Untrained infantry replacements (1944)

[Reigo2]

Several times I have met in Soviet documents claim that rifle divisions received (in February 1944) replacements with very low training. For example the 45th Guards Rifle Division received after the successful but costly offensive operation at Leningrad in January 1944 3033 men for replacements and they were described as untrained (TsAMO 344-5554-1458, list 4).

Obviously Soviet commanders of all levels understood that this not a good practice. What was then the reason of filling units with low trained people? Insufficient amount of training units? Low number of available manpower on territories which were remaining in Soviet hands? If a larger territory was taken from the Germans then the available manpower there was as quickly as possible rushed into combat units because there was no large or steady flow of replacements from elesewhere?

[Knouterer]

Any men of military age found in the reconquered territories were considered suspect, unless they could prove that they had fought with, or supported, the (pro-Soviet) partisans.
Apparently such men were regarded as disposable cannon fodder and thrown into battle with only very sketchy training. Their high losses were probably seen as just punishment for their previous lack of commitment.

[Art]

Several times I have met in Soviet documents claim that rifle divisions received (in February 1944) replacements with very low training. For example the 45th Guards Rifle Division received after the successful but costly offensive operation at Leningrad in January 1944 3033 men for replacements and they were described as untrained (TsAMO 344-5554-1458, list 4).

I would take this particular document with a grain of salt, they can write practically everything there without bearing any consequences. I suppose there is a large probability that these replacements actually came from the 36 replacement rifle brigade. Complains about a level of training in replacement units were widespread though.

[Reigo2]

I would take this particular document with a grain of salt, they can write practically everything there without bearing any consequences. I suppose there is a large probability that these replacements actually came from the 36 replacement rifle brigade. Complains about a level of training in replacement units were widespread though.

So in this case probably one should replace "untrained" with "insufficiently trained". But why were complains about low training widespread? It hints that the organisation of training had problems. I wonder is there any research available by now concerning this?

[Art]

General Yeremenko wrote in his diary in December 1944:

During the last conversation on one company I found that ... they exercise marching but know nothing about their weapons. There are cases of men who shot from a rifle once in their lifetime and missed and nobody teaches them.

There various articles and studies with titles like "training of reserves for the front in XXX military district", for example:
http://obs.uni-altai.ru/unibook/rostov3/rostov3.pdf
http://history.milportal.ru/podgotovka- ... noj-vojny/
which gives some factual information but lack criticism.
The first books gives some example of the length of training circle: 23 Replacement Rifle Brigade at the start of the war: 2 weeks for personnel with previous military training, 1.5 months for reservists without military training. In June 1944: 3 months for recruits of the 1926 class, 15 days for reservists with previous training, 2 months - reservists without military training. One needs to understand that the "previous training" of reservists could be a service in territorial units some 10-15 years ago.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Reigo2,

As I understand it, the Red Army was stretched for manpower by 1943-44 and regularly recruited infantry directly from the population of recaptured Soviet territory as it advanced. As the prime mobilised manpower from these areas had been lost early in the war and no training of the younger cohorts had gone on for the several years of the occupation, much of the recovered manpower was likely to be older men with obsolete training or untrained youths.

In 1944-45 the Red Army was able to recruit Polish, Romanian, Czechoslovak and Yugoslav forces to make up infantry numbers and take over part of the front.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Art]

So in this case probably one should replace "untrained" with "insufficiently trained". But why were complains about low training widespread?

An official source ("Strategic overview of the Great Patriotic War") commented in 1961:
"Replacement units created in accordance with the mobilization plans didn't ensure training of a large stream of replacements. For this reason the number of replacement units and formations increased by several times during the war. In average from 1 to 2 million men underwent training simultaneously in replacement units and training centers.
In critical first years of the war replacement units didn't always manage to train the requisite number of men. Lack of highly qualified specialists was especially strongly felt...Short training circles didn't ensure preparing specialists with good knowledge, which had a negative effect on battle activity of troops."

[Reigo2]

How much evidence there is that men from recaptured territories were thrown into battle without much training? Or rather their training too depended on their earlier training (reservists with previous training or not)? By the way, Art, thanks for the links and quotes.

[Art]

As I understand it, the Red Army was stretched for manpower by 1943-44 and regularly recruited infantry directly from the population of recaptured Soviet territory as it advanced.

No, not directly. An order issued by on 9 February 1942 authorized conscription of men in the age from 17 to 45 years on the theater of operations. Their training was to be conducted by replacement units of the operational army. This order was further confirmed in 1943:

No. 0430 15 October 1943
By the Supreme Command's order of 9 February 1943 No.089 military councils of operational armies were given a right to conscript Soviet citizens on the territories liberated from German occupation.
In execution of this order there are serious violations of legally established procedure of mobilization. Mobilization is carried out not only by military councils of armies, but also by commanders of divisions and units and without regard to the actual need in replacements.

In this connection in addition to the order No.089 of 9.2.42 the Supreme Command orders:
1. Conscription of citizens liable for military service in regions liberated from German occupation is to be carried out only by orders of military councils of armies via army replacement regiments, mobilization by commanders of divisions and regiments is prohibited.
2. Chief of the Main Directorate for Formations is to establish the number of men subject to conscription for each front in accordance to the plan of delivery of replacement to each front approved by mine.
3. All men subject to military service conscripted above the planned quote for each front are to be sent to replacement units [of military districts] according to orders of the Chief of the Main Directorate for Formations.

I. Stalin

Just to make it clear: each field army had a replacement rifle regiment with an authorized strength of about 3000 men (by October 1943). Men conscripted in the operational zone were to be concentrated and undergo military training in these regiments. However, as follows from this order and other official correspondence there were widespread violation of the normal procedure of conscription by local commanders and direct conscription of civilians to combat units. The Soviet command had a somewhat laissez-faire attitude to this practice, until Smorodinov, who became a new chief of the Glavupraform and struggled to concentrate control of replacement policy in his hands, lobbied for the order quoted above.

Anyway, returning to the 45 Guards Rifle Division, I randomly checked casualties list for February 1944. It doesn't seem that there was a preponderance of men born or conscripted in places like Ukraine or western districts of the Leningrad region. Actually it seems that there were few of them. My guess is that replacements for this division were actually personnel transferred from various service/supply units with rudimentary military training.

[Art]

How much evidence there is that men from recaptured territories were thrown into battle without much training?

The Stain's order, quoted above, seems to confirm that the practice existed.

[Dann Falk]

The image below is a TsAMO record for the 7th Guards Army on 1 Feb 1945. It shows the training regiment for the army and the total number of men. I think the number above the bar are the total number of men in each group and below the bar the number of men that are ready to be dispersed to combat units. Maybe Art can let us know if this is true.

If this is true then the regiment has 64 officers, 982 NCO and 1046 men available to be sent to the rifle divisions as replacements.

190 Training Regiment - 7 GA - 1 Feb 1945.jpg

[Art]

Don't know, you should search for previous reports of the same type. Probably total men/fit for frontline units

The history of the 190 Replacement Rifle Regiment provides an interesting illustration. In 2 years (from July 1942 to June 1944) the regiment received 107,680 replacements, of them 53,174 were civilians conscripted by the regiment, mostly in Ukraine. About 10,000 of the conscripted personnel were directly transferred to combat units, the others underwent training in the regiment and sent to combat units with march parties. In the spring of 1944 alone during the march to Romania the regiment conscripted about 27,000 men. After a short training period of 10-20 days about 13,000 private and 450 NCO riflemen, 800 heavy and 600 light machine gun crews, 100 mortar crews, 100 scouts, 200 artillery crews were transferred to combat units.
https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=136074266

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Guys,

If they pushed 107,680 men through a single training regiment in two years, it must have been turning out a thousand men a week.

Assuming that, as a regiment (rather than a larger brigade, etc.,) it had about 3,000-4,000 men at any one time, training would presumably have been brief - perhaps less than a month.

A quick trawl on the internet for the Germans gives (unsourced), "In 1938, it took’s 16 weeks for infantrymen, 1940 only eight weeks, 16 weeks in 1943, and in 1944 from 12 to 14 weeks." Even then the Ostheer was so unimpressed with the quality of replacements it got from the Ersatzheer that each army group set up a field training division to give them additional training before they were sent to their units at the front. The new Reich-raised Waffen-SS divisions set up in 1943-44 took over a year before being committed to action.

If not completely untrained, Red Army replacements would appear to have been seriously under trained by comparison with their opponents.

Cheers,

Sid

[Art]

Some more illustrations relating to the operations of the 3 Tank Army in early months of 1943 (advance from the Don to Kharkov and defense of Kharkov).

By 16.02.43 (liberation of Kharkov) the army received 22,561 replacements:
10,528 from the army replacement regiment
3,442 from assembly points at Kharkov
2,574 from the Voronezh Front
6,017 civilians directly conscripted by combat units:
https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=113346330

From 17.3. to 4.4.43 the replacement regiment of the 3 TA received:
- 5,697 men arriving from the army blocking detachments (1847 stragglers, 2602 liberated prisoners of war, 1248 conscripted civilians)
- 5,326 men conscripted by local recruiting boards
- 1,293 convalescents from hospitals
- 3,866 march replacements from the interior
Total 16,182 men in addition to 6,716 available on 17.3.

During the same period the regiment sent 16,683 replacements, the remainder was 6,215 men, in addition 2038 former POWs were evacuated from Kharkov were processed at the assembly camp.
https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=113333726

So normally replacements were channeled through the army's replacement regiment, yet there were considerable exceptions from this normal procedure. These docs also mention liberated POWs as a significant source of personnel replacements.

As the after-action report of the 3 Tank Army admitted

Divisions and brigades incorporated replacements through conscription of local population, mostly untrained and lacking military uniform, which decreased combat value of units.
...
Replacements of personnel received through conscription of local population didn't improve but actually even worsened combat qualities of units and enabled breaking resistance of army's troops and seizing the initiative by the opponent, who had considerable technical superiority.

https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=113333653

Yet, it should be remembered that the 3 TA was in exceptional situation when rail communications with the interior were jammed or disrupted and it could receive very few supplies and replacements from the rear areas.

[Art]

Hi Guys,

If they pushed 107,680 men through a single training regiment in two years, it must have been turning out a thousand men a week.

Assuming that, as a regiment (rather than a larger brigade, etc.,) it had about 3,000-4,000 men at any one time, training would presumably have been brief - perhaps less than a month.

The replacement regiments of the operational army were supposed to be a pool of trained replacements arriving from interior zone or from hospitals. Training of newly conscripted civilians was to be made in replacement units of interior. At least that was an original design, which was pretty logical, but it was upset by the order of 9 February 1942 described above.
In case of the 190 Regiment more than 50,000 men it processed were either march replacements from the interior military districts or convalescents returning from hospitals or personnel transferred between units. That is men who had already had some military training.
Actual training terms in replacement terms varied according to the previous military service, specialty, rank (privates or NCOs), age etc. Personnel meant for non-battle functions in service or supply elements received the shortest of all.

Returning to illustrations from wartime documents - information on 243 and 244 march companies sent from the 169 Replacement Rifle Regiment to the 3 Tank Army on 9 October 1943. The companies consisted of 500 men recently conscripted in liberated districts of Ukraine. The bulk were Ukrainians (480), also Russians, Belorussians, Jews and Tatars. By age:
25 or younger - 93
26-35 - 154
36-40 - 145
40-45 - 68
above 45 - 40

By previous military service:
Active service (up to 2 years in the regular army) - 40
6 months training in territorial units - 30
3-5 months - 40
2-3 months - 200
without military training - 190
All personnel underwent 10 day training course in the replacement regiment. Physical state was considered good, morale - satisfactory.
https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=452439995