Icebreaker theory. True or not?

[King]

Well in my opinion Stalin was not planning to attack Germany. If he was then the largest concentration of Red army forces would of been the Baltic and Western Special military districts (i.e. the ones with the most border with Germany). The strongest military district was the Kiev military district. This could be interpreted two ways, as a defensive measure, after all capitalist imperialist wage war for resources and markets and the Ukraine certainally had resources. Or it was an offernsive measure aimed at Balkins not Germany.

On a side note here the USSR was continuing to argue with Romanian about exactly where it's new frontier stood. The most important point being the islands at the mouth of the Danube. Russain wanted to control all of these and thus access from the Danube into the Black Sea, Romania was reported to be less than impressed at this idea. The USSR was also putting presure on Balgarian to sign an alliance with the USSR, allowing the Soviet basing rights there, and the Soviets always had an eye on the straights, a push through the Balkins was one way of getting there.

 

[King]

Well I believe that Stalin did believe that war with someone in the West was inevatable. I also believe that Stalin also felt that with fancy diplomacy (i.e. offering of resources, after all that is what Captialist Imperialists are really after) he could pospone the war to a time of his own choosing and strengthen the USSR's strategic situation. I think that Soviet diplomacy was based around the assumption that as long as the raw materials kept flowing quantity the Germans would never attack the Soviet Union and further more that the Germans would be forced to trun a blind eye to Soviet moves else where.

Another thing about Soviet deployment was the 4 of Kiev Military district's mechanised corps where deployed in reserve near Kiev. If the Soviets where planning an offensive move then at the very least these powerful offensive formation should of been moved from its reserve deployment into the Soviet second echelon. Yet they remianed at Kiev. For me again a sign that no major Soviet offensive was on the cards.

 

[King]

This is not argument... 4 others were close to the border and took part in Dubna-Rowne tank battle in June 1941. Those 4 other corps had approx. 3000 tanks total. Attacking 1st Tank Group had 1000 of them.

It's like saying that Germany could not attack, because they had one whole army in reserve in Eastern Germany/Western Poland (it even included 2 tank divisions, serious part of German Panzerwaffe in 1941).

Soviets simply had enough forces (especially in tanks) to allow themselves to keep a lot of their forces in reserve. Germany didn't have enough tanks to do the same.

I agree though, that on the 22nd June Soviet forces were still in the middle of redeployment and many of them were not ready to fight. It doesn't mean, that they would not be prepared for that (at least, from Soviet commanders point of view) later...

I disagree with your example here. The German Tank formation you are describing is part of OKH reserve. It would be like saying that the Soviets where not ready to attack because they had strong tank reserves in place at Moscow (which they did). A more correct example would be saying that Army group Centre was not ready to attack because one of it's panzer groups was deployed in reserve.

 

[King]

Commonly reffered to as OMG - Operational manouver(sp?) group. They were supposed to exploit any breakthrough mad by frontline troops, and charge into the salient thus created. Germans were quick to learn, and at Kharkov annihilated the Soviets with their reserves preparing for Case Blue.

The concept of OMG was not yet part of Soviet strategic thinking, that is a post war development. However Kiev is a long way back from the front. It took days for these units to come to front when the Germans were advancing. If the Soviets were advancing it would take even longer. This group is not in place to expliot any intial assault. These troops would need of come forward first.

 

[King]

I've have missunderstanding here...
For Soviet command, those 4 corps (and some others, trasferred from the internal military districts) didn't mean loosing half of the fighting power, like in case of Army Group Center. 4 corps on the border were fully able to fight initial battle, then 4 in reserve could exploit potential success. Classic russian "deep operation".

BTW, I've double checked positions of those corps. Results:

Kiev Military District Mech. Corps:

9th (Novogrod Volynsky - border) - 300 tanks,
22nd (Rowne - border) - 707 tanks,
4th (Vlasov's corps - Lvov, border) - approx. 900 tanks,
15th (Brody, border) - approx. 730 tanks.
16th (Kamieniets Podolski - not that far from border, check the map) - 680 tanks,
8th (Drohobytch - again, quite close) - approx. 900 tanks,
19th (Berdychev - again, not that far) - approx. 450 tanks,
24th (Ploskirov - this one can be indeed described as "located close to Kiev") - approx. 150 tanks, reorganization.

Source: http://mechcorps.rkka.ru/files/mechcorps/index.htm (they use Russian literature for that, one of the best sites on this topic).

So, which of those are closer to Kiev then to the German border?

PS. I suspect you meant second eshelon units (like Koniev corps transferred from Transcaucasus Mil. Dist. and some other units), right?

Well to be honest the site is a Russain but I will take your word for it. However when I mean second Echelon I do not mean Koniev's 16th Army or the troops of the Moscow MD. I mean that the troops of the Kiev military district were deployed in depth. At least two echelons sometimes three. 4 of these mechanised corps, the ones not on the border, where in none of the front line echelons, but deployed in strategic reserve. These troops took days to reach the front historically. Making them useless as a front reserve in an offensive situation, as they are deployed at present. These would have to have been deployed forward before this could happen. Looking at your own strength list I think the Soviets would of wanted to bring these troops up to strength first before moving them forward. My own esimate would be early 1942 (for equipment to be issued and troops to be trained etc.) before this becomes a possibility.

 

[King]

I agree with you on the understrength issue, although I don't think that Soviet command would really care about training that much. It was not really their way to train troops fully - they were simply sending units in combat expecting that they will gain enough training on the battlefield...

There is also no such thing as "fully rearmed" force. Armies evolve, Soviet Mech. forces were evolving too. In May 1941 successor of T-34, T-34M accepted to production (its production was about to start in July). Does it mean, that Stalin would wait for fully rearming his tank units in new models? 30 mech corps, each nominally with approx. 1000 tanks = 30 000 tanks. Good luck.

Then we come to the next important issue. In autumn 1941 Stalin would be forced to send home august 1939 conscripts. Since august 1939 draft was really massive (it included men from 1938 and earlier years as well - legal trick) and those soldiers were best trained (Poland/Finland/Baltic States/Bessarabia) part of the army (except from few Far East units), delaying operation to 1942 would actually force Stalin to limit his forces instead of developing them more. Or change the law again, prolonging military service to 3 years (during the peacetime).

Of course having smaller and better equipped army would not be that bad, but again, it was not really Soviet-style...

The Soviet Union suffered a lot of cansulties at the hands of the Finns during the winter war. The Soviets had rushed out a new tactical operation manual and had spent much of the summer of 1940 retraining the troops and this process was to continue throughout 1941. A lot of emphisis here was placed on the office corps (especailly the junior ranks) who were profensional troops. Unlike a lot of the infantry.

 

[King]

Agree. It is perfectly seen on map.
Disposition of troops before war

http://rkka.ru/maps/1941-1.jpg
Mech corps there:

1) 4 MK
2) 8 MK
3) 22 MK
4) 15 MK
5) 16 MK
6) 9 MK
7) 24 MK
8) 19 MK

Look at the scale of the map. The 9th, 24th and 19th Mechanised Corps are between 200 and 400 km back from the front line. This is not by any streatch of the immagination an offensive deployment. The remianing 5 mechanised corps are all deployed at the front second echelon. Again though look at their deployment, they are not concentrated and (at a rough guess) on average 50km back from the front line. I can't see this as an offensive deployment.

 

[King]

You mean that all German tank groups were sitting on the border 3-4 months, waiting for the operation? And that they were located 10-30 km from the border all the time?

It's plain silly. First "they are near Kiev", then when I prove that they were nowhere near Kiev, "They were not on the exact border".

Decision about the start of war was political. If Stalin decided to start it, units would be moved closer to the border. If not - they would stay where they were. Mayor soviet generals, including Timoshenko (Commissar of Defense) and Zhukov (Chief of General Staff) were suggesting pre-emptive strikes (see link on the first page), so they thought that units are ready enough. So, from Stalin's point of view, there was no military issues if he decided to attack. Only political ones.

Well Ok I hold my hand up and say near Kiev is an exageration. The point I tried to make was that there was a lot of troops that if I was organising an attack I would put further forward. I also think that the Soviet officer Corps would also of been smart enough to put these troops further forward.

I do not doubt that if Stalin decided to start a war he would of. I also think though that in the light of the lesson of the winter war Stalin would of made sure that the Red Army was a ready as it could be to attack. There is also a different between a premptive strike and a full scale invasion. A premptive strike suggests a Soviet reaction to the German build up, not a plan to launch full scale assualt on Germany.

 

[King]

Yup, but Soviet doctrine in 1941 (contrary to the German one) does not expected mechanized corps use in first stage of breaking the front... Infantry supported by artillery (plus infantry tanks) was the frontline breaker, not mech corps.

Still, as I said earlier, decision on the attack was of political nature, military issues were expected to not be real problems...

Soviet Docterine called for combined armed Shock Armies ,made up of Infantry and Mechanised Corps to create the breakthrough. Then further mechanised corps would be used to exploit the breakthough.

 

[King]

Ok, you are right there, my mistake. Yet each army had some mech. corps around - no one says that Germans attacked USSR 2 hours before being attacked themselves.

Damn, we can discuss it for days...

Yeh we can discuss this for days. Ok let me put my take on it here. I belive that given the chance Stalin would of quite happly stabbed Hitler in the back, by attacking him first. However what I do not believe is that in the summer of 1941 he was ready to do this. I think Stalin hopped to use diplomacy to delay the German attack (I have no doubt that Stalin thought that Germany would attack him at some point if he didn't) until he was ready. I do not believe the Red Army deployment of 21st June 1941 suggests an army ready to attack at a moments notice. Maybe a months notice it might be different.

 

[King]

Hitler ordered the attack on the USSR in December 1940, so it is of no importance whatsoever how the Soviet forces were deployed in June 1941. It's simply BS to say Barbarossa was a reaction to Soviet plans. Also, read Mein Kampf. Plans for conquest of the East in 1923. I'm sure Hitler already knew of Stalin's plans to attack Germany even then...

Also, Soviet military doctrine was based on lessons of WWI. It held that the first phase of the war wouldn't be decisive (like Germany's push into France and Russia's push into Prussia) and that the war would be decided after all forces had been mobilized. The first phase would see smaller battles that would become meaningless in the real war that was to follow - the war between fully mobilized armies.

It is for this real war the Soviets were preparing, planning to take the initiative after an attack. This perfectly explains why Soviet mechanized corps were deployed where they were and also explains why the Soviet air force was located close to the border - air strikes were to hinder the main body of enemy forces to concentrate.

Of course, the Blitzkrieg made this whole doctrine completely obsolete (since it sought to strike hard and fast with overwhelming force), but the Soviets stuck to their doctrine, with Timoshenko declaring, after the fall of France, that the war in the West had shown "nothing new". This almost spelled doom for the Red Army in 1941.

I agree with the opening statement that when the operation was orginally planned there was no plan by the Soviets to attack Germany. I also think that when Barbarossa was launched the situation had not changed.

I do disagree with your assemnet on Soviet docterine. The Soviet high command played a couple of war games in the winter of 40/41 in which the Germans did have surprise. The result was a draw and a German win. The Soviets were accutely aware of their porblems. The mechanised forces that had been dispanded during the purges where frantically being raised. New models of equipment being brought into production. The Soviets knew they had alot to learn.

 

[King]

Mechanized forces didn't change military doctrine of polzanie v vojnu ("creeping into war"), it just was a means in that future war. The basis of the doctrine (an attack will start with small scale battles by front line forces after which both armies will fully mobilize and the agressor will be destroyed on their own territory) remained intact, even though the German victories in Poland, France and the Low Countries had shown this belief was utterly wrong. I have an article on this, I'll see if I can dig it up.

Well you see In the meeting over the winter of 40/41 when the war games I mentioned earlier were conducted Zhukov produced a paper on the Nature of modern offensive operations. It's conclusion was that proper combined armed formations, delivering a surpirse blow, could shatter a whole front and secure air superiority along the whole front. The conclusion was rather close to the reality of the German invation. Romanenko (1st Mechanised Corps Commander) added that if the mechanised forced were to concentrated on the flanks of the front the blow would be even more effective. Romaneko was ignored, and Zhukov was critised by his peers. The conclusion I get from this is that Soviet docterine was moving in the right direction. However it was moving against entreched military opposision, Marshal Kulik whose guns were going destroy all the enemy tanks being by far the worst, but not the only offender.

Given more time the Soviet docterine would of moved in the right direction. The commanders where there, they just weren't being listened to. In reality the Red Army had to go to the brink of disaster, who was to say given another year of peace that the Soviets could not of learnt a few of the painful leasons in the class room.

 

[King]

I have just found this part...

You are of course aware, that recently Russian sources (no, not only Rezun ) provide different version of info about those games?

In first game Pavlov was "counterattacking" north of Pripet from the broder on Prussia and Warsaw (and it was a draw - Zhukov and his team were playing Germans), in second Zhukov was "counterattacking" on Krakow - Romania south of Pripet (Pavlov and his team were playing Germans and Romanians) and he won.

Both games were started with assumption, that enemy attacked, but was stopped (see Suvorov's posts about WWI thinking) and quite fast forced to leave USSR territory (this part was not played, though).

Yeh I got the results the wrong way round. However Stalin was deeply critcal of the results of the war game. The Red army only got the result it did becuase it assumed that one Soviet Division could hold of 2-3 German division, while 1 1/2 Soviet divisions could voer run a German division. Even Stalin realised that this was not a confortable assumption to be making.

 

[King]

This troops would be commited where the prospect of victory was better. The Sovjets belived in attacking on several points, and this four corps were on the proper place to be either sent south or west.

Well actually Stalin asked his front commander how Mechanised corps they would need, Zhukov (who was in charge of the Kiev MD at the time) said 4 or 5. Pavlov asked for 3 or 4 for the record.

 

[King]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the MD were a peacetime seperation, which would be changed at war?

the Kiev MD became the South Western Front during the War. Pavlov commanded the Western MD, later the Western Front.

 

[King]

Bah, but they also severly overestimated numbers of German forces. All pre-war Soviet intel data (incuding this used for strategic games) suggested that Germans can field against USSR 10 000 tanks (sic!) and 8 000 planes.

Well even they over estimated the forces you got to say that they did get the ratios the wrong way rounbd and by a very long way. The 3,300 tanks that did finaly attack did far more damage than the 10,000 in the war game.

 

[King]

Of course, but that was not their intention.
They had no practical knowledge on this field and could not assume that effectiveness of 1 German tank division (120-180 tanks) equals 1 Soviet mech corps (600-700 tanks on the average).

What I'm trying to say is that while they were overestimating own effectiveness (especially if we compare it with their real performance in 1941), they were also overestimating numbers of Axis forces (even if they ignored their quality).

Ok I will grant you that, but will you agree that Stalin's reaction suggested that he was not convinced on the results of the war game. He felt that for propoganda purposes the assumptions might be ok, but he wanted the command staff to look at realistic possibilites.