Reddit Reddit reviews Soviet Military Operational Art: In Pursuit of Deep Battle (Soviet (Russian) Military Theory and Practice)

We found 2 Reddit comments about Soviet Military Operational Art: In Pursuit of Deep Battle (Soviet (Russian) Military Theory and Practice). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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Soviet Military Operational Art: In Pursuit of Deep Battle (Soviet (Russian) Military Theory and Practice)
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2 Reddit comments about Soviet Military Operational Art: In Pursuit of Deep Battle (Soviet (Russian) Military Theory and Practice):

u/dys4ik · 1 pointr/MilitaryHistory

The reason for suggesting the author I did was that he has done a good job of demolishing many of the myths around Soviet performance that have cropped up as a result of post-war historians only having access to German sources (in particular interviews with surviving German generals) which usually painted the Soviets in a very negative light.

The Soviets were no slouches when it came to learning how to fight a war. There's a reason they defeated the Germans despite such a bad start, and it wasn't just spam and trucks.

What seems to be missing from the story here is the increasing soviet superiority in the operational sphere. They learned how to equip and organize their forces, how to prepare and properly support follow-on attacks in other sectors to keep the pressure up, and had a growing pool of experienced leaders. They were not the clumsy oaf usually offered up by stories of early-war incompetence. In fact possibly one of the best examples of a very well-planned and effective campaign in the war was from the Soviets: their campaign in Manchuria.

It is very difficult to get a good impression of the individual quality of a soldier of either army late in the war. The soviets had both highly effective and experienced units but others were conscripted from recently occupied countries. The Germans were in an even worse state, conscripting old men and little kids to try to fight off the Soviets. The only successful German actions in the last year that come to mind involve trying to establish corridors for surviving civilians or other troops to get out from behind the Soviet wall.

u/LayinScunion · 1 pointr/WWIIplanes

> 36,183 IL-2s were produced between 1941 - 1945.

IL-2s were known for being dependable after working out teething problems during first trials. Very widely known of taking awful amounts of damage and still being able to fly home. Pilots loved them mostly because of this fact. It was dubbed the "Flying Tank" due to the amount of damage it could handle and still be flyable. I'd say that is some great quality. Just because an aircraft is produced in huge numbers, does not make it shit.

>Should I also check casualty numbers of WW2 alone to prove that Russia tends to take the brute force approach?

Being that Russia was on the offensive for nearly 4 years of the war, I'd say that's quite an easy thing to grasp. A defensive military will almost always take less casualties than a military on the offensive. This is a commonly accepted fact that has been known since the dawn of warfare.

>That's the thing with having lots of resources and a chain of command focused only on wining.

What else are you supposed to concentrate on during a war? Kill ratios? Propaganda? I'd say winning is by far the most important aspect of a war. Wouldn't you agree?

>They can just keep throwing bodies at a problem until it goes away.

No. They did no such thing. I recommend reading this book and this book especially because it addresses the Goebbels propaganda of "Soviet human wave" bullshit. You realize that's where this thought comes from correct? Nazi propaganda. It was meant to make Soviets look like barbaric animals....and it apparently still holds salt in some minds today. Your's for example.

>Look at the battle of Stalingrad. 1,129,619 casualties, 4,431 lost tanks, and 2,769 lost aircraft.

First off, your numbers are ridiculously way off. Approximately 4400 tanks? The Soviets lost around 1500 tanks total. Your number is probably including half tracks, SPGs, and things of that nature which makes it look like something it is clearly not. When adding up Axis vehicles total, it nearly triples the losses if I simply pass them all off as "tanks".

"Look at the Battle of Stalingrad. ~900,000 casualties, ~1,000 aircraft, ~700 tanks (actual tanks, not armor in general) and 5,500 artillery pieces for the Axis." I'm unsure of the point you are trying to make. It was the absolute biggest loss of human life in the history of warfare and there were huge losses on both sides.

>This is also the same military force that had a secondary line of soldiers behind the front lines that was ordered to shoot any deserters running from the battle.

Enemy at the Gates is not a documentary. The NKVD attachments were there to corral deserters or broken down men who could not take the front anymore. Most were put into hospitals. A minuscule amount were executed. Let me make this a point, every one of the belligerents in WW2 executed deserters.

Back to the NKVD:

>The order also directed that each Army must create "blocking detachments" (barrier troops (заградотряд, заградительный отряд)) which would capture or shoot "cowards" and fleeing panicked troops at the rear. Both measures were cited in the preamble of the order as having been successfully used by the Germans during their winter retreat. The requirement for Armies to maintain companies of barrier troops was withdrawn after just three months, on October 29, 1942. Intended to galvanize the morale of the hard-pressed Soviet Army and emphasize patriotism, it had a generally detrimental effect and was not consistently implemented by commanders who viewed diverting troops to create barrier units as a waste of manpower, so by October 1942 the idea of regular blocking units was quietly dropped.[3] By 20 November 1944 the blocking units were officially disbanded.

So after 3 whole months the blocking detachments were not a thing anymore. And most commanders did not execute anyone retreating. A lot were simply put back at the front. To think this happened throughout the war is naive at best.

So much of what you said is just ignorance. Hopefully not willfully. I'd highly recommend the two books I mentioned. It shows the way the Soviets truly operated and quite frankly, it's damn impressive.

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