Reliability of Sovjet military deaths

[ljadw]

Oleg:thank you for the source,i had it ,but naturally had forgotten

[Oleg Grigoryev]

In "the soviet-german war" Glantz is giving"military deaths: 14,7 million,then total losses 35 million(Krivosheev gives total mobilized 34 million) and then:"killed,missing,captured : 14,7 million ". Little confusing.

well - what does Glantz cites as source for his numbers?

presumably, number you quote comes form table 4 of this article http://www.strom.clemson.edu/publicatio ... r41-45.pdf
There are no footnotes- although he has Krivoheev listed among his sources. I would have to agree - that even if for a second forget that table is un-sourced, it is confusing -how did he arrive to his actual ???

[ljadw]

Oleg: I have an opinion,but I will not say it ;perhaps you could ask him? I will not.

[Art]

For example, the agreement between losses of the Karelian Front in Krivosheev and archival material available here is generally very good.

I became interested myself to obtain a more quantitative comparison, and that is what I've got:
In 1941 according to monthly summaries the Karelian Front lost (from 1st September):
14 926 killed in action, 15 435 missing in action, 110 captured, 583 killed due to noncombat reasons, 37 307 evacuated wounded, 5 391 evacuated sick, 1 365 evaucated frostbitten, total 75 117 men.
Accordin to Krivosheev (edition of 2001) the front lost (1st September - 31 December 1941):
14 720 killed, 18 658 missing and captured, 632 noncombat deaths, 37 092 wounded, 5 292 sick, 1 374 frostbitten, total 77 795 men.

In 1942: monthly summaries give 23 506 killed, 9 199 missing, 26 captured, 1 536 noncombat deaths, 55 238 wounded, 36 326 sick, 1 186 sick, total 127 081 men
Krivosheev - 22 927 killed, 8 086 missing and captured, 1 491 noncombat deaths, 53 849 wounded, 36 202 sick, 1 154 frostbitten, total 123 709 men

In 1944 ( 1943's tables are available only for the second half of the year):
Monthly summaries - 29 878 killed, 3 233 missing, 26 captured, 1 745 nonombat deaths, 74 045 wounded, 51 223 sick, 721 frostbitten, total 160 871 men
Krivosheev - 29 777 killed, 3 318 missing and captured, 1 705 noncombat deaths, 73 873 wounded, 50 258 sick, 714 frostbitten, total 159 645 men

In 1945:
monthly summaries (1st January - 30th April) - 122 noncombat deaths, 1 750 sick, total - 1 872
Krivosheev - 121 noncombat deaths, 1 718 sick, total 1 839.

So correspondence is good, in 1944 even very good. It should be noted that monthly summaries include losses of NKVD troops and marines, while it's not clear whether Krivosheev does. Also the losses of the 7th Army are included to losses of the front beginning from 1 January 1944, while Krivosheev list them separately until 24 February 1944. It's intersting to compare losses of this army too. Acording to Krivoshev in 1944 (allegedly 1 January - 24 February) it lost:
70 killed, 2 missing, 13 noncombat deaths, 98 wounded, 662 sick, total 845 men.
According to monthly report (January 1944):
70 killed, 2 missing, 13 noncombat deaths, 98 wounded, 662 sick, total 845 men. Exact coincidence, despite the fact that the army suffered some losses in February as well.
This example demonstrates one possible shortcoming of Krivosheev: he can give correct figures but for the wrong timeframe.

[Oleg Grigoryev]

Of course there is a matter of reliability of original records, or, rather the records as they preserved right now. I said it before on this forum, but here it is again -something personal. http://www.obd-memorial.ru/proj.shtm is a government project that allows you to search for the records related to military personnel that reported as a causality. I entered my granddad older brother, name and I got 4 different records listing him as dead on 10.01.1943, but with two different ranks (sergeant and private) and different first and middle name -although the same initials. What are the odds that there were two Bochkis M.H. that were born on the same yea,r of the same day in the same local and who got killed on the same day? So not only he is not dead but he probably got counted as dead twice.

[amateur]

Honorable Red Army experts!

Which of the sources, in your opinion, is the most reliable for the Soviet casualties in Narva and Sinimäe battles from February 2 to August 10, 1944? The estimates of different authors vary a lot. Thanks.

[Art]

There is a book "Ot Narvy do Syrve" by F.Paulman, which was published in Estonian too as far as I remeber. It quotes the losses of the 2nd Shock Army at Narva in February 1944 as about 10 thousands irrevocable and 50 thousands wounded with reference to a document from the army's records in TsAMO. I don't know in what published sources one can find losses for the entire period, it seems that TsAMO RF f. 217 is the best potential source of information to date.

[amateur]

Thanks Art!
I know that book. Haven't read it, though. Those figures make sense.

May be a silly question, but is the information from the archives of the Ministry of Defence available on the internet? I can read Russian.

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

Krivosheev provides casualties of Soviet Air Force during the Polish Campaign of 1939 as only 4 dead.

While M. Wawrzyński, "Czerwone gwiazdy sojusznik czarnych krzyży nad Polską. Lotnictwo sowieckie nad Kresami wrzesień - październik 1939" ("Red stars allies of black crosses over Poland. Soviet Air Force over Kresy September - October 1939") on page 169, chart No. 13 provides 11 dead soviet airmen by name, surname, rank and date + circumstances of death. This is almost 3 times bigger number than the one provided by Krivosheev!

[Oleg Grigoryev]

Krivosheev provides casualties of Soviet Air Force during the Polish Campaign of 1939 as only 4 dead.

While M. Wawrzyński, "Czerwone gwiazdy sojusznik czarnych krzyży nad Polską. Lotnictwo sowieckie nad Kresami wrzesień - październik 1939" ("Red stars allies of black crosses over Poland. Soviet Air Force over Kresy September - October 1939") on page 169, chart No. 13 provides 11 dead soviet airmen by name, surname, rank and date + circumstances of death. This is almost 3 times bigger number than the one provided by Krivosheev!

What does he uses as a source for his data? Can we have a list so we can try and verify it on our side?

[Art]

It quotes the losses of the 2nd Shock Army at Narva in February 1944 as about 10 thousands irrevocable and 50 thousands wounded with reference to a document from the army's records in TsAMO.

Sorry, my mistake - in reality about 30 thousands wounded. The reference is given to TsAMO f.309 (that is the section of the 2nd shock Army), op. 4073, d. 491, l. 286

May be a silly question, but is the information from the archives of the Ministry of Defence available on the internet?

No they don't have documents online, except those in www.obd-memorial.ru and they don't have them on microfilms. A summary of what is TsAMO like can be found here (in Russian):
http://litl-bro.livejournal.com/5673.html

[Art]

There was some discussion on reliability of Kriviosheev's figures recently again, so I thought it would be worth to make some comment. A certain drawback of Krivosheev is "closed source" character of his data, that is an absence of any reference to sources and the lack of description of how his data were obtained. Unfortunately, comparison of Krivosheev with primary sources is not always possible. That makes such comparison even more interesting in cases where these primary data are available. We have, for example excerpts from losses reports of the Kalinin, Bryansk and West Front for the period October 1941-April 1942:
http://radikal.ru/F/s004.radikal.ru/i20 ... e.jpg.html
http://radikal.ru/F/i067.radikal.ru/100 ... 4.jpg.html
http://radikal.ru/F/s005.radikal.ru/i21 ... 9.jpg.html
http://radikal.ru/F/i081.radikal.ru/100 ... 0.jpg.html
http://radikal.ru/F/i074.radikal.ru/100 ... 6.jpg.html
http://radikal.ru/F/s006.radikal.ru/i21 ... b.jpg.html
The source is "Russkiy Arkhi..." Vol.15 "The battle of Moscow", 1997 available online here:
http://militera.lib.ru/docs/da/moscow_terra/index.html
Archival references are presented on the scans.
A brief look at these data is enough to understand that they are obviously incomplete for the last months of 1941. For example, the West Front reported 32 503 missing in action in October 1941, which was, of course, too low, though it is quite natural that they could not receive any information from encircled and destroyed units. The reporting in 1942 seems to be more reliable, so we can compare these data with Krivosheev's losses in operations. Calculating totals (it should be noted that totals in the tables not always coincide with the sum of columns due to arithmetical errors most probably) one can obtain:

West Front from 1 January to 20 April - 119 897 killed, 302 625 wounded, 20 910 sick, 2 692 frostbitten, 39 552 missing in action, 241 taken prisoners, 10 557 other losses, total 496 474. Krivosheev gives losses of the front in the Rzhev-Vayzma operation (8 January - 20 April 1942) as 435 662, of them 148 940 irrevocable and 286 722 sanitary. The timeframe is slightly different. The losses of the front in January were 143 653 men, so in the period 1-8 January they could be roughly estimated as 40 thousands. That gives us about 450-460 thousands lost from 8.01 to 20.04.42, that is somewhat more than Krivosheev gives, the difference is about 5%. By category: sanitary losses (wounded, sick and frostbitten) from 1.01 to 20.04 were 326 227, irrevocable (provided that "other losses" are included in this category which is not entirely correct) - 170 247.

Kalinin Front lost from 10 January to 20 April (some units from 1 January) 89 820 killed, 195 661 wounded, 11 854 sick, 5 110 frostbitten, 23 089 missing in action, 347 prisoners, 6490 other losses, total 331 905 (119 746 irrevocable and 212 625 sanitary). According to Krivosheev the losses in the Rzhev-Vyazma operation from 8 January to 20 April were 341 227 men - 123 380 irrevocable and 217 847 sanitary. A good correspondence.

The Bryansk Front lost from 1 January to 20 April 14 836 killed in action, 36 473 wounded, 4 455 sick, 980 frostbitten, 7 011 missing, 62 prisoners, 414 other losses, total 64 453 men (22 323 irrevocable, 41 908 sanitary). According to Krivosheev losses in the Bolkhov Operation (8.01-20.04.42) were 21 319 irrevocable, 39 807 sanitary, total 61 126 men. A reasonable correspondence again.

So in this particular case a quite satisfactory correspondence can be found, which doesn't mean that it is always this way, but still makes a point. A question remains how Krivosheev managed to get losses with daily precision, wile they were reported on a ten-days basis. Also classification of "other losses" (noncombat deaths and injuries, sentences by courts, deserters etc ) as irrevocable is incorrect, that is not of much importance though, for these losses were in most cases small enough.

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

Art, I've got a question.

Do you know where can I find the "Golden Book of Fallen During the Liberation March" (don't know the Russian title)?

Btw:

What does he uses as a source for his data? Can we have a list so we can try and verify it on our side?

Yes, I will post this list.

PS:

Here there was an interesting discussion on Russian losses in Poland in 1939 (in Polish) - two pages:

http://www.historycy.org/index.php?showtopic=59507&st=0

There was some discussion on reliability of Kriviosheev's figures recently again.

As far as I know Ohto Manninen criticizes Krivosheev's methodology and points out his shortcomings if it comes to Soviet losses vs Finland. Czesław Grzelak does the same when it comes to Soviet losses vs Poland (Grzelak is an author of a dozen or so works about the Soviet Invasion, including the monograph of Soviet 3. Army - unfortunately he concentrates mainly on actions of Belarussian Front). Both authors base their criticism on Soviet archival sources.

So the conclusion is that Krivosheev researched the Soviet archives not carefully enough.

[Art]

Do you know where can I find the "Golden Book of Fallen During the Liberation March" (don't know the Russian title)?

I don't know this book.

[Art]

As far as I know Ohto Manninen criticizes Krivosheev's methodology and points out his shortcomings if it comes to Soviet losses vs Finland.

"Krivosheev" or whoever actually made this calculation relies on traditional view of the Vyborg operation as lasting from 10 to 20 June 1944. Losses of the Leningrad Front after that day are not shown in the operations list. See:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 71&start=0
So criticism can be directed against definition of the time frame, which, it must be said, crystallized long before 1990s and was apparently accepted by authors of the losses study as a ready fact. I don't think that methodology (in this case simply calculating totals from losses reports of respective commands) and sources (the very reports) are an issue in this case. That is no the the only shortcoming of the operations list used by Krivosheev. For example, losses in the Rzhev-Sychevka operation of 1942 are shown for the period 30 July - 23 August 1942, In fact, serious actions continued till mid-September, in the vicinity of Rhev itself - till early October, which naturally means additional losses. Some operations are simply omitted, for example, attempts to recapture Voronezh in August-September 1942.