Hello Paul
I think your argument here oversteps quite considerably on one or two points.
I have no problem stating that the Red Army, for its part, was standing toe to toe with Germany, in virtually every aspect, by 1944 (and possibly even by the end of 1943).
Personally I must say I have very considerable difficulties with squaring that with the combination of a continued very marked discrepancy in losses despite an increasingly crushing superiority in forces. In late 1943, the Red Army was consistently winning and deploying - in its active Fronts alone - an average of more than 6.5 million men, roughly 2.5 times more than the Ostheer were fielding. Despite this, they were still losing roughly five times more men than the Ostheer - some 4.5 million combat losses during the second half of 1943, against approximately 900,000 German. The picture was a little better through 1944, but not by a great deal, and primarily because the summer battles were so disastrous for the Germans. Even during 3q 1944 however, the Soviet combat losses were
still roughly twice as large as the German - by far the best relation they ever recorded during the course of the war (except that we don't know the ratio in 1945, of course), and this in a situation where the Germans lost several hundred thousand men as prisoners more as a result of the outcome of the operations than as a part of them, to put it that way. Simultaneously, their force superiority grew more pronounced still - during the second half of that year, the Fronts were fielding an average of more than 6.7 million men, while the German strength was around the 2 million mark for most of that period. Force relations in armour and artillery were even more pronounced. A force that is of comparable capability as its opponent, but who is 2.5 to 3.5 times stronger and who is consistently inflicting serious defeat on him quite simply does not consistently lose 4 to 5 times as many men. Though you cannot read quality out of such data in an entirely straightforward way, the data are in this case so vastly lopsided that this judgment is IMO more or less completely ruled out by them.
I think it a gross exagerration bordering on the ludicrous to state that the Germans were outmanned in every major battle and that, despite those odds were somehow always able to "kick ass". In fact, the Wehrmacht was able to achieve at least local numerical superiority on several occasions throughout 1941 and 42, but were not always able to achieve a clear victory. They did often fight well in a losing cause, but there are also several examples of total German collapse or, at the very least, a complete failure of battlefield intelligence leading to a disastrous or near disastrous defeat.
This is a bit unspecific to really deal with, but it is in fact no exaggeration to say that a very pronounced Soviet force superiority was a
constant feature of the fighting in the East, more or less from the time of the Moscow counteroffensive in 1941. There are perfectly good Soviet strength data available on the operational level, and on the German side it is also almost invariably possible to at least make a satisfactory estimation. I cannot think of a single major operation or battle in 1943 or later where there was not a
very pronounced Soviet force superiority. As indeed one would expect, given the large overall superiority along the front as a whole, which would normally result in even better force relations at chosen points of contact.
These are the basic strength data, expressed as quarterly average strength:
Quarter German Iststärke.........Soviet Fronts Ratio
3q41.........2 800 000 ~...............3 334 400.......1:1.2
4q41.........2 675 000 ~...............2 818 500.......1:1.1
1q42.........2 525 000 ~...............4 186 000.......1:1.7
2q42.........2 600 000 ~...............5 060 300.......1:2.0
AVG..........3 849 800
3q42.........2 825 000 ~ ..............5,664,600.......1:2.0
4q42.........2 900 000 ~ ..............6,343,600.......1:2.2
1q43.........2 800 000 ~ ..............5 892 800.......1:2.1
2q43.........2 850 000 ~ ..............6 459 800.......1:2.3
AVG..........2 843 750..................6 090 200.......1:2.1
3q43.........2 850 000..................6 816 800.......1:2.4
4q43.........2 575 000..................6 387 200.......1:2.5
1q44.........2 406 750 .................6 268 600.......1:2.6
2q44.........2 409 75....................6 447 000.......1:2.6
AVG./........2 560 375..................6 479 900......1:2.5
3q44..........2 076 250.................6 714 300.......1:3.1
4q44..........1 900 000~...............6 770 100.......1:3.6
1q45..........1 800 000~ ..............6 461 100.......1:3.6
2q45.............?...........................6 135 300
AVG./........1 949 000~................6 520 200.......1:3.4
The Soviet figures are from Krivosheev, and refer to the average combined strength of the Soviet Fronts and independent armies opposing the Germans. They do not reflect the often numerous forces who were at any specific point contained in the Stavka reserve. The German figures are a bit of work in progress, and should not be relied upon to be exactly correct, but they are not much off. Unlike the Soviet figures they include no air forces, but that should be more than outweighed by the fact that they are Iststärke, which normally means that 10-20% of them were not present and fit for duty, but away on leave or short-term sick or wounded, something which apparently is not the case with the Soviet figures. It is of course important to recall that the ratio here is a direct one between the German and Soviet forces, taking no account of the German allies, who significantly affected that relation, especially early in the campaign. It also probably does not include Soviet allies, but that is a phenomenon of somewhat more limited scale, and only during the later part of the war. As you see, the force relation deteriorated pretty steadily from the German point of view, first because Soviet strength was increasing so vastly, then because German strength dropped. Since this is average strength (the average of the monthly strengths, to be more exact), they are also impacted by the scale of the losses as well as the scale of reinforcement and replacement, since what it tells us is the level of force each side was able to maintain through a period, rather than at one specific point, as strength figures usually do. As losses were consistently much higher on the Soviet side (and at a more disproportionate rate than the force relation, except during 1q43 and 3q 44)), this means that if put in terms of the number of men who were present at one point or another of the period, the Soviet advantage would be larger still. It also means on the other hand that the presence of the Stavka reserve had an influence on the figures despite not being included in them, as it was used to keep up the strength of the Fronts.
The combat losses on a yearly basis, based on various German reporting and on Krivosheev's figures minus sick and frostbites were:
Year...........German.........Red Army....ratio
1941..........831 050..........4 158 407.....1:5.2
1942........1,061,329.........6 584 764.....1:6.2
1943........1,523,124.........6 877 118.....1:4.5
1944........1,953,455..........5 685 785....1:2.9
Probably the German 1944 losses are a little too low, and the Soviet 1941 figures are quite questionable.
This kind of statement is typical of an all too common misperception that the Red Army was ruled by fear and mistrust when the reality is that it was no more ruled by these factors than other contemporary armies.
Well, that may be a little bit an overstatement in the opposite direction. It was not the case in many other armies that generals who failed or fell foul of the political leadership risked facing execution, as occasionally happened in the Red Army. I don't think you can reasonably compare fear as a factor in what was after all a stalinist system with what was the case for instance in the British or US armies. I agree however with the general drift of your comments.
In conclusion, I would say
1. There is always a risk when seeking to counteract what one feels is a simplistic or exaggerated image of events to exaggerate, and hence risk replacing old inaccuracies with new ones of the reverse kind. The notion of German struggling against the strongest odds in the East have clearly been used too freely and simply, but that does not mean that it is basically fictional. On the contrary, it can be firmly documented to have been very real indeed from a fairly early point in the war, and there is no doubt whatsoever that it was also consistent.
2. Much as I value Glantz, I do think he has sometimes tended to fall into this trap, possibly as a result of his strong and justified desire to reverse several widespread misconcetions or exaggerations combined with a relative weakness of sources on German figures beyond what little can be found in published literature.
3. It
is clear that German generals were for the most part facing a very (and increasingly) difficult force relation situation in the East, and this obviously had a very major impact on what they could achieve. It is also wholly clear AFAICS that they continued to be able to hurt their opponent at a very disproportionate rate, including late in the war. This was probably much more a reflection of structural strengths and weaknesses in the opposing organisations than of generalship, and how much importance to attach to it is legitimately debatable, but it is something that needs to be acknowledged and to form part of the assessment.
4. On the whole, I think these discussions (on generalship) needs to take account of the fact that generalship is actually only one of the factors that go into the result of a battle or a campaign, and rarely among the most important ones. Despite this, it seems that victory or defeat is used not just as the main measure of a general, which is illogical enough, but also occasionally even as
the measure, in a direct way, which is absurd. To take one example, I would argue that the fact that Manstein did not manage to break through to Stalingrad is
in itself irrelevant if one is to judge his
performance in these battles. That result might conceivably be due wholly to factors outside Manstein's control. If he is to be held culpable for the outcome, then it needs to be shown how his decisions impacted on that result, what other options were open to him and how large an influence they had on events compared to other factors. Generalship is about what you are able to achieve given the resources at your command relative to those of your enemy, and within the constraints that are imposed on you.
cheers