Did Hitler & The 3rd Reich Save Western Europe?

[K. A. Pital]

Doesn't show as available on every try. Interesting.

Thanks. Had a look. "Field bunkers" made from ground and wood are non-permanent field fortifications and they don't need any concrete. The data on the concrete fortifications, though, is nice to have. It seems that the data's pretty decisive on the fact that Germans hardly built anything permanent and heavy along the new border, concrete fortifications number in dozens. Sort of makes sense, they decided to invade quite early.

The Soviets saw that on the German side "Train lines with materials for construction of fortifications are being sent to the border" as well. What does it prove (except for the Soviets hiding their military concentration in the area from the Germans)?

It doesn't prove much except Soviet forces being unconcentrated. And basically since they weren't concentrated the German attack was so successful.

What are the distance figures for the older FR's, BTW?

Offhand, for Polotsk it was round 4 km.

And fortification types? Wall thickness, that is.

Stalin Line - wall thickness for the Kingisepp FR typical concrete bunker - 1,2m, internal walls 86-102 cm, two-level bunkers had walls 1,5m thick and 1,4 m thick internal walls. Molotov Line - wall thickness 1,5-1,8m, internal walls up to 2,5m.

From the memoirs, we don't see that taken seriously. If you need to force the locks open due to the keys being lost, it is difficult to believe someone cared to put in new machineguns.

It is rather stupid to assume that the situation has been uniform across the entire fortification complex. If someone lost bunker keys somewhere, how does that prevent new machineguns being put in place in another bunker? Partial deactivation of the Stalin line is actually well explainable given that it was so damn far from the border now; what is unexplainable from a point of view which only considers the possibility of offensive victory is the partial reactivation executed by Zhukov before the war since April until June. If you expect to simply attack and win you don't expect Germans to be anywhere near these FRs at all.

According to Suvorov, in 1941 Stalin was already sending prisoners into the army. Plenty of them were working near the border on bridges and roads.

I'd like to see NKVD documents that specify available and sent manpower volumes. I mean... what's "plenty"? Where's any indication that convicts were working in sizeable numbers in newly captured territory?

My point exactly. ... Now, please calculate how long you need to use up 150 000 pilots (after all, other aircraft personnel was being trained as well).

You don't realize that 150 000 flight school graduates don't really equal 150 000 pilots, right? The staff of the VVS (the entire staff) in 1941 was 11,5 thousand men (pilots, ground crews, technicians, etc.). The entire GVF staff was 42 thousand, of them more than 20 in airplane maintenance and exploitation. So the civilian airfleet was bigger than the Soviet air force, manpower-wise.

I believe we already discussed the fact that in 1941, the Soviets were printing Russian/German phrasebooks for regular troopers since the end of May

Sure. Just like with Sweden for example. Though of course Germany as a greater threat was given priority and consideration.

The only difference I see is the lack of signatures. For all we know, Stalin could have simply ordered to carry it out without a signature. Or there could have been several plans, with that particular one being rejected... doesn't mean the one accepted was different in principle.

Actually no signatures mean that documents mean jack and shit. McCollum memo for example is considered a valid historical document but since it wasn't really accepted (there's no signatures of a high enough level to consider that the recommendations formed a state strategy), the "Roosevelt provoked Japan into war" idea is quite ambigious.

Who said they Soviets expected them to be unconcentrated in such a case? .. Meaning the Soviets were developing contingencies for such an occasion in advance. ... Win time to concentrate forces for an attack on the main direction. The forces for defense are mostly already there. ... He seems to state that a defense prepared in peace time doesn't need to take into account the parts of gathering under enemy fire. Not sure how much crap it is (it depends on circumstances). Of course, considering there is "no scientifically based theory of defense" and it is of secondary importance, certain shortcomings can be expected.

Read the December 1940 report carefully and you'll see that "concentration" is expected to occur after not concentrated forces somehow withstand the attack using fortifications as a base defense line. Concrete bunkers aren't contingencies, they're built to last. Field fortifications made from wood and ground, on the other hand, are contingencies indeed. I'm quite sure it's crap. Actually like most of the Soviet shapkozakidatelstvo. Sad but true.

Also, the June directives contain no mention of evacuating factories... and even in May, it never went beyond developing plans (where are the actual preparations? No order for that. Were they to start preparing under enemy fire?).

Problems arose due to the lack of evacuation plans for newly conquered lands. Old territories could be evacuated according to the 1938 evac. plan.

Details, please.

You are welcome: http://militera.lib.ru/h/kymanev_ga2/06.html

Расскажу еще об одном очень важном правительственном решении, принятом по инициативе Сталина. Как известно, до войны было развернуто строительство Куйбышевской ГЭС. На ее сооружении работало примерно 100 тыс. человек. И вот где-то в середине 1940 г. Сталин вызвал Андрея Андреевича Андреева – секретаря ЦК ВКП(б) по кадрам, наркома внутренних дел СССР Лаврентия Берия и меня. (Я тогда уже был заместителем Председателя Совнаркома СССР.) Сталин неожиданно для нас предложил: «Давайте, мы пока свернем строительство Куйбышевской гидроэлектростанции и всю эту мощнейшую организацию направим на создание авиационных заводов в районе Куйбышева». Это решение впоследствии, в начале войны, сыграло громадную роль в обеспечении производства боевых самолетов. В октябре 1941 г. по поручению Государственного Комитета Обороны я летал в Куйбышев для того, чтобы проверить, как подготовлены там необходимые здания для дипломатического корпуса, который был туда эвакуирован из Москвы, а также здания для размещения правительственных органов. Побывал и на строительстве одного Куйбышевского авиационного завода. И что я обнаружил: большая часть корпусов уже готова и там устанавливается оборудование, станки, агрегаты прибывших с западной части страны авиационных заводов. Трудно поверить, но факт остается фактом: в конце 1941 г. куйбышевские авиазаводы уже наладили массовый выпуск самолетов. Так что названное мною решение, принятое за полгода до начала войны, оказалось весьма своевременным и дальновидным. [126]

Хочу указать, наконец, и на такой факт, свидетельствовавший о подготовке страны к военным испытаниям. Это создание дублеров оборонных предприятий и научно-исследовательских институтов на Востоке страны. Решение об этом было принято незадолго до Великой Отечественной войны и нашло отражение в материалах XVIII съезда ВКП(б) и XVIII партийной конференции. На Урале и за Уралом стали создавать и развертывать новую угольно-металлургическую базу СССР. Закладывались заводы-дублеры тех предприятий, которые имелись в Западно-Европейской части СССР, а также соответствующие институты: и авиационные, и по вооружению, и по боеприпасам...

To the point of using fake memoirs to disprove it?

All memoirs could be doubted as fakes, actually. Not sure what your point is. Rezun often refers to memoirs of Zhukov, while you seem to consider them a fake?

I am afraid I don't understand this argument. Mind elaborating?

That is quite simple. The theory is falsified by observation. If no observation may falsify the theory, then that theory is not scientific. For example, if a fact of humans and dinosaurs coexisting is discovered, that falsifies the current timeframe accepted in the theory of evolution and would throw a huge part of science into disarray.

I am asking; do all the historians have access to the same documents, or are the results still non-repeatable?

The results are quite repeatable actually. Documents are being opened (most of them). Reclassification is a rare phenomena and I've yet to see any proof that it seriously impacts the state of research right now.

Figures for after the war GDP and cost estimates, please. And are you mixing up millions and billions? Because hesitating to spend less than a thousandth of GDP doesn't sound like Stalin.

1. Not mixing up anything. Миллион and миллиард can't be easily mixed. 2. Palace of the Soviets encountered engineering problems which are a lot more difficult to solve than money. Same as Soviet Union-class battleships actually, which encountered problems with steel quality.

Where does Suvorov state there is something sinister in simply stopping the building? No, cutting down what's there for the industry needs is quite natural. Suvorov addresses the fact that after the war, Stalin several times attempted to restart it, and abandoned it each time.

I guess Stalin wanted to restart construction but challenges piled on, until finally the whole idea died with JVS. It doesn't really relate to war and war plans. I mean... that's so tangential, right?

It cannot be legalized because a commander of the Leningrad District doesn't have the authority to shoot people in Moscow or Ural.

Maybe not. But then again, it was written under stress.

Well, there is plenty of arguing about whether it was necessary to assault Berlin. As for Leningrad, please remember that:

I know. I'm just saying it still makes perfect sense. The USSR defeated Germany totally and Japan's forces in Manchuria. That's a big accomplishment and Zhukov was part of it. A rather important one.

I would say that the article is full of both good ideas and bullshit, and there is still no evidence of any ideas being his (He does acknowledge familiarity with Triandafillov's works, after all - I am yet to see evidence of him doing his own research).

Does it really matter if the ideas were his or he took good ideas from the West? Seems to be hairsplitting. Military advancement requires borrowing as much as original research not to fall behind. Just look how much the USSR took from the Germans during 42-43.

He handled research in that area for 9 years. Results... just about zero. Then there is Grabin telling how he tried explaining to the Marshal you can't replace all the artillery with recoilless. Tukhachevsky said "You don't understand you're slowing down the development of artillery". A trekkie through and through...

Links? And I'm not sure what's bad about Star Trek

Tukhachevsky supported a good idea? Good. Did he support ONLY good ideas? Definitely not.

So who did then? I mean, name a better theorist who supported only good ideas?

Suvorov has a chapter on that, BTW

Not sure I care. I mean, ascribing false achievements isn't something which belittles real ones.

So, Hitler said something in public. Was it real or a boast? Why should the other states believe that?

Because the USSR was crazy paranoid?

So why all the arguing about whether it's 70 or 100?

Cause not looking into the uh, manual means the researcher has an agenda to push instead of just working with raw real data.

So? Was there need for positioning in 1939? Was there a threat?

I sort of lost the line here, sorry.

Yeah, about ten percent at the time. Just how much better were they to win against 50/1 odds?

More like 20% I think, but 50 to 1? Seriously? The USSR didn't have fifty thousand tanks. And considering its forces were spread thin, not that it really mattered either.

They say what was supposed to be done. But was it enforced? Was it taken seriously (after all, there is evidence it wasn't the case with the covering plans). Were any weapons being installed in the bunkers?

Of course. I mean, there were reports on the state of construction. And then there's also the history of construction, I think it is also available in English. Just google "Molotov line USSR fortification".

Who? Tyulenev? Let's see. Half of his staff is there already. On day one of the war, when no one understands what's going on, he's assigned to command a front and goes without a hitch. Are you trying to convince me it was done without preliminary work? No, looks like a long standing decision finalized.

Rezun's pick example was Konev. He didn't move. Rezun said "all". You can't really use the "all" qualifier if hardly anyone had been moved by the time, no?

[Omeganian]

Doesn't show as available on every try. Interesting.

Thanks. Had a look. "Field bunkers" made from ground and wood are non-permanent field fortifications and they don't need any concrete. The data on the concrete fortifications, though, is nice to have. It seems that the data's pretty decisive on the fact that Germans hardly built anything permanent and heavy along the new border, concrete fortifications number in dozens. Sort of makes sense, they decided to invade quite early.

170 concrete bunkers and 20 times that field bunkers. Not a great deal of resources, but still far from the complete idleness you claimed.

The Soviets saw that on the German side "Train lines with materials for construction of fortifications are being sent to the border" as well. What does it prove (except for the Soviets hiding their military concentration in the area from the Germans)?

It doesn't prove much except Soviet forces being unconcentrated. And basically since they weren't concentrated the German attack was so successful.

You are assuming the guest was shown everything. After all, Suvorov states that the Soviets built defenses in plain sight to show the enemy they intend to defend, and hid the gathering forces. What Krebs saw fits that perfectly.

And fortification types? Wall thickness, that is.

Stalin Line - wall thickness for the Kingisepp FR typical concrete bunker - 1,2m, internal walls 86-102 cm, two-level bunkers had walls 1,5m thick and 1,4 m thick internal walls. Molotov Line - wall thickness 1,5-1,8m, internal walls up to 2,5m.

I was asking about the second wave.

From the memoirs, we don't see that taken seriously. If you need to force the locks open due to the keys being lost, it is difficult to believe someone cared to put in new machineguns.

It is rather stupid to assume that the situation has been uniform across the entire fortification complex. If someone lost bunker keys somewhere, how does that prevent new machineguns being put in place in another bunker? Partial deactivation of the Stalin line is actually well explainable given that it was so damn far from the border now; what is unexplainable from a point of view which only considers the possibility of offensive victory is the partial reactivation executed by Zhukov before the war since April until June. If you expect to simply attack and win you don't expect Germans to be anywhere near these FRs at all.

Deception purposes.

According to Suvorov, in 1941 Stalin was already sending prisoners into the army. Plenty of them were working near the border on bridges and roads.

I'd like to see NKVD documents that specify available and sent manpower volumes. I mean... what's "plenty"? Where's any indication that convicts were working in sizeable numbers in newly captured territory?

Well, NKVD building oranizations are certainly mentioned. I am not sure how open these archives are

My point exactly. ... Now, please calculate how long you need to use up 150 000 pilots (after all, other aircraft personnel was being trained as well).

You don't realize that 150 000 flight school graduates don't really equal 150 000 pilots, right? The staff of the VVS (the entire staff) in 1941 was 11,5 thousand men (pilots, ground crews, technicians, etc.). The entire GVF staff was 42 thousand, of them more than 20 in airplane maintenance and exploitation. So the civilian airfleet was bigger than the Soviet air force, manpower-wise.

http://www.teatrskazka.com/Raznoe/BiChS ... _2_20.html

I believe we already discussed the fact that in 1941, the Soviets were printing Russian/German phrasebooks for regular troopers since the end of May

Sure. Just like with Sweden for example. Though of course Germany as a greater threat was given priority and consideration.

Then what is the significance of Finnish language lessons?

Also, the phrasebook was composed a year before printing. For a year, it was lying in safes, and suddenly, in the end of May, they decide to print it... something is expected.

The only difference I see is the lack of signatures. For all we know, Stalin could have simply ordered to carry it out without a signature. Or there could have been several plans, with that particular one being rejected... doesn't mean the one accepted was different in principle.

Actually no signatures mean that documents mean jack and shit. McCollum memo for example is considered a valid historical document but since it wasn't really accepted (there's no signatures of a high enough level to consider that the recommendations formed a state strategy), the "Roosevelt provoked Japan into war" idea is quite ambigious.

To me, it looks like they were created at a high enough level.

Suvorov also states that around the time the plan was published and his books became known, a couple of people "suddenly remembered" Zhukov telling them how the plan was rejected... a cheaply made lie if anyone ever saw one.

Who said they Soviets expected them to be unconcentrated in such a case? .. Meaning the Soviets were developing contingencies for such an occasion in advance. ... Win time to concentrate forces for an attack on the main direction. The forces for defense are mostly already there. ... He seems to state that a defense prepared in peace time doesn't need to take into account the parts of gathering under enemy fire. Not sure how much crap it is (it depends on circumstances). Of course, considering there is "no scientifically based theory of defense" and it is of secondary importance, certain shortcomings can be expected.

Read the December 1940 report carefully and you'll see that "concentration" is expected to occur after not concentrated forces somehow withstand the attack using fortifications as a base defense line. Concrete bunkers aren't contingencies, they're built to last. Field fortifications made from wood and ground, on the other hand, are contingencies indeed. I'm quite sure it's crap. Actually like most of the Soviet shapkozakidatelstvo. Sad but true.

I see that the defense as described there is a hundred km deep, and the situation on the border in summer 1941 looked nothing like what defense, according to the speech, is supposed to be. Everything else is secondary.

Also, the June directives contain no mention of evacuating factories... and even in May, it never went beyond developing plans (where are the actual preparations? No order for that. Were they to start preparing under enemy fire?).

Problems arose due to the lack of evacuation plans for newly conquered lands. Old territories could be evacuated according to the 1938 evac. plan.

Just how many factories were built there since then, BTW?

Details, please.

You are welcome: http://militera.lib.ru/h/kymanev_ga2/06.html

Расскажу еще об одном очень важном правительственном решении, принятом по инициативе Сталина. Как известно, до войны было развернуто строительство Куйбышевской ГЭС. На ее сооружении работало примерно 100 тыс. человек. И вот где-то в середине 1940 г. Сталин вызвал Андрея Андреевича Андреева – секретаря ЦК ВКП(б) по кадрам, наркома внутренних дел СССР Лаврентия Берия и меня. (Я тогда уже был заместителем Председателя Совнаркома СССР.) Сталин неожиданно для нас предложил: «Давайте, мы пока свернем строительство Куйбышевской гидроэлектростанции и всю эту мощнейшую организацию направим на создание авиационных заводов в районе Куйбышева». Это решение впоследствии, в начале войны, сыграло громадную роль в обеспечении производства боевых самолетов. В октябре 1941 г. по поручению Государственного Комитета Обороны я летал в Куйбышев для того, чтобы проверить, как подготовлены там необходимые здания для дипломатического корпуса, который был туда эвакуирован из Москвы, а также здания для размещения правительственных органов. Побывал и на строительстве одного Куйбышевского авиационного завода. И что я обнаружил: большая часть корпусов уже готова и там устанавливается оборудование, станки, агрегаты прибывших с западной части страны авиационных заводов. Трудно поверить, но факт остается фактом: в конце 1941 г. куйбышевские авиазаводы уже наладили массовый выпуск самолетов. Так что названное мною решение, принятое за полгода до начала войны, оказалось весьма своевременным и дальновидным. [126]

Хочу указать, наконец, и на такой факт, свидетельствовавший о подготовке страны к военным испытаниям. Это создание дублеров оборонных предприятий и научно-исследовательских институтов на Востоке страны. Решение об этом было принято незадолго до Великой Отечественной войны и нашло отражение в материалах XVIII съезда ВКП(б) и XVIII партийной конференции. На Урале и за Уралом стали создавать и развертывать новую угольно-металлургическую базу СССР. Закладывались заводы-дублеры тех предприятий, которые имелись в Западно-Европейской части СССР, а также соответствующие институты: и авиационные, и по вооружению, и по боеприпасам...

Not long before the Great Patriotic War... found a reflection in the material of the XVIIIth Congress. With an over two years gap, I wouldn't hurry about drawing connections. Could just as easily be a completely unrelated expansion of industry with no evacuation in mind.

To the point of using fake memoirs to disprove it?

All memoirs could be doubted as fakes, actually. Not sure what your point is. Rezun often refers to memoirs of Zhukov, while you seem to consider them a fake?

His opinion on that changed over time. In any case, he only ever used the first edition. However, around the time The Last Republic came out, suddenly, an obscure urban legend on the subject was inserted into Zhukov's memoirs, and Suvorov's opponents started using it.

BTW, Suvorov, in addition to the horse and the Palace issue, also mentions Stalin's extremely depressed mood in the aftermath of the victory. Did anyone ever dedicate as much attention to that point?

I am afraid I don't understand this argument. Mind elaborating?

That is quite simple. The theory is falsified by observation. If no observation may falsify the theory, then that theory is not scientific. For example, if a fact of humans and dinosaurs coexisting is discovered, that falsifies the current timeframe accepted in the theory of evolution and would throw a huge part of science into disarray.

I think the word is "refutable". Suvorov states that a defensive Soviet plan from 1941 can do the same to his theory. It is yet to be presented.

It cannot be legalized because a commander of the Leningrad District doesn't have the authority to shoot people in Moscow or Ural.

Maybe not. But then again, it was written under stress.

What reason would there be to be that stressed?

Well, there is plenty of arguing about whether it was necessary to assault Berlin. As for Leningrad, please remember that:

I know. I'm just saying it still makes perfect sense. The USSR defeated Germany totally and Japan's forces in Manchuria. That's a big accomplishment and Zhukov was part of it. A rather important one.

See part 7.

I would say that the article is full of both good ideas and bullshit, and there is still no evidence of any ideas being his (He does acknowledge familiarity with Triandafillov's works, after all - I am yet to see evidence of him doing his own research).

Does it really matter if the ideas were his or he took good ideas from the West? Seems to be hairsplitting. Military advancement requires borrowing as much as original research not to fall behind. Just look how much the USSR took from the Germans during 42-43.

No doubt. But should a man be praised as a researcher in such a case? Did he actually work on developing the borrowed ideas, or was that also done by others? I would say there isn't enough data to show him to be a researcher, but the amount of moronic ideas he supported is enough to suspect incompetence.

He handled research in that area for 9 years. Results... just about zero. Then there is Grabin telling how he tried explaining to the Marshal you can't replace all the artillery with recoilless. Tukhachevsky said "You don't understand you're slowing down the development of artillery". A trekkie through and through...

Links?

http://militera.lib.ru/memo/russian/grabin/03.html

And I'm not sure what's bad about Star Trek

I mean it's like the trekkie arguments Wong gives - newer tech, sounds cool, so it must be better. And an obsession with non specialized weapons.

Tukhachevsky supported a good idea? Good. Did he support ONLY good ideas? Definitely not.

So who did then? I mean, name a better theorist who supported only good ideas?

Correcting that to LARGELY.

Suvorov has a chapter on that, BTW

Not sure I care. I mean, ascribing false achievements isn't something which belittles real ones.

The problem is; it makes it difficult to find the real ones. Or even to see if they exist. At the very least, his achievements are highly exaggerated.

So why all the arguing about whether it's 70 or 100?

Cause not looking into the uh, manual means the researcher has an agenda to push instead of just working with raw real data.

He did look into the manual (he states as much). And manuals of other countries. They give different data. I agree that research is problematic when selecting one figure or the other is.

So? Was there need for positioning in 1939? Was there a threat?

I sort of lost the line here, sorry.

I believe you are the one who started this line. Something about the Soviet tanks not being properly positioned in 1939. Was there any threat back then?

Yeah, about ten percent at the time. Just how much better were they to win against 50/1 odds?

More like 20% I think, but 50 to 1? Seriously? The USSR didn't have fifty thousand tanks. And considering its forces were spread thin, not that it really mattered either.

309 out of 2977 in 1939 (at least, that's what invaded Poland). Against the number of BT+T-26... around 50/1, like I said.

They say what was supposed to be done. But was it enforced? Was it taken seriously (after all, there is evidence it wasn't the case with the covering plans). Were any weapons being installed in the bunkers?

Of course. I mean, there were reports on the state of construction. And then there's also the history of construction, I think it is also available in English. Just google "Molotov line USSR fortification".

I was asking about the Stalin Line rearming.

Who? Tyulenev? Let's see. Half of his staff is there already. On day one of the war, when no one understands what's going on, he's assigned to command a front and goes without a hitch. Are you trying to convince me it was done without preliminary work? No, looks like a long standing decision finalized.

Rezun's pick example was Konev. He didn't move. Rezun said "all". You can't really use the "all" qualifier if hardly anyone had been moved by the time, no?

Konev was a commander of an army which went west. Maybe he didn't start the movement himself yet. So what? Does the statement that someone is "going" always mean that someone is on his way and moving? Well, maybe for you, but Rezun is a long married man.

[K. A. Pital]

170 concrete bunkers and 20 times that field bunkers. Not a great deal of resources, but still far from the complete idleness you claimed.

I did not claim complete idleness, but comparing 170 concrete bunkers to 880 newly armed concrete bunkers and around 2300 "exploitation ready" fortifications with rapidly relocated weapons from old forts is a bit strange. More than 4000 concrete bunkers - stuff that's meant to stay there forever - were in construction. Kind of useless and stupid if you expect your border to rapidly expand yet again in a few years.

You are assuming the guest was shown everything. After all, Suvorov states that the Soviets built defenses in plain sight to show the enemy they intend to defend, and hid the gathering forces. What Krebs saw fits that perfectly.

Constructing thousands of permanent, reinforced-concrete fortifications just as a ruse is monumentally fucking stupid. Germans could trick the USSR without that and their forces were far more tightly packed along the border than anything the USSR could muster.

Stalin Line - wall thickness for the Kingisepp FR typical concrete bunker - 1,2m, internal walls 86-102 cm, two-level bunkers had walls 1,5m thick and 1,4 m thick internal walls. Molotov Line - wall thickness 1,5-1,8m, internal walls up to 2,5m.

I was asking about the second wave.

I know that Kamenets-Podolsky FR had walls up to 1,5 m thick and 12 out of its 159 fortifications were new-project DOT-4 type reinforced concrete bunkers. That was of course an improvement over old FRs like the Minsk or Kingisepp ones.

Deception purposes.

That's your "reply"? SeriouslY? Haphazardly assigning manpower to construction of thousands of new bunkers, reactivating old defence emplacements which had been deactivated right after new territories have been occupied... Unless you're seriously afraid of attack this hardly makes much sense. Germans didn't have any intel on the state of the Stalin line and couldn't really observe it from the border. The rather chaotic situation on the fortifications is really telling.

Well, NKVD building oranizations are certainly mentioned. I am not sure how open these archives are.

Why don't you just say that you're not really even interested in digging this data up? I mean, it doesn't really seem that you read anything on the matter. You're asking me about thickness of bunker walls, the number of concrete bunkers, the state of the construction when all of this is easily accessible. I'm serving as your google. I don't like this really.

http://www.teatrskazka.com/Raznoe/BiChS ... _2_20.html

Bleh, mixed up the numbers. I guess that was only for the crews (I looked it up in casually in Meltukhov, duh, mea culpa). And yeah, I should've noticed how stupid that is, having more planes than people. But the proportion of 3900 flight crew in the GVF to 12300 flight crew isn't too exciting for the "150000 PILOT HORDE" either. This certainly means that flight school graduates were used as replacements and auxiliary personnel for both GVF and VVS RKKA. And I fail to see what would really indicate anything else.

Then what is the significance of Finnish language lessons? Also, the phrasebook was composed a year before printing. For a year, it was lying in safes, and suddenly, in the end of May, they decide to print it... something is expected.

There's really no actual confirmation it existed or was printed in 1940. Though not sure what you want to prove again - that the USSR started catching the wind that peace on teh western border wouldn't last for long?

To me, it looks like they were created at a high enough level.

They don't really specify anything either except a putative course of action. And of course the McCollum memo is also created on a high level, but like I said, no signatures... One could speculate, but that would be just a waste of time, really.

Suvorov also states that around the time the plan was published and his books became known, a couple of people "suddenly remembered" Zhukov telling them how the plan was rejected... a cheaply made lie if anyone ever saw one.

Who cares about what Rezun says? Really? I mean... really? Who "suddenly remembered" anything from 1941?

I see that the defense as described there is a hundred km deep, and the situation on the border in summer 1941 looked nothing like what defense, according to the speech, is supposed to be. Everything else is secondary.

It looks exactly as it should per the 1940 conference - a three-echelon deep force deployment, with forces loosely centered around massive fortifications. However, none of the forces are concentrated for attack. As for defense, if Tyulenev believed that forces in a pre-concentration phase could adequately repel enemy attacks using fixed defense lines as an anchor, then this means they were "sort of" ready, heh.

Just how many factories were built there since then, BTW?

In the new occupied territories? In Lithuania there were 23, for example. Around another 10 were under construction in 1941, when war struck.

Not long before the Great Patriotic War... found a reflection in the material of the XVIIIth Congress. With an over two years gap, I wouldn't hurry about drawing connections. Could just as easily be a completely unrelated expansion of industry with no evacuation in mind.

Not really. Yurginsky Machine Construction Plant was being built in 1940, for example, and construction even intensified after the December 1940 conference (I guess that's how "sure" the USSR was in its defences after seeing what Hitler did to France).

His opinion on that changed over time. In any case, he only ever used the first edition. However, around the time The Last Republic came out, suddenly, an obscure urban legend on the subject was inserted into Zhukov's memoirs, and Suvorov's opponents started using it.

Zhukov's memoirs and all staff memoirs were heavily edited in Soviet times. So unless there's a real objection, I'm not sure even where this goes. I wasn't using some "obscure urban legend" and I certainly rarely rely on memoirs preferring stuff like diaries, reports and notes if they are available. If that has no relation to me or my argument, I'd rather not have to waddle through memoirs for unclear reasons.

BTW, Suvorov, in addition to the horse and the Palace issue, also mentions Stalin's extremely depressed mood in the aftermath of the victory. Did anyone ever dedicate as much attention to that point?

No. Understandably. The USSR was ravaged after the war. The industrial losses in the West were enormous. Even from a pure Hearts of Iron logic the economic consequences for the USSR (like the loss of much of Stalin-era industrial worker housing funds for example) were crushing. They were crushing to such an extent that the USSR had to bleed East Germany dry with reparations until even the satellite government that is basically definition of "puppet" asked for mercy.

I think the word is "refutable". Suvorov states that a defensive Soviet plan from 1941 can do the same to his theory. It is yet to be presented.

I am not sure there can be a plan if the doctrine presumes that enemy can be repelled by unconcentrated forces along a fixed defense line and then crushed in a massive offense "on his own territory by a mighty strike". However, the construction of the Molotov line, the partial reactivation of the Stalin line (including the existence of never-deactivated portions) and the construction of double factories and other evacuation-related considerations certainly don't fit into a theory which thinks the USSR didn't want a flexibility of options and was just planning to attack. Moreover, the border-cover plans are defense plans considering the overall strategy of "repel, counterattack, deeply penetrate and destroy".

What reason would there be to be that stressed?

Germany beating up the USSR like Rocky Balboa?

See part 7

Build up an idiotic strawman (Zhukov never suffered any defeats), knock it down and gleefuly continue to preach. Not sure what's that even supposed to prove. Zhukov being an average commander? The June 1941 note is especially funny considering that neither Stalin nor Zhukov made a sound decision which could've avoided the giant Kiev cauldron. Both of them planned a retreat too short to avoid the German pincers.

No doubt. But should a man be praised as a researcher in such a case? Did he actually work on developing the borrowed ideas, or was that also done by others? I would say there isn't enough data to show him to be a researcher, but the amount of moronic ideas he supported is enough to suspect incompetence.

That's simply not true. The amount of false ideas is certainly not greater than with other theorists of the time. And he certainly developed borrowed ideas. Like I said, he spent a lot of time pondering on how the airplanes will behave in the future. Not just blandly repeat Douhet but analyze certain aspects (advance of jets; better armour, impact of altitude).

http://militera.lib.ru/memo/russian/grabin/03.html

That does look stupid. And thanks, that's an interesting read.

I mean it's like the trekkie arguments Wong gives - newer tech, sounds cool, so it must be better. And an obsession with non specialized weapons.

Oh. I guess. Haven't been reading that section for a while. Trek problem isn't the series, it's the obsessive side of the STvSW "tech" debate.

Correcting that to LARGELY.

So who then? I mean in the USSR of course.

The problem is; it makes it difficult to find the real ones. Or even to see if they exist. At the very least, his achievements are highly exaggerated.

It seems that the USSR was full of people whose real achievements were exaggerated. Stalin, Tukhachevsky, Zhukov, etc. Propaganda, duh.

He did look into the manual (he states as much). And manuals of other countries. They give different data. I agree that research is problematic when selecting one figure or the other is.

No it's not problematic at all. The USSR used the BTs and the USSR was the only authority to state the actual numbers. Other nations exploited no BTs. Figures for Christie's machines are a separate matter, which is not related to serial-production BTs. So there you go.

I believe you are the one who started this line. Something about the Soviet tanks not being properly positioned in 1939. Was there any threat back then?

You mean in the war with Finland?

309 out of 2977 in 1939 (at least, that's what invaded Poland). Against the number of BT+T-26... around 50/1, like I said.

Why are you using 1939 numbers instead of June 1941 ones? Makes no sense. And then in this case it hardly even makes sense for the USSR to wait until 1941. In 1939 the RKKA is superior to the Wehrmacht and attacking Germany is perfectly reasonable, all forces are poised for offensive. I guess it was... a bit problematic, heh. In 1940 Hitler is occupied with France. Backstab him and it's done.

I was asking about the Stalin Line rearming.

Those are actual reports which I quoted about reactivation and re-armament. I'm not sure what else you need. Some parts were never shut down at all, even.

Konev was a commander of an army which went west. Maybe he didn't start the movement himself yet. So what? Does the statement that someone is "going" always mean that someone is on his way and moving? Well, maybe for you, but Rezun is a long married man.

A statement 'leaving all internal districts without command' is straightforward and untrue. That's all I need to know, thank you.

[crueldwarf]

Sorry for my bad english, but I want to share some info about comparsion of german and soviet tanks in 1941.
Most of my information comes from a new book "Порядок в танковых войсках?" ("Condition of armoured force?") based on archive studies by Dmitriy Shein and Andrey Ulanov

1. Quantity of german armor. Total and precise numbers of german tracked AFV are unknown for now.
3658 german and czech made tanks of various types.
252 Stug III assault guns
135 4.7 cm PanzerJager I tank destroyers (+20 command variants)
38 15 cm sIG Pz IB self-propelled infantry guns
88 4.7 cm PaK(t) PzKw 35R(f) tank destroyers
10-25 8.8 cm Flak 18 Selbstfahrlafete - self-propelled 88 mm AA gun.
>700 3.7 cm PaK auf Renault UE (f) - self-propelled 37 mm AT gun
Unknown number of Sd.Kfz 251 half-trucks armed with 37 mm AT or 20-37 mm AA guns.
~ 100 Renault FT-17 in Luftwaffe service for airfield defense.
Unknown number of polish 7TP tanks in Waffen SS service.
Unknown number of french H-39 and S-35 tanks in 211 tank battalion in Finland.

Total number of various tracked AFV: at least 4201 (and probably ~1000 or so more) without any AFV of satellite nations (Romania, Hungary, Finland, Slovakia).

2. Comparsion of soviet BT and T-26 tanks with german tanks:

Both T-26 and BT had 15 mm armor which can be penetrated by 37, 47 or 50 mm german tank or anti-tank guns from 800-1000 meters.
Modern research has shown than quality of standart soviet 45 mm AP round in 1941 was very poor and it can penetrate 30 mm of armor only from 300 meters or closer. So any Pz 38 (t), Pz III or IV (30-60 mm frontal armor, 30 mm side armor) were impervous for soviet 45mm anti-tank guns (or BT and T-26) on distances more than 300 meters.

3. "Invulnerability" of T-34 and KV tanks.

T-34 was protected by 40-45 mm sloped armor (45 mm at 60 degrees frontal hull, 40 mm at 40 degrees upper side hull. 45 mm at 0 degrees lower side hull; 45 mm turret armor).
KV was protected by 75 mm armor (75 mm sloped at 30 degrees frontal, 75 mm vertical at side hull)

Test results (from testing on Gorohovetsky poligon during october of 1942) of german 37 mm PaK-36 and 50 mm PaK 38 guns:
50 mm AP round: 45 mm armor penetrated from 1300 meters. 75 mm - from 700 meters a probable penetration, from 400 m - guarantied penetratio
37 mm AP round: 45 mm armor can be penetrated from 700 meters. With subcaliber (sabot or HVAP) round 75 mm of armor can be penetrated from 180 meters.

So both KV and T-34 can be destroyed by "door-knocker" at close distances.

4. Firepower advantage of T-34 and KV tanks.

On paper soviet 76.2 mm F-34 gun (or even older and weaker 76.2mm L-11) can penetrate armor of any german tank from 1 km or so.
But there is a catch - soviet tanks did not have any 76.2 mm AP rounds during summer of 1941. Only in one mechanized corps there was around 10 rounds per tank. This is because soviet armament industry for several years failed to start mass production of new 76.2 mm AP ammo.

So during summer of 1941 soviet tankers used old shrapnel rounds as makeshift anti-tank ammo. Such round can penetrate about 30-35 mm of armor from 300-400 meters.

[Omeganian]

170 concrete bunkers and 20 times that field bunkers. Not a great deal of resources, but still far from the complete idleness you claimed.

I did not claim complete idleness,

Actually, your initial statement on the subject said that exactly.

but comparing 170 concrete bunkers to 880 newly armed concrete bunkers and around 2300 "exploitation ready" fortifications with rapidly relocated weapons from old forts is a bit strange. More than 4000 concrete bunkers - stuff that's meant to stay there forever - were in construction. Kind of useless and stupid if you expect your border to rapidly expand yet again in a few years.

Well, look at how much Hitler was building on his western borders up until attacking France. And as for "useless and strange"... that condition seems to be fulfilled in any case, considering the defenses only covered 30% of the border.

Germans didn't have any intel on the state of the Stalin line and couldn't really observe it from the border.

So, according to you, Stalin was 100% sure Germany has no internal spy network in USSR? A source, please.

Well, NKVD building oranizations are certainly mentioned. I am not sure how open these archives are.

Why don't you just say that you're not really even interested in digging this data up? I mean, it doesn't really seem that you read anything on the matter. You're asking me about thickness of bunker walls, the number of concrete bunkers, the state of the construction when all of this is easily accessible. I'm serving as your google. I don't like this really.

Certainly plenty on the airfields:

http://www.memo.ru/history/NKVD/GULAG/r1/r1-2.htm

http://www.teatrskazka.com/Raznoe/BiChS ... _2_20.html

Bleh, mixed up the numbers. I guess that was only for the crews (I looked it up in casually in Meltukhov, duh, mea culpa). And yeah, I should've noticed how stupid that is, having more planes than people. But the proportion of 3900 flight crew in the GVF to 12300 flight crew isn't too exciting for the "150000 PILOT HORDE" either. This certainly means that flight school graduates were used as replacements and auxiliary personnel for both GVF and VVS RKKA. And I fail to see what would really indicate anything else.

These are military schools. And Osoaviakhim schools are remade into military flight schools. Why would that be done if the purposes are civilian?

Then what is the significance of Finnish language lessons? Also, the phrasebook was composed a year before printing. For a year, it was lying in safes, and suddenly, in the end of May, they decide to print it... something is expected.

There's really no actual confirmation it existed or was printed in 1940.

There are plenty of similar phrasebooks for other languages from 1940. Same composer. Same phrases.

Though not sure what you want to prove again - that the USSR started catching the wind that peace on teh western border wouldn't last for long?

What did you try to prove with your statement about Finnish lessons? Counterintelligence can use knowledge of the language in a defensive war to question a prisoner. However, the phrase "you drink first" is only useful on enemy territory.

To me, it looks like they were created at a high enough level.

They don't really specify anything either except a putative course of action. And of course the McCollum memo is also created on a high level, but like I said, no signatures... One could speculate, but that would be just a waste of time, really.

Zhukov had direct access to Stalin and knew what kind of action was expected from him. Did McCollum visit Roosevelt's office as often?

Suvorov also states that around the time the plan was published and his books became known, a couple of people "suddenly remembered" Zhukov telling them how the plan was rejected... a cheaply made lie if anyone ever saw one.

Who cares about what Rezun says? Really? I mean... really? Who "suddenly remembered" anything from 1941?

From around 1960, actually. Svetlishin and Anfilov are the names.

http://militera.lib.ru/research/suvorov11/09.html

http://militera.lib.ru/research/suvorov11/10.html

I see that the defense as described there is a hundred km deep, and the situation on the border in summer 1941 looked nothing like what defense, according to the speech, is supposed to be. Everything else is secondary.

It looks exactly as it should per the 1940 conference - a three-echelon deep force deployment, with forces loosely centered around massive fortifications.

15-35 km free space in front of the forces and the first defense lines, exhausting the enemy before launching your own attacks... yeah, right. Just as it should be.

Just how many factories were built there since then, BTW?

In the new occupied territories? In Lithuania there were 23, for example. Around another 10 were under construction in 1941, when war struck.

How many were built in the old territories since 1938? Plans and preparations need to be readjusted when that happens; were they?

Not long before the Great Patriotic War... found a reflection in the material of the XVIIIth Congress. With an over two years gap, I wouldn't hurry about drawing connections. Could just as easily be a completely unrelated expansion of industry with no evacuation in mind.

Not really. Yurginsky Machine Construction Plant was being built in 1940, for example, and construction even intensified after the December 1940 conference (I guess that's how "sure" the USSR was in its defences after seeing what Hitler did to France).

So? What does it prove?

His opinion on that changed over time. In any case, he only ever used the first edition. However, around the time The Last Republic came out, suddenly, an obscure urban legend on the subject was inserted into Zhukov's memoirs, and Suvorov's opponents started using it.

Zhukov's memoirs and all staff memoirs were heavily edited in Soviet times. So unless there's a real objection, I'm not sure even where this goes. I wasn't using some "obscure urban legend" and I certainly rarely rely on memoirs preferring stuff like diaries, reports and notes if they are available.

Suvorov also prefers that. The problem is, they're not always available. When he was working on the Icebreaker, even less was.

If that has no relation to me or my argument, I'd rather not have to waddle through memoirs for unclear reasons.

3 first chapters.

http://book-online.com.ua/read.php?book=2468&page=1

BTW, the first edition of the memoirs states that it was believed by the Soviets that the main forces of both sides will enter combat from the beginning. Later editions have it somewhat differently...

I think the word is "refutable". Suvorov states that a defensive Soviet plan from 1941 can do the same to his theory. It is yet to be presented.

I am not sure there can be a plan if the doctrine presumes that enemy can be repelled by unconcentrated forces along a fixed defense line and then crushed in a massive offense "on his own territory by a mighty strike".

The plans presume that the Soviets will be the first to act. Why else would the plans be executed because of an order rather than enemy action?

However, the construction of the Molotov line, the partial reactivation of the Stalin line (including the existence of never-deactivated portions) and the construction of double factories and other evacuation-related considerations certainly don't fit into a theory which thinks the USSR didn't want a flexibility of options and was just planning to attack. Moreover, the border-cover plans are defense plans considering the overall strategy of "repel, counterattack, deeply penetrate and destroy".

The defense wasn't discussed at above army level at all. A defense against a large attack wasn't considered.

As for the "repel" part, the January games show quite well how important that part was considered.

What reason would there be to be that stressed?

Germany beating up the USSR like Rocky Balboa?

If he was stressed, why were people arrested for messages that would have calmed him down? And why did he order constant attacks instead of defense?

See part 7

Build up an idiotic strawman (Zhukov never suffered any defeats), knock it down and gleefuly continue to preach. Not sure what's that even supposed to prove. Zhukov being an average commander? The June 1941 note is especially funny considering that neither Stalin nor Zhukov made a sound decision which could've avoided the giant Kiev cauldron. Both of them planned a retreat too short to avoid the German pincers.

I recommend you try reading the book. Yes, Suvorov does tend to overdo a bit on the knocking down. So what?

No doubt. But should a man be praised as a researcher in such a case? Did he actually work on developing the borrowed ideas, or was that also done by others? I would say there isn't enough data to show him to be a researcher, but the amount of moronic ideas he supported is enough to suspect incompetence.

That's simply not true. The amount of false ideas is certainly not greater than with other theorists of the time. And he certainly developed borrowed ideas. Like I said, he spent a lot of time pondering on how the airplanes will behave in the future. Not just blandly repeat Douhet but analyze certain aspects (advance of jets; better armour, impact of altitude).

Well, as Suvorov says, the other ideas could be written off as queerness... the problem is, with his insistence and the moronity of some of the ideas, queerness tended to grow into sabotage.

I believe you are the one who started this line. Something about the Soviet tanks not being properly positioned in 1939. Was there any threat back then?

You mean in the war with Finland?

No, it was about Germany. Now I see why thread necromancy is not welcome here.

309 out of 2977 in 1939 (at least, that's what invaded Poland). Against the number of BT+T-26... around 50/1, like I said.

Why are you using 1939 numbers instead of June 1941 ones? Makes no sense. And then in this case it hardly even makes sense for the USSR to wait until 1941. In 1939 the RKKA is superior to the Wehrmacht and attacking Germany is perfectly reasonable, all forces are poised for offensive. I guess it was... a bit problematic, heh. In 1940 Hitler is occupied with France. Backstab him and it's done.

Well, Suvorov states that in 1939 Stalin was waiting until Hitler will break up Europe a bit more. As for 1940 - yes, he said more than once Stalin missed the perfect opportunity.

Konev was a commander of an army which went west. Maybe he didn't start the movement himself yet. So what? Does the statement that someone is "going" always mean that someone is on his way and moving? Well, maybe for you, but Rezun is a long married man.

A statement 'leaving all internal districts without command' is straightforward and untrue. That's all I need to know, thank you.

Why untrue? Konev is in command of an army on the western border. So who commands the North-Caucasus district?

[Thanas]

Thread derail split to a place deserving its glory.