The 8th of March 1941, Minsk, 3,1°C, 6pm Moscow Time,
Dear Afnasy Fyodorovich, dear brother,
I've been very busy lately, and I'm sure you have been too. If I took the time to write now, it is because of a series of important developments. To get all of the top brass ready and used to the new command structure and deployment of the Red Army on the Western front, war games were organised in Minsk. Now, normally, I wouldn't have been invited, but I would have gotten the reports and discussed them with Lt. General Popov M.M. The planned list of participants was simply composed of all of the full Generals in the 2nd Army Group, the 3rd Army Group, the Armoured Army Group, and the Reserves. Additionally, all Lt. Generals of Guards, Cavalry, and Tank Corps were also invited. The games were planned for the 1st of March, but with the Partisan uprising, they were postponed to the 8th.
A schematic of the Red Army Command structure on the German Border tells us who the main players are, both in the war games, and in the coming war. (This schematic was provided by 'Dva', as no schematic was included in the original letter...)
Due to the Kiuruvesi debacle and the generalised feeling that 1. VDD under-performed in the quashing of Finnish peasants, Maj. General Galanin I.V. Was driven to Oulu, and flown to Minsk immediately after the partisans had surrendered. To review the situation, several Veteran commanders from the Winter War were called in to evaluate his performance and that of his Paratroopers. Maj. Generals Eremenko, Biriuzov, and yours truly were added to the list to form the review board, under the leadership of Lt. General Popov, M.M. So that's how I got here, now for what happened in Minsk...
In the morning, the Review of General Galanin's performance was held:
Lt. General Popov M.M. Started the questioning :
“Maj. General, walk us through the battle, tell us what happened, and why you believe it took our elite 1. Airborne Division so long to overpower these peasants.”
Maj. General Galanin, not especially flustered by the suggestion that this was his fault, went into a long explanation of what happened, according to him, that is...
“We jumped at 11am on the 2nd of March. It was freezing out there, -10°C. Soon after the jump, the lack of training for Airborne Assaults became painfully obvious, as most men struggled with their parachutes, many landed in trees, and my Division was spread out over a very large area. Upon landing, I gathered what troops I could and moved to attack the Partisans, with little success, as the partisans were well dug in and most of my men were still fumbling about and looking for each-other over a wide surrounding area.
By the next morning, most of my Division had regrouped and was ready for a real Division-size attack, but as they attacked carefully and methodically, we found that the peasants had changed up on us, their trenches were found empty, many of the more exposed locations bombed to rubble by the Red Navy, and every once in a while I would get word that one of my platoons was caught in an ambush. Thanks to their training and superior weapons, most of these ambushed did relatively little damage, and several times my men arrived while Finns were setting up an ambush, making the peasants into easy targets. Carefully coming through the forests was taking a lot of time, so on the 4th, I ordered the entire division to move more aggressively through forests, hoping to catch more partisans off guard with shock tactics. During the night, however, the Finns had set up many more ambushes and traps, and the shock attacks had to be called off as the number of wounded on our side kept mounting. Most of the casualties were only lightly wounded, but that was enough to make the entire advance grind to a halt as they licked their wounds. At this point, I believed this could take weeks, but the spread out nature of the enemy forces made it hard to assess their overall morale. During the night, I had my men continue putting pressure on the partisans, and finally, at 11am on the 5th, Talvela, their leader was seen walking towards our main camp, arms raised, his second in command, a local hunter, carrying a white shirt on a stick, during the following hour, Finns were surrendering all over the place.
In the end, we lost 48 good men while 78 Finnish peasants are confirmed to have been killed by our Paratroopers. The Navy's bombs killed another 390 Partisans, but more importantly, they made every clearing, every road, every gap in the foliage, into a potential death zone for the Finns, making it so much harder for them to coordinate. We captured another 8.431 partisans."
Eremenko was the first to react to this:
"I understand that not enough research was put into Airborne Assault tactics, but that only really explains the ineffective first day of the offensive. Your men have a higher level of training in both conventional and Guerilla tactics than your everyday Rifle Division, let alone some Finnish peasants, not to mention the rigorous selection process and the large number of NCO's. The prolongation of the battle past the second, and especially the third day of fighting is, in my opinion, entirely your fault. During the winter War, many units on both sides have used Ambush-style tactics, and these tactics slow down any offensive. However, you should have read up on your battle reports. I imagine you know of the 2nd Battle of Suomussalmi, where shock tactics were used by Maj. General Gorbatov to try and dislodge Finnish Infantry setting ambushes... This was less than a year ago, so you should know about it..."
Galanin was quick to reply:
"Suomussalmi 2 was a resounding success though, if anything, that battle justifies my use of such tactics, even though they were ineffective in retrospect..."
I had enough and cut him off,
"Those tactics were more than ineffective, they were downright counterproductive, giving the enemy time to regroup, while your men kept getting wounded, charging head first into improvised traps and ambushes. You're lucky they were only facing peasants, as a real Infantry Division would have had the equipment to make these ambushes into real deathtraps, and instead of a lot of lightly wounded soldiers you would have had a lot of heavily wounded and dead soldiers. But to your point on the 2nd battle of Suomussalmi, Gorbatov stated in his report that victory was won despite the tactics used, as the enemy was famished, out of ammunition, facing twice their own number and repeated aerial bombardments. Taking this into account, that battle should have been a walk in the park, instead it took 20 hours and 76 casualties... now, Gorbatov was the first to try the use of Shock tactics..."
Before I could continue, Lt. General Popov M.M. Replied
"Neither of us was there, and Talvela is a tough opponent to face, but Maj. General Galanin's failure to learn from the previous war has lead to unnecessary casualties and delays in this battle. Of course, we can't publicly admit that this battle was so hard fought, and demoting or transferring him so soon after it's conclusion would indicate that it didn't go as smoothly as planned."
Then directly to Galanin:
"Therefore I hope that you learned your lesson Maj. General, and you can look forward to being transferred to a standard rifle Division as soon as public interest dies down a little. The Party wants to showcase it's version of the battle in the press to discourage rebellion. The article will of course say that it was over in a single day."
To everyone:
"Maj. General Galanin's failures shouldn't distract us from other important lessons to be learned:
Firstly, the training level of the Red Army could be better, even elite units receive little more than Basic Training. This, of course cuts down on training time and cost, and I'm sure that this allows for the training of many more Divisions, as long as everyone is conscious of the limited combat-effectiveness of fresh units, as proven once again in this battle.
Secondly, the total lack of specialised equipment, and more importantly, dedicated tactics for our Airborne Units is a disaster for their effectiveness, Maj. General Galanin's report leads me to believe that dropping a fresh Airborne troops on a well-equipped and well-trained enemy force would result in massive casualties and have little chance of victory. Therefore I will put forward the recommendation that these units be renamed, or at least used as light Rifle Divisions, until they receive the proper specialised training. This means, no Airborne Assaults, and only ever dropping them into unoccupied territory until further improvements have been made. All right gentlemen, thanks for your input, this debriefing was instructive, it's a shame 48 paratroopers had to be lost to learn these lessons. I encourage all of you to study past battles so you can avoid making the same costly mistakes again. All right, you're all dismissed, let's go into the dining room for lunch with the Field Marshalls."
After lunch, once the top brass arrived, there was an overview of border forces with some slightly worrying estimates on German numbers, specifically where tanks are concerned...
In the last few months many panzers have made it to the border...
2nd Army Group (North), with 7 full Rifle Corps (a total of 35 Rifle Divisions and 7 Reinforced Rifle Corps HQs) faces:
1 Heavy Panzer Division, 4-5 Panzer Divisions, 1 Cavalry Division, a Gebirgsjäger Division and 17-18 Infantry Divisions, of which at least 2 are fully motorised.
3rd Army Group (South), with 4 full Rifle Corps (a total of 20 Rifle Divisions and Reinforced Rifle Corps Hqs) faces:
2 Panzer Divisions, 2 Light Panzer Divisions, 1 Waffen-SS Division, and 7 Infantry Divisions, of which 2 are fully motorised.
Moreover, we believe another Heavy Panzer Division is somewhere in the Balkans wreaking havoc.
If we consider the number of men, the Red Army border forces (66 Divisions) outnumber German border forces (37 Divisions) by almost two to one.
If we add in forces Garrisoning the first layer of Cities, the ratio goes up to 2,6 to 1.
Moreover, the Red Army currently has 11 Medium Tank Divisions, of which 5 are Guards Tank Divisions with 2 Tank Regiments each. We also have one Heavy Tank Guards Division with KV-1's and 10 Cavalry Divisions with T-60 Light Tanks, as well as 15 Motorised Divisions. All of these formations are some way behind the border, with most not being visible on the map above.
To add to the problems we face, a new type of medium Panzer has been spotted, and is appearing in ever greater numbers:
A picture taken over the border of a Panzerkampfwagen IV. They look somewhat more threatening than the Pzkpw IIIs previously spotted, especially considering the Red Army is still using improved BT-7 variants for it's regular Tank Regiments.
While this wasn't discussed during the Red Army meetings, the VVS has been moving thousands of Aeroplanes to Air Bases near the German border, and when we were boarding the Lt. General's Li-2, at Lwow Air Base early this morning, we noted the presence of hundreds of shiny LaGG-3 Fighters while Air Lt. General Astakhov saw us onto the aeroplane. At Minsk Air Base, we were greeted by Air Lt. General Golovanov, a fellow winter war veteran, and the Li-2 was parked alongside combat-ready Yak-4 bombers.
Considering the German reinforcements on the border, the improving weather, and the fact that the Axis wars in the Balkans are nearly wrapped up, I do believe we're inevitably headed to war, very probably around mid 1941. At least the Red Army seems capable of holding it's own, especially if we consider the numbers deployed...however... the recent experience with those Finnish partisans and the War games have rattled at least some of the top brass though.
I just hope that you won't have to face the Japanese soon, as I do realise that the line is quite a bit thinner over there. All the best,
Nikolaj Fjodorovich Vatutin
Maj. General, commander of 3. Tyazhelaya Tankovaya Gvardeskaya Diviziya and your dear brother.
For those who like that sort of thing... here is a legendary tribute song to the VDV by Alex Buinov...
VDV Russian Airborne Song with ENGLISH SUBTITLES - YouTube
Our paratroopers haven't quite reached that level of awesome yet...
edit: there was a small mistake in the initial OOB schematic... 1ya Armiya reports to 2nd Army Group and not to Moskva HQ directly. It has now been rectified.
