Russians simply won by the power of numbers

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#286

Post by Qvist » 31 Mar 2007, 17:14

Heer/Waffen-SS KIA/MIA/POW on all fronts were 409,000 for the same period. Let's assume that German losses in Africa are about the same as Luftwaffe and Finnish losses in Russia combined during that period, so that we have a wash there, unless somebody wants to dig out the numbers.
Removal of the Italian army from the OOB - 235,000 men either KIA/POW, or removed by Italian government
Romanian losses - on the order of 200,000 I think, including KIA/POW, survivors removed to Romania
Hungarian losses - on the order of 200,000 again, including KIA/POW, removed to Hungary

So we end up with just over 1 million Axis losses vs. just short of 2 million Soviet losses, assuming that your calculation of the wounded not returning is correct (I have no idea how Krivosheev defines wounded, and how that compares to German wounded definitions).
OK, that's good enough to work from.
I have to disagree here, since I think this is a very narrow view. Strictly speaking, their observed performance on the battlefield was irrelevant to the question of their numerical superiority, if looked at in isolation.
I am not speaking of the performance, I am speaking of the cost of the fighting.
It was instead linked to a higher starting strength, and a higher ability to generate manpower. As long as the attrition on the battlefield resulted in opponent losses that were higher than what their opponents could replace, while keeping their losses at a level below what they could replace, or at the very least at a level where they could replace a greater share of their losses than their opponents, they would achieve increasing numerical superiority, which is simply a relative comparison after all.
Yes, but you must take into account that the effect of the losses and the effect of the force generation are not mutually reinforcing factors, but on the contrary draw in opposite directions. The reason this works for the Red Army is not the amount of losses, the reason is the superiority in force generation. The losses side is a factor that has to be constantly overcompensated by greater force addition in order to not cause a worsening of the strength situation.
In a static fight, if you start with 30 guys in a bar brawl against 15, and at the end you lose 27 while your opponent loses 13, you have had over twice as many losses, but you have increased your superiority by 50%, from 2:1 to 3:1.
No you don't - you've just gone from a 2:1 superiority to a 3:2 superiority. :). You'll have to make that 24 men knocked out against 13. Also, you'll have difficulty finding many periods of the war where the Red Army had only twice as many men and only twice as many losses. Anyway, the actual effect depends entirely on the the starting ratio, the absolute size of the losses relative to starting strength and also both the relation of and the absolute size of replacements. If we presuppose 1 million Axis losses and a bit under 2 million Soviet as you suggest, and, to follow the logic of this example, zero force addition for both sides, and estimated starting strengths of , say 6 and 3.5 million respectively, the strength ratio drops from 1.7:1 to 1.6:1. And there's not many other times (none, actually) that you get a vast effect on the figures from the obliteration of three allied armies with limited capabilities. So again, it would be difficult to find a less representative example than this one.
This the Red Army managed to do after 1941, obviously.
Sorry, no - this it demonstrably did not manage to do. What it managed to do was to retain enough of a superiority in force generation to overcompensate for its disparate losses. The losses in themselves would have caused a swiftly declining force relation. Check the figures if you like.

To use your bar brawl analogy, it starts with 30 guys apiece, and then new ones keep turning up. After the first ten minutes, 45 guys have been knocked out on the one side, but since 60 new ones have turned up, they 've grown to 45. On the other side, 9 have been knocked out and only 7 have turned up, so they're now down to 28.

In the second ten minutes, 85 more turn up to join the 45, but 70 of them are knocked out. Nevertheless, they now have 60. 10 guys are knocked out on the other side, but 10 new ones arrive. They're still 28.

In the third ten minutes, the 60 men are joined by 80 more, and 78 of them are knocked out.They're now 62 left standing. They knock out 20 of the other guys, and only 15 arrive, so now they're down to 23.

And that's pretty much 41, 42 and 43, if in a much simplified fashion. What happens if no new men arrive, of if roughly the same number of men arrive on each side?
Having even highly unfavourable exchange rates does not matter (except for the individuals who are being exchanged, i.e. killed or maimed), as long as you force your opponent to dig deeper into his manpower pool than you yourself do, relatively speaking.
Well, this is in essence the same thing I am saying, so on that point we appear to agree. It is just a question of the relative effects and weight of the losses and force generation side respectively. The losses worked to erode the Red Army position, even late in the war. The force addition overcompensated for that. Conversely, the losses represented the core of the German ability to stay in the field for this long, but the force addition was too puny to compensate even for losses that were much lower than the Soviet. To put it in a different way, the Soviet losses exceeded their average strength in every year of the war up to 1945, the German never exceeded it before 1945, and they were for the first three calendar years less than or roughly equal to half their average strength. The losses, if more or less equally replaced, would have burned out the Red Army much more quickly than they burnt out the Ostheer. Force addition is the reason they didn't.

However, I would not say that highly unfavourable exchange rates do not matter - in this case they meant that victory was slow and phenomenally costly, and they handed the opponent the most major advantage they possessed. The Red Army paid a high price for it, and if they had not been endowed with such ample means with which to pay it, they would have lost the war. Hence, which is my point, these ample means are neccessarily the fundamental reason why they did win it.

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#287

Post by Andreas » 31 Mar 2007, 19:34

Qvist wrote:
Heer/Waffen-SS KIA/MIA/POW on all fronts were 409,000 for the same period. Let's assume that German losses in Africa are about the same as Luftwaffe and Finnish losses in Russia combined during that period, so that we have a wash there, unless somebody wants to dig out the numbers.
Removal of the Italian army from the OOB - 235,000 men either KIA/POW, or removed by Italian government
Romanian losses - on the order of 200,000 I think, including KIA/POW, survivors removed to Romania
Hungarian losses - on the order of 200,000 again, including KIA/POW, removed to Hungary

So we end up with just over 1 million Axis losses vs. just short of 2 million Soviet losses, assuming that your calculation of the wounded not returning is correct (I have no idea how Krivosheev defines wounded, and how that compares to German wounded definitions).
OK, that's good enough to work from.
Sorry, I forgot to add that, assuming the same 1/3rd ratio of non-returning wounded, you'll have to add ca. 200,000 or so IL to the axis side (1.1m - 410,000* 0.33). Which does not change the fundamental point.
Qvist wrote:The losses, if more or less equally replaced, would have burned out the Red Army much more quickly than they burnt out the Ostheer. Force addition is the reason they didn't.
That is of course correct. OTOH, it is a hypothetical with no bearing on the real situation faced by the decision-makers on the Soviet side, while it arguably was seen as a possible result by the Germans, leading to underestimation of their opponent's ability to continue to generate force.
Qvist wrote:However, I would not say that highly unfavourable exchange rates do not matter - in this case they meant that victory was slow and phenomenally costly, and they handed the opponent the most major advantage they possessed. The Red Army paid a high price for it, and if they had not been endowed with such ample means with which to pay it, they would have lost the war. Hence, which is my point, these ample means are neccessarily the fundamental reason why they did win it.
I agree with that, but I do not agree with the view that the organisational and operational capabilities of the Red Army are therefore relegated to being minor issues.

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#288

Post by Qvist » 01 Apr 2007, 00:01

Sorry, I forgot to add that, assuming the same 1/3rd ratio of non-returning wounded, you'll have to add ca. 200,000 or so IL to the axis side (1.1m - 410,000* 0.33). Which does not change the fundamental point.
Oh, in that case the total sounds immediately a bit on the high side. Perhaps best if I look at the actual figures, I think I have everything we would need, for the Germans at least. Although strictly, one should use all losses (including non-combat) for a flow type argument. But this is a little bit a special case because the IL are so uncommonly large.
That is of course correct. OTOH, it is a hypothetical with no bearing on the real situation faced by the decision-makers on the Soviet side, while it arguably was seen as a possible result by the Germans, leading to underestimation of their opponent's ability to continue to generate force.
Sorry, I'm not sure I quite understood that.
I agree with that, but I do not agree with the view that the organisational and operational capabilities of the Red Army are therefore relegated to being minor issues.
The point is arguable, certainly.

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#289

Post by Andreas » 01 Apr 2007, 01:31

Qvist wrote:
Sorry, I forgot to add that, assuming the same 1/3rd ratio of non-returning wounded, you'll have to add ca. 200,000 or so IL to the axis side (1.1m - 410,000* 0.33). Which does not change the fundamental point.
Oh, in that case the total sounds immediately a bit on the high side. Perhaps best if I look at the actual figures, I think I have everything we would need, for the Germans at least. Although strictly, one should use all losses (including non-combat) for a flow type argument. But this is a little bit a special case because the IL are so uncommonly large.
I look forward to what you can come up with. The German KIA/MIA figure I used are from Mueller-Hillebrand. The calculation of the wounded figure is using the difference between that and your 1.1m figure provided earlier. They may well not be compatible.
Qvist wrote:Sorry, I'm not sure I quite understood that.
It was a sidebar observation - STAVKA understood Red Army force generation capabilities better than the German side, and therefore could plan accordingly. I.e. they presumably understood that they could get away with having relatively larger losses than the Germans. The Germans OTOH never seemed to have a good handle on the Red Army's force generation capabilities, and got it wrong on a regular basis, by underetimating it.

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#290

Post by Qvist » 01 Apr 2007, 02:12

I look forward to what you can come up with. The German KIA/MIA figure I used are from Mueller-Hillebrand. The calculation of the wounded figure is using the difference between that and your 1.1m figure provided earlier. They may well not be compatible.
Ah, right. No, they aren't - the 1.1 m was Abgänge, which includes evacuated sick (of whom there were also an unusually large amount in this period).
It was a sidebar observation - STAVKA understood Red Army force generation capabilities better than the German side, and therefore could plan accordingly. I.e. they presumably understood that they could get away with having relatively larger losses than the Germans. The Germans OTOH never seemed to have a good handle on the Red Army's force generation capabilities, and got it wrong on a regular basis, by underetimating it.
OK. Well, the point was really meant in a "laboratory" context if you see what I mean - really just a different way of stating the point by showing how the losses impact if you presuppose equal force addition (and hence remove the factor that worked to rectify that impact). Much the same as your bar brawl example really, which also presupposed equal force addition (ie, zero).

As for the point as made, it's funny you should mention that, because just a couple of days ago I chanced across, in the OrgAbt KTB, a brief summary of a report which attempted to estimate Soviet losses and Soviet force generation between 1 November 42 and 1 November 43, and which concluded that Soviet losses in the period were roughly 3 times higher than German, that their force generation was also roughly 3 times their own and that their IL were five times higher than theirs. I'm fairly certain the German part of that calculation is the one reproduced in the KTB OKW bd.2 p.1481, as the date fits and the calculation is of a similar nature and refers to exactly the same period. Using these to check against the Soviet data, it seems that the Germans somewhat underestimated the overall Soviet losses (which were roughly 3.5 times theirs), that they overestimated the Soviet irrecoverable losses (which were nevertheless somewhat more numerous relatively speaking than the overall losses, at 3.8 times the German) and that they quite significantly underestimated the Soviet force generation (which was roughly 4 times greater than the German, though that is going just on Fronts strength, and might be lower if Stavka reserves could be factored in as these were almost certainly more numerous on 1 November 42 than on 1 November 43).

You are clearly right that the Soviets were in a good position to plan what sort of losses they could get away with. I am less certain if they had a very good idea of the other side of the hill though. They appear to have consistently overestimated both the strength and the losses of their adversary, this would of course automatically also imply overestimating their force generation. Now, here's an interesting question - if that was the case (and I freely state the evidence for it is little more than incidental), it would appear, from the Soviet point of view, as a better course of action than it actually was to gain the upper hand by very active operations in order to write down enemy strength. If both enemy losses and enemy force generation is overstimated, the price of inactivity appears doubly increased - not only do you forego a greater amount of damage to the enemy than what was in fact the case, he also can seemingly use the respite to improve his position more than was in fact the case. Almost certainly, the Red Army would have improved its relative force situation more by doing nothing for any three months than they generally did in three months of hard fighting. They could not in the end have waited their way to Berlin of course, but you see what I mean.

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#291

Post by Qvist » 01 Apr 2007, 02:31

Right, these are from the WVW periodical overviews, Ostheer plus Geb.AOK 20:

677,499 Blutige Verluste, of whom:

KIA: 105,133
MIA: 236,130
= 341,263

Wounded: 336,236 x 1/3 = 112,078

Total IL: 453,341.

A quick check on other sources show practically identical figures.

Luftwaffe in the East: Cumulative losses at the end of September stood at 11,394 KIA, 5,156 MIA, 30920 WIA. At the end of March, 17481 KIA, 47560 WIA, 9924 MIA. Hence, in the intervening period:

6,087 KIA
4,768 MIA
16,640 WIA x 1/3 = 5,547
Total: 16,401.

That gives us roughly 470,000 German IL, if I remember correctly, some 600,000 allied (I really don't have the energy to go into those, and not many sources either), and in all around 1.1 million. I would again stress, since we are using this in connection with a more general point, that this is a uniquely bad Axis IL figure for a six-month period, and that by using IL and choosing this particular period we are in effect looking at an outlier. That is something to bear in mind.

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#292

Post by Art » 01 Apr 2007, 18:05

Qvist wrote: However, between 1 October 1942 and 1 April 1943, the Red Army incurred a total of 3,609,810 losses of all types.
3469374 losses were suffered by Acitve Forces (Krivosheev) - this is more correct figure.
quite significantly underestimated the Soviet force generation (which was roughly 4 times greater than the German
Unlikely. From 1st June 1942 till 31 May 1943 3 470 200 men were drafted for military service in Germany (the figure is from Muller-Hillebrand, probably this includes civilian personnel and militarized organizations). At the same time 5900 men were drafted in USSR during 1943:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 16#1018916
So the ratio between the influx of human resources into Soviet and German Armies was less then 2:1, this is in good agreement with the ratio between total numbers of men mobilized (>34 millions/<18 millions). Probably you mean the rate of deliveries of men in forces directly engaged in actions, but as we can see this rate is not necessarily in direct relation with the total poll of human resources. It should be empasized that both in German and in Soviet Armies the irrevocable losses were signoficantly smaller then number of men mobilized during the year. Hence, the least part of human resources was used to compernsate the losses. And that means that drawning the direct relation between the total human resources and the ability to sustain the losses is not entirely valid.
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#293

Post by Art » 01 Apr 2007, 18:13

Andreas wrote:The Red Army lost when it was numerically superior
In 1941 it wasn't at least in terms of number of men. In 1942 it was (but was relatively bad supplied with equipment) and Wehrmacht achieved much moderate succes than in 1941. From the end of 1942 Red Army had clear superiority both in number of men and in equipment and that had evident impact on the course of operations. So the correlation between the ratio the size of Red Army and the cources of struggle on Eastern front can be rather easilu derived.

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#294

Post by Qvist » 01 Apr 2007, 22:06

3469374 losses were suffered by Acitve Forces (Krivosheev) - this is more correct figure.
That is without the non-combat losses. As you recall, I quoted this in conjunction with a German Abgänge figure, which also includes evacuated NCL.
Unlikely. From 1st June 1942 till 31 May 1943 3 470 200 men were drafted for military service in Germany (the figure is from Muller-Hillebrand, probably this includes civilian personnel and militarized organizations). At the same time 5900 men were drafted in USSR during 1943:
That however is a quite different matter - the point concerns force addition to the Ostheer and to the Fronts respectively, not men mobilised. The German force addition is taken directly from the overview referred (and is 1,860,000, and includes replacements, returning sick and wounded as well as new formations), as it should, because this is the figure OrgAbt thought the Soviet figure was 3 times bigger than. By Soviet force addition, they are speaking not of men mobilised (which they have no possibility whatsoever of estimating), but of men added to the Soviet Fronts. This can be quite simply if also roughly assessed from the difference between the soviet strength (of the fronts) at the beginning and the end of the time plus the sum of Soviet losses over the period. The fighting Fronts had 6,124,000 men on on 1 November 1942, according to Glantz. Glantz also presents an estimated strength of 6.6 million on 14 October 1943, and a quoted strength of 6,156,000 on 31 December 1943. According to Krivosheev, the average strength of the Fronts during 4q 1943 was 6,387,200, which provides a good fit with the estimate quoted by Glantz, if it is assumed that strength was somewhat higher on 1 October and then declined through the quarter. It would seem more than reasonable to conclude that Fronts strength was higher on 1 November 1943 than on the same date in 1942, most likely by as many as around 400,000 men.The Soviet losses during 4q 1942 and the first three quarters of 1943 were 7,156,608. That of course includes October 1942 and omits october 1943, but it's as close I can get it. Almost certainly, the 10/43 losses were a good deal higher than the 10/42 losses. A point of insecurity is whether the figures quoted by Glantz includes men in hospital - I would think not, but would appreciate any light you could throw on that. If they do, the calculation does not work satisfactorily.

Hence , in summation - if 7,156,608 men left the fronts as one type of loss or another, and at the same time the strength of the fronts grew by 400,000, and we adjust a little bit for the difference oct42/oct43, then around 7.7 million men must have arrived, in units not part of the fronts on 011142, as replacements, and as recuperated sick and wounded. That is 4.1 times more than arrived to the Ostheer over the same period. If the German calculation attempted to include Stavka reserves, then that has an impact.
And that means that drawning the direct relation between the total human resources and the ability to sustain the losses is not entirely valid.

Very true, and for a large number of reasons, including that proportionately less of the German manpower than the Soviet went to the Eastern Front. But that is not what I am doing - by force addition I am referring to the personnell added to the Ostheer on the German side, and to the active Fronts on the Soviet side.
In 1941 it wasn't at least in terms of number of men. In 1942 it was (but was relatively bad supplied with equipment) and Wehrmacht achieved much moderate succes than in 1941. From the end of 1942 Red Army had clear superiority both in number of men and in equipment and that had evident impact on the course of operations. So the correlation between the ratio the size of Red Army and the cources of struggle on Eastern front can be rather easilu derived.
I agree completely.

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#295

Post by Andreas » 01 Apr 2007, 22:45

I am not questioning correlation. But as an economist I feel the need to point out however that correlation does not equal causation.

Regarding the winter 42/3 losses, 1.1m sounds okay to me. I'll check Gostony and other sources on the allied losses after my trip to Budapest next week. I would not agree however that it is "uniquely bad". Summer 44 (June to September) would look similar in terms of OOB removals. Heavier German losses coupled with the removal of the Finns and the Romanians from the axis OOB. It may well have been worse, considering that it took place in a shorter time.

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#296

Post by Qvist » 02 Apr 2007, 07:41

I am not questioning correlation. But as an economist I feel the need to point out however that correlation does not equal causation.
I agree completely with that too.
Regarding the winter 42/3 losses, 1.1m sounds okay to me. I'll check Gostony and other sources on the allied losses after my trip to Budapest next week. I would not agree however that it is "uniquely bad". Summer 44 (June to September) would look similar in terms of OOB removals. Heavier German losses coupled with the removal of the Finns and the Romanians from the axis OOB. It may well have been worse, considering that it took place in a shorter time.
The German losses were worse, not least relatively, than in 42/43, but htere's not more than twice as many allied IL to add to them. Both with the Finns and rumanians the trouble is how to regard them. If you add the whole Finnish army and the whole Rumanian army to the German losses, you naturally get a very high number. But we would really be talking of something quite different than the attritional effect of combat.

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#297

Post by Andreas » 02 Apr 2007, 13:21

I know. I am looking at this from a strategic perspective, which to me appears what the original question is about. This is by necessity wider than attrition through combat.

In fact, the 1944 events are less straightforward than I thought. On the minus side are the IL of the Germans, the removal of the Finns, and the switching of the Romanians (much worse for the Germans than the Finns, since the Romanians eventually fielded over half a million men on the side of the Romanians). On the plus side, additional Hungarian forces were brought into battle. So in actual fact, the net loss for the Axis may have been less than what I originally suspected,while the overall impact due to force additions for the Soviets may have been more catastrophic. In terms of force comparisons, the Red Army added (eventually) half a million Romanians and 100,000 Bulgarians to its numbers.

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#298

Post by Qvist » 02 Apr 2007, 13:29

That has in the mean time occurred to me too. :)

Anyway, this is in essence a very simple model that reflects quite specific things. Its advantage is that since it really only requires three data points for each side, it is simple to source (whereas sourcing force addition bottom-up is, as I am discovering to my disadvantage, frought with endless sourcing problems, even with extensive archival research), and that it is reliably accurate as long as the data you use are accurate. At least, I have not been able to figure out any real problems with it. But it is, as always, important to keep in mind just what it tells something about, and just what it doesn't.

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#299

Post by Qvist » 02 Apr 2007, 13:40

I am not questioning correlation. But as an economist I feel the need to point out however that correlation does not equal causation.
As said I agree with this, but as a historian I feel the need to point out that normally, in historical explanation, you cannot hope to prove single factor causation in large and complex phenomena. The correlation does IMO heavily suggest a causal relation to some degree, and it is after all generally reasonable to assume that the relative strength of your forces to those of the enemy impacts on how events evolve in a fairly predictable way. I've seen no shortage of historical explanations that float on a considerably more slender buoy than this. :)

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#300

Post by Art » 03 Apr 2007, 17:55

Qvist wrote: That is without the non-combat losses. As you recall, I quoted this in conjunction with a German Abgänge figure, which also includes evacuated NCL.
With. I encoutered the same mistake made bu you and by Zetterling&Francson and I believe it is caused by some imperfections in the english edition of Krivosheev's book. I russian one there is small remark after the table with the breakdown of losses (that is where you toook the figures from): :"In the number of irrevocable losses all the men died of wounds and deseases are included. They are also included in the sanitary losses". In other words this category of losses is accounted twice: one time in sanitary losses, and the second time in IL. Hence, the actual number of losses is smaller then the sum of IL and SL. Krivosheev sums these two categories in his table, but I don't know for what sake he does it. Some simple means to check the sorrespondence between two tables with losses data in Krivosheev's book: the actual number of losses is roughly equals to KIA+MIA+WIA+Sick&Frostbited. If we take the numbers for the rourth quarter of 1942 we'll receive 1373218. That is in very good agreement with the table of losses of Active Army wich gives 1391831. The difference could be attributed to addition of number of men died in accidents and other factors of small significance. Note that the sum in table 1 (the breakdown of losses by type) for 4th quarter 1942 is 1457404, that is 100 thousands higher that the figure of losses of Active Army in the table #2. If we take the whole period of war the difference would be even greater:29629205 in table #1 against 28199127 in table #1.
That however is a quite different matter - the point concerns force addition to the Ostheer and to the Fronts respectively, not men mobilised.
Of course. By this means that the case was not in only in human recources available but also in the way how this recources were used. And what is important if to take the number if men mobilized into german armed forces this number were enough to compenate for much greater losses than that were actually suffered on Eastern Front. So we can challenge the conclusion "the losses represented the core of the German ability to stay in the field for this long". If to take the figures of losses and the manpower available in isloation of other factors, the German Army were able to sustain losses even if they would be let's say two times more than they actually were in 1943.
The German force addition is taken directly from the overview referred (and is 1,860,000, and includes replacements, returning sick and wounded as well as new formations),
Does this include the men recovered from wounds and deseases being not evacuated from the Army rear area?
The fighting Fronts had 6,124,000 men on on 1 November 1942, according to Glantz.
6605498 according to inherently unreliable and biased :) modern russian official historians. This must include fleet forces. Also 202965 in GHQ reserve.
Glantz also presents an estimated strength of 6.6 million on 14 October 1943, and a quoted strength of 6,156,000 on 31 December 1943.
63900046 according to the same mean liars, and 533110 in Stavka reserve.

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