troops, etc. Along with the massive flood of stuff we sent at great cost to us, allowing them to get their momentum back, for which the miserable commies not only didn't thank us for (like the French did with a nice statue and such), it was banned from even talking about and would see you sent to the Gulags for it.

I really wonder if the right move would have been to have left the Russians to their fate. Even with a win, the Germans could not have controlled and managed the country and would always be a huge resource drain on the Nazi's to deal with.

The Lend Lease Act probably sped up the demise of the Germans a tad faster, but it was very costly and really does not get enough focus and credit.

There's debate as to what impact the Lend Leas Act had among historians, but my reading is it was in fact a major factor to their success, and there's Russian generals quoted from the time they would not have succeeded without it, which was quickly suppressed as you'd expect.

Interestingly, the most important thing sent may have been he Studebaker truck, which allowed them to rapidly redeploy troops to finally counter the German tactics.

I tend to think we should have left the commies to their fate with Hitler as they earned it, unlike say the poor Poles who took it both ends from Germany and Stalin.

I don't have an issue with saving another country from Nazi's, commies, or various despots, but shove your national pride up your A$$ if you're not at least going to show appreciation for it.

Good read on Lend Lease: https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2020/0...e-to-the-ussr/