Was the Soviet Union preparing to attack Germany?

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Omeganian
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Re: Was the Soviet Union preparing to attack Germany?

#1681

Post by Omeganian » 29 Jul 2017, 16:58

Appleknocker27 wrote:
Omeganian wrote:
Appleknocker27 wrote:
Omeganian wrote:
ljadw wrote:The soviet forces were not deployed offensively ;most were deployed in the Russian hinterland, far away from the border.


The forces were merely not concentrated yet. Two weeks before the Germans attacked, how many of their tank divisions were at the border?
"Said Plan" was an answering strike based on a German first strike. That was the defensive plan being prepared, the Germans struck before the Soviets were ready and the Red Army still tried to execute the plan because there were no other plans prepared.
Defensive? Three of the plan's variants (summer 1940 to spring 1941) contain nothing about enemy plans and admit nothing is known about them. Up until May 1941, the Soviet command didn't even bother with the possibility the Germans might disrupt the assembly of the forces on the border. What evidence do you have this plan was defensive? Pure attack through and through.
DP-41 was the strategic deployment plan and it was stated as defensive, specifically stated as an answering strike to a German invasion.
DP-41... Well, I looked, and I am yet to see evidence for that name being more than Glantz's own asspull.
Appleknocker27 wrote:MP-41 was the mobilization plan to support it, the timeline of which went into 1942.
Your point?
Appleknocker27 wrote:The specific operational orders as published in May 1941 were stated as defensive, as presented by Glantz in Stumbling Colossus, Appendix B, quoted verbatim from Soviet archival sources.
Ah, again the attempts to present covering plans as defense plans. Is that supposed to demonstrate anything beyond an attempt to cheat?
Appleknocker27 wrote:
"All the reports - both of the equipment statistics and the percentages of the tanks that were actually driven out of the bases - are consistently in the 80-90% range, not 50."
Quote the source then, in its original context.
Well, there are the figures of the Statistical Compendium, then there is the 10th Tank Division, which according to the report took 147 BT tanks out of the 181 it had, there is the 1st Tank Division (Finnish border), which was forced to leave behind 20 tanks once it went to war... Where are your sources?

http://www.teatrskazka.com/Raznoe/BiChS ... _2_02.html

http://bdsa.ru/avgust-1941-arkhiv/290-b ... sta-1941-g

http://militera.lib.ru/memo/russian/golushko/01.html
Your links are very general, lack detail and aren't verified.
A strange argument, considering your pathological refusal to provide your own numbers.
Appleknocker27 wrote:You also cherry picked the unit you used as an example. How about the BT tanks of the 12th Mechanized Corps? I can cherry pick also.
What about these BT tanks? Only the 28th division had them, 236 total. It moved toward the border with 210 of them. That's nearly 90%, sounds very good. Reports claim two combat losses per broken down tank. Thanks for proving my point.

https://web.archive.org/web/20120518083 ... /index.htm

http://bdsa.ru/tankovye-divizii/2962-28

http://rkkawwii.ru/division/28tdf1
" And considering these very BT tanks, with the same or even greater spare part problems, four+ years later drove 800 km against the Japanese without breaking down..."
Apples to oranges.... Those were BT tanks, but not the same tanks from the Western Military districts from 1940-41 that were worn out and required major maintenance reset.
These were the tanks which fought actual battles against Japan throughout the 30s. And then they spent six years mothballed. And then we have the tanks which served Spain and Finland until the 60s...
In the 30's? Do you mean 1939 at Khalkhin Gol only?
There were a number of smaller skirmishes. Certainly no less than what the tanks to the west saw saw before 1941 (And, with the production numbers, what percentage of these tanks participated in the conflict?).
They sat with minimal use for several years,
And for the tanks in the west in 1941, these years didn't exist at all. Are you saying the tanks on the Far East have regenerated in the meantime?
had trained crews, maintenance teams and had the luxury of all the spare parts being sent East since the war in the west was over and few BT tanks were in use there anyway. Its still apples to oranges.
How much of that could they have with all they sent away in 1941 and the tanks being out of production for years?

"The forces were merely not concentrated yet. Two weeks before the Germans attacked, how many of their tank divisions were at the border?"
You presume that the Soviet ability in 1941 to stage and concentrate their (still not mobilized) forces was the same as the Germans??? seriously?
Do you know what Plan Otto was and how much the Germans increased their rail capacity to the border in order to effect their offensive concentration plan?
I know that the Soviet forces were scheduled to concentrate in early July. You presume that the Soviet ability in 1941 to stage and concentrate their forces was unknown to the Soviet high command??? seriously?
Strawman....denied. You haven't proven that the Soviets intended or even planned to concentrate let alone whether or not that they were even capable. Your arguments remain in the realm of wishful thinking and fantasy. Sovietophile stuff to be sure.

The transfer of the forces was planned with the calculation of completing the deployment in the regions given by the operative plans from June 1st to July 10th.


http://militera.lib.ru/h/1941/02.html

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Appleknocker27
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Re: Was the Soviet Union preparing to attack Germany?

#1682

Post by Appleknocker27 » 29 Jul 2017, 20:13

Art wrote:
Appleknocker27 wrote: You also cherry picked the unit you used as an example. How about the BT tanks of the 12th Mechanized Corps? I can cherry pick also.
For example, 28 Tank Division of the 12 MC had 359 T-26 tanks. Of them 344 set out after an alarm order was received on 18 June and 15 non-operational tank were left at the unit quarter in Libava:
https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=136823135
As said many times 'most tanks were broken' is an old myth from Soviet era books which is not confirmed by any serious sources.
Art, I do not believe that the Red Army's issues with poor maintenance and readiness are myth. What I do believe is that the issues were deep and have been written about in detail only to be summarized by others, then those summaries get paraphrased by internet posters and then the information appears to be shallow, superficial and ultimately incorrect. To be specific...
An operational tank, by definition has all of its mechanical functions in order, its armament, its electronics, a full combat load and its internal systems are integrated with the tank ready to fight as defined by its army's doctrine. Anything less than this has degrees of fault and is indicated in official reports. Glantz provided this detail to illuminate the maintenance, training, supply and deployment shortfalls of the Red Army in the Western Military Districts. For example, a T-26 than can drive out to meet the enemy without a functioning radio, a main weapon that is not sighted properly or at all, has less than a combat load of ammunition and fuel that likely has other small issues should NOT be whitewashed. The issues I bring up were very real and not myth. The official reports such as the one you provided tell part of the story, not all of it and are open to interpretation, the degree of accuracy often is determined by the experience of the reader. I was an officer in a maintenance company (recovery platoon leader, maintenance control officer) that was attached to a mechanized Infantry unit, I know how to read a readiness report. I also know when the report is useless because it doesn't tell you anything meaningful...
Do you believe the combat capacity of a tank unit is based on raw numbers of machines that can drive out to meet the enemy? Just checking...


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Appleknocker27
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Re: Was the Soviet Union preparing to attack Germany?

#1683

Post by Appleknocker27 » 30 Jul 2017, 14:19

Omeganian wrote: DP-41... Well, I looked, and I am yet to see evidence for that name being more than Glantz's own asspull.
Perhaps you could look into the source I gave you? The full description of Soviet planning is in Chap 4, pg 82 "Strategic Deployment Planning and Mobilization".
Appleknocker27 wrote:MP-41 was the mobilization plan to support it, the timeline of which went into 1942.
Your point?
My point is clearly indicated by the timeline and is further supported by the obvious incomplete Red Army deployment on 22 June 1941. The shortages of men and material in the Western Military Districts could not possibly have been made up in 2-3 weeks, it would take another year for anything close to a proper force generation.
Appleknocker27 wrote:The specific operational orders as published in May 1941 were stated as defensive, as presented by Glantz in Stumbling Colossus, Appendix B, quoted verbatim from Soviet archival sources.
Ah, again the attempts to present covering plans as defense plans. Is that supposed to demonstrate anything beyond an attempt to cheat?
The operational orders as written are what the Red Army was doing on 22 June. The positions and activities as well as posture of the forces in question were followed to the letter of those orders.
Your links are very general, lack detail and aren't verified.[/quote]

A strange argument, considering your pathological refusal to provide your own numbers.[/quote]

Pathological refusal? Are you a sensationalist novelist or producer of fake news? :lol: I gave you the source several times.

The transfer of the forces was planned with the calculation of completing the deployment in the regions given by the operative plans from June 1st to July 10th.


http://militera.lib.ru/h/1941/02.html
English please, we're on an English speaking forum... (I don't speak/read Russian and I'm not interested in the investing the time to learn, too many competing interests...).

Omeganian
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Re: Was the Soviet Union preparing to attack Germany?

#1684

Post by Omeganian » 30 Jul 2017, 20:40

Appleknocker27 wrote:
Omeganian wrote: DP-41... Well, I looked, and I am yet to see evidence for that name being more than Glantz's own asspull.
Perhaps you could look into the source I gave you? The full description of Soviet planning is in Chap 4, pg 82 "Strategic Deployment Planning and Mobilization".
Hmmm. interesting. He claims that September 18th Considerations were saying to repel the German attack and start a counteroffensive. I have the text in front of me, and I see nothing to support such a conclusion. It does consider possible enemy attack vectors, and it says to cover the borders while forces are being deployed, of course, but in the part that describes actual war plans, an enemy offensive is at the most something the High Command Reserve may have to deal with (so, not at the beginning of the war). It even says the air forces must not allow the enemy forces to concentrate.

He also talks about the May 15th proposal being rejected. For starters, it's not "May the 15th" - it's based on an intel report from May the 15th, and was probably complete a week or so later. Second... it is hard to know what Stalin said, but considering the "recollections" about Zhukov telling how it was (Suvorov spends two chapters describing the idiotic blunders in these stories... really made me crack), something is definitely suspicious.
Appleknocker27 wrote:MP-41 was the mobilization plan to support it, the timeline of which went into 1942.
Your point?
My point is clearly indicated by the timeline and is further supported by the obvious incomplete Red Army deployment on 22 June 1941. The shortages of men and material in the Western Military Districts could not possibly have been made up in 2-3 weeks, it would take another year for anything close to a proper force generation.
Considering five million people were mobilized in a week, the part about men shortage certainly sounds off. As for equipment... Well, Solonin makes the calculations for the actual amounts required (That is, how many tractors are actually required to move the amount of cannons the Soviets have), and there doesn't appear to be a shortage. There might have been some problems with distribution, but that's a somewhat different matter.

After all, Hitler entered WWII almost a decade before his fleet building plan was complete... are you saying he wasn't a threat because of that?
Appleknocker27 wrote:The specific operational orders as published in May 1941 were stated as defensive, as presented by Glantz in Stumbling Colossus, Appendix B, quoted verbatim from Soviet archival sources.
Ah, again the attempts to present covering plans as defense plans. Is that supposed to demonstrate anything beyond an attempt to cheat?
The operational orders as written are what the Red Army was doing on 22 June. The positions and activities as well as posture of the forces in question were followed to the letter of those orders.
The problem is that these are orders for mobilization covering. Irrelevant to the matter discussed.
Your links are very general, lack detail and aren't verified.
A strange argument, considering your pathological refusal to provide your own numbers.
Pathological refusal? Are you a sensationalist novelist or producer of fake news? :lol: I gave you the source several times.
Must have been awhile ago. Mind reminding please?

The transfer of the forces was planned with the calculation of completing the deployment in the regions given by the operative plans from June 1st to July 10th.


http://militera.lib.ru/h/1941/02.html
English please, we're on an English speaking forum... (I don't speak/read Russian and I'm not interested in the investing the time to learn, too many competing interests...).

Between May the 13th and 22nd came the orders of the HQ about three armies (22, 21 and 16) out of the Uralskiy, Privolzhskiy and Zabaykalskiy military districts. 22nd army (rifle corps 62 and 51 - 6 divisions) was to move into the region of Idritsa, Sebezh, Vitebsk with concentration scheduled to be completed July 1st-3rd, 21st army (RC 66, 63, 45, 30, 33 - 14 divisions) was concentrating in the area of Chernigov - Gomel - Konotop June 17th - July 2nd. 16th army (12 divisions) was being redeployed May 22nd - June 1st in the area of Proskurov, Khmelniki. The transfer of the forces was planned with the calculation of completing the deployment in the regions given by the operative plans from June 1st to July 10th.

jabhatta
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Re: Was Soviet Union preparing to attack the Germany?

#1685

Post by jabhatta » 04 Nov 2023, 21:11

Hi Michael Mills - this post fascinated me
michael mills wrote:
19 Jan 2012, 05:49
The rapid collapse of France and the retreat of Britain from the Continent left Stalin badly shaken, and upset all his planning. His reaction was to do everything in his power, without actually turning against Germany, to ensure that Germany did not become strong enough to defeat Britain in 1940. For example, he cut back the flow of supplies to Germany, on the pretext that Germany had not met its full quota of deliveries, and even stopped it completely at one point.
How are you so sure that Stalin wanted Germany not as strong as Britain ? is that your opinion or an opinion of any historian ?
michael mills wrote:
19 Jan 2012, 05:49
Stalin's calculation after the fall of France was that as long as Britain stayed in the fight against Germany, he had the option of joining it against Germany at some future point, and the Red Army would not be left facing the German forces without any allies. Churchill's constant attempts from July 1940 onward to woo Stalin onto Britain's side showed the latter that his calculation was correct; once war broke out between Germany and the Soviet Union, as he knew it would, he knew that he would have the full support of Britain and its Empire and Commonwealth, and probably that of the United States as well.
What did Churchill do to woo Stalin, post the fall of france ?

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Re: Was Soviet Union preparing to attack the Germany?

#1686

Post by ljadw » 05 Nov 2023, 10:37

jabhatta wrote:
04 Nov 2023, 21:11
Hi Michael Mills - this post fascinated me
michael mills wrote:
19 Jan 2012, 05:49
The rapid collapse of France and the retreat of Britain from the Continent left Stalin badly shaken, and upset all his planning. His reaction was to do everything in his power, without actually turning against Germany, to ensure that Germany did not become strong enough to defeat Britain in 1940. For example, he cut back the flow of supplies to Germany, on the pretext that Germany had not met its full quota of deliveries, and even stopped it completely at one point.
How are you so sure that Stalin wanted Germany not as strong as Britain ? is that your opinion or an opinion of any historian ?
michael mills wrote:
19 Jan 2012, 05:49
Stalin's calculation after the fall of France was that as long as Britain stayed in the fight against Germany, he had the option of joining it against Germany at some future point, and the Red Army would not be left facing the German forces without any allies. Churchill's constant attempts from July 1940 onward to woo Stalin onto Britain's side showed the latter that his calculation was correct; once war broke out between Germany and the Soviet Union, as he knew it would, he knew that he would have the full support of Britain and its Empire and Commonwealth, and probably that of the United States as well.
What did Churchill do to woo Stalin, post the fall of france ?
I like to see the proof for the claim that Stalin cut back the flow of supplies to Germany and I like to see the proof that this was important .
I like also to see the proof that Stalin knew that there would be a war between Germany and the Soviet Union .
There is also no proof for the claim that Stalin would start a war against Germany ( the Suvorov claims are only inventions ).

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Re: Was Soviet Union preparing to attack the Germany?

#1687

Post by jabhatta » 06 Nov 2023, 04:37

michael mills wrote:
09 Jan 2012, 06:17
Well, are you denying that one of the main objectives of the Nazis was the territorial expansion on the East? And because of that, for example, Göring was proposing a German-Polish anti-Soviet alliance as early as 1936? Or Ribbentrop a German-Polish military action against the Soviet Union at the beginning of 1939?
Absolutely true.

That was Hitler's preferred option.

Before Hitler came to power, there had been a de-facto unwritten alliance between Germany and the Soviet Union, aimed against Poland, with the aim of eventually seizing back the territory that had been taken from both of them by Poland in the period 1919-21, leaving only a rump Polish state reduced to its true ethnographic territory, essentially Congress Poland plus Western Galicia. That had been suggested by the Jewish Bolshevik Karl Radek during the Soviet-Polish War.

When Hitler came to power, he abandoned that de-facto alliance in favour of detente with Poland, which he hoped would lead to a real German-Polish alliance against the Soviet Union, for the purpose of overthrowing the Bolshevik regime and dividing Belorussia and Ukraine between them.

It was only when Poland definitively rejected the German proposals in March 1939 and joined Britain and France in an alliance against Germany that Hitler reversed course and accepted his predecessors' policy of alliance with the Soviet Union against Poland, something that Hitler had opposed right from the statrt of his political career in 1919. The main difference was that now it was a written agreement, and led to immediate military action against Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union. leading to the elimination of the country.

All the indications are that in August 1939 Hitler abandoned his former ambition of overthrowing the Soviet Government and seizing Ukraine. His expansionist aims were now concentrated on Poland, the country which in his view had betrayed him; its western part was to be germanised by settling there ethnic Germans withdrawn from all of Eastern Europe. The fact that he planned to withdraw all ethnic Germans from Soviet-controlled areas (Baltic States, Eastern Poland, Bukovyna, Bessarabia) indicates his transfer of focus from Soviet territory to Polish.

It was only when Britain refused to make peace in June-July 1940 that Hitler began to suspect that Stalin might eventually change sides and join Britain against him. From that point on, Hitler began to consider the option of reversing course once again and attacking the Soviet Union, an option that was made preferable by the obvious signs of Soviet intentions for further expansion to the West, into Finland, Bulgaria (thereby surrounding Romania), and the western part of Turkey.

An additional factor was Stalin's attempts to exert pressure on Germany by slowing down the flow of suppplies at various times, and on accasion even halting them. That made Hitler highly sensitive to Germany's vulnerability due to its heavy dependence on Soviet supplies, which could be cut off at any time of Stalin's choosing.

Hi Michael Mills - qq on the underline.

Why does "Britain refusing to make peace with Germany", cause Hitler to suspect that Stalin might eventually change sides and join Britain against him (Hitler) ?

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Attrition
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Re: Was the Soviet Union preparing to attack Germany?

#1688

Post by Attrition » 08 Dec 2023, 02:21

"It would be nice if Hitler started smashing up Negroes or some Arabs. But to take and assign the status of a subhuman to white people (who objectively were not inferior to the Germans in anything) and open an all-out war against the superpower.... Yes, and against the Communists..... He has to be a complete idiot."

Are you a racist provocateur?

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Re: Was the Soviet Union preparing to attack Germany?

#1689

Post by wm » 08 Dec 2023, 02:46

GregoryUSSR wrote:
07 Dec 2023, 16:01
The Nazis grossly violated the laws of living matter. Whites are not allowed to destroy whites. Just like in the wolf (horned) The males fight among themselves in the pack, but they almost never kill their own. This is how we can compete.

This is why we, the humans, rule the Earth, not the wolves. Their inability to form something more complex than the pack.
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.

Hitler actually had nothing against Negroes or even "some Arabs." He was fond of comparing favorably the simple life of primitive people with our civilization, especially with the Catholic Church.
It's a myth that he wanted to eliminate the lesser people; he only eliminated the people who stood in his way, lesser or not.

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Re: Was the Soviet Union preparing to attack Germany?

#1690

Post by wm » 08 Dec 2023, 02:58

GregoryUSSR wrote:
07 Dec 2023, 16:01
No, We didn't prepare. We had no such plans.
Stalin on September 7, 1939
---------
A war is on between two groups of capitalist countries...for the re-division of the world, for the domination of the world!
We see nothing wrong in their having a good hard fight and weakening each other.
It would be fine if, at the hands of Germany, the position of the richest capitalist countries (especially England) were shaken.
Hitler, without understanding it or desiring it, is shaking and undermining the capitalist system...
We can maneuver, pit one side against the other to set them fighting with each other as fiercely as possible.
The non-aggression pact is, to a certain degree, helping Germany.
Next time, we'll urge on the other side.

---------
from: "The Diary of Georgi Dimitrov."

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Re: Was the Soviet Union preparing to attack Germany?

#1691

Post by ljadw » 08 Dec 2023, 10:58

This is not a proof that the USSR was preparing to attack Germany .
For another interpretation of this speech ,see : Stalin's wartime vision of the peace 1939-1941


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Re: Was the Soviet Union preparing to attack Germany?

#1693

Post by ljadw » 09 Dec 2023, 21:00

wm wrote:
08 Dec 2023, 02:58
GregoryUSSR wrote:
07 Dec 2023, 16:01
No, We didn't prepare. We had no such plans.
Stalin on September 7, 1939
---------
A war is on between two groups of capitalist countries...for the re-division of the world, for the domination of the world!
We see nothing wrong in their having a good hard fight and weakening each other.
It would be fine if, at the hands of Germany, the position of the richest capitalist countries (especially England) were shaken.
Hitler, without understanding it or desiring it, is shaking and undermining the capitalist system...
We can maneuver, pit one side against the other to set them fighting with each other as fiercely as possible.
The non-aggression pact is, to a certain degree, helping Germany.
Next time, we'll urge on the other side.

---------
from: "The Diary of Georgi Dimitrov."
Stalin did not maneuver and pit one side against the other

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Re: Was the Soviet Union preparing to attack Germany?

#1694

Post by Attrition » 10 Dec 2023, 11:06

Wasn't Roosevelt doing the same?

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Re: Was the Soviet Union preparing to attack Germany?

#1695

Post by ljadw » 10 Dec 2023, 14:52

FDR tried to make a coalition with Britain possible, but he had no plans to attack Germany,as US had not the means to do this .

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