Stavka Briefing 15 April 1942
Now that the war against the axis powers in mainland Europe is ending, consideration is shifting to the needs of the RKKA in the next phase of combat.
At the moment, only the UK and isolated holdings across India and the Far East remain in German hands and the British Empire is similarly fragmented.
The Politburo is giving detailed consideration to Soviet war plans over the next two years (ie in a later post), with an early plan to be able to invade the USA by May 1944.
At the moment, RKKA forces are organised into one of 4 organisational armies:
Tank Army - 3 Tank (ie medium armour) divs & 2 Armoured (ie light armour) divs;
Shock Army - 5 rifle divs with a mixture of artillery, rocket, engineer and AC brigades;
Mech Army - 3/4 divs, a mix of motorised and cavalry;
Infantry Army - 4/5 divs, mostly rifle divs, some mtn divs in some formations.
Some armies with a purely defensive brief also mix rifle and garrison divisions.
From combat experience over the past year, it has been decided that the Mech Armies are to be seen either as reserve formations (ie their speed is useful but they are not that much use in combat) or to be deployed to areas of lower intensity combat.
The 3rd Tank Army has heavy tank brigades and so far this formation has been a disappointment, in part as it has never fulfilled its envisaged role of stopping a German armour breakthrough head on. The heavy tanks have made it too slow, although invariably they take very light casualties.
The armoured divisions (ie light armour + motorised brigades) have proved their value when properly employed. They are not especially effective in combat, but their speed allows a breakout to become a pocket very quickly. They can stand in combat even against medium armour but don't tend to win their fights very quickly.
The other formation that has proved unsuccessful so far has been the idea of brigading fighters with CAS. In effect the FTR squadron are ground down faster than the CAS formations. The next reorganisation of the VVS will see a shift of tactics. FTRS+CAS will co-operate, with FTRs providing air superiority and pure CAS formations then undertaking ground attacks within the zone of protection.
Current Soviet plans involve an attack on Vichy France in May 1942 - this will be accompanied by an invasion of Indochina, opening up the capacity to deal with the remnants of the British and Dutch empires.
The Soviet leadership has also recently been studying a work of military fiction, that indicates that a modern power can engage in a naval strategy of opportunism and effective piracy, capturing weakly held ports so as to build a strategic presence.. Given the weakness of the VNF, this will become the Soviet naval strategy for the next year. Immediate targets are the invasion of Indochina, an assault on the last British outpost in the UK at Lerwick and the reconquest of Iceland and Greenland from the Canadians. This will then give us the capacity to invade Canada from the West at some stage in 1943.
The session ended with a recognition of the improved Soviet intelligence coming from the steady build up of radar stations. These are now located at Baku, Tashkent, Vladivostock and Leningrad.
The Vladivostock station has shown considerable detail of the latest Japanese attack into Korea/Manchuria as well as forces guarding the Japanese mainland.
However, we do not believe that they currently occupy any major ports so presume this latest assault will not develop into a reconquest of Manchuria.
