No, it isn't. It's in fact a most-widely known figure. Check this page, for instance. It oscillates between 3.5 and 5.5 million men during the 1950 - 1990 period.ljadw wrote:This is an exaggerated figure .
Regards,
KDF
No, it isn't. It's in fact a most-widely known figure. Check this page, for instance. It oscillates between 3.5 and 5.5 million men during the 1950 - 1990 period.ljadw wrote:This is an exaggerated figure .
It is extremely unlikely that Timoshenko and Zhukov would have risked their necks by preparing a detailed plan for a first strike against the German forces in Poland and against Romania unless they had previously received Stalin's approval for such action.There is no proof that the plan from Zhukov/Timoshenko was ordered by Stalin .
NO : they were not unsaustainable in peacetime : YOU said that during the Cold War the Soviets maintained 4/5 million men under the arms : during 40 years,thus ,what was possible during the Cold War was also possible in 1941 and afterwards .KDF33 wrote:They're not CIA figures, they're Soviet figures. Hell, one of the sources is a report from Zhukov to the Central Committee. Did you even click the link?
Besides, the only time the Soviet Armed Forces fell around 3.5 million was during the early 1960s. By decade, Soviet military strength looks like this:
1950s: 5 million +
1960s: 3.5 - 4 million
1970s: 4 million +
1980s: 5 million
For the sake of accuracy I should have said that the Soviets maintained 4 - 5 million men under arms during the Cold War. Which changes nothing to my initial argument: that the large forces the USSR fielded before Barbarossa weren't unsustainable in peacetime.
Regards,
KDF
Do you even follow the argument? I have been arguing for the last 3 or 4 posts precisely this: that the Soviet military establishment of 1941 WAS sustainable in peacetime.ljadw wrote:NO : they were not unsaustainable in peacetime : YOU said that during the Cold War the Soviets maintained 4/5 million men under the arms : during 40 years,thus ,what was possible during the Cold War was also possible in 1941 and afterwards .
How do we know that there were no such staff plans?there is a difference between a plan and a proposal. It is likely that Zhukov did suggest a preemptive strike as a way to shake Stalin out of his blindness, but there were no actual staff plans for such an attack
William Odon writes on P 39 from "the Collapse of the Soviet Military " that between 1945 and 1948 the Soviet Forces were reduced to ca 2.8 million .KDF33 wrote:No, it isn't. It's in fact a most-widely known figure. Check this page, for instance. It oscillates between 3.5 and 5.5 million men during the 1950 - 1990 period.ljadw wrote:This is an exaggerated figure .
Regards,
KDF