Was the Russian Army the largest in history?

[Vapor Trail]

Was Stalin's army the largest army mobilized in history?

[Andy Krause]

yes I believe so,although it was a poor mobilization,the russian army BEFORE stalingrad when the Germans were winning and driving deep into Russia,the russian army was poorly organized all hell was broken loose and their equipment was obsolete and they didnt even have enough arms for all there soldiers for a bit of time :twisted:

[Oleg Grigoryev]

despite what DNF believes in 1941 German armed forces in 1941 was bigger than these of USSR, and in fact invading forces outnumbered Russians that were facing them as for poor mobilization - it was not poor it was incomplete.

[Gwynn Compton]

There are a few myth's about Russian mobilisation

The first is that the Russian's were slow at it. It's not so much that the Russians were slow, but that the mobilised had large distances to cover, and in the confusion following the launch of Barbarossa, it was hard to know where to send them due to the conflicting reports coming in from the fronts, especially from the Commisar's who tried to portray the situation in a better light.

Not only this but the Russian's had a huge problem with the sheer number of people trying to come through. But the Russian's first priority in the days following June 22 were to get the fulltime military divisions to the front, thus buying time for mobilised divisions to get formed and the like.

The Russian authorities were brutally efficient in wartime, however confusion, size and distance played against a German 1914 style mobilisation.

The Heer was about 4 million strong in 1941 wasn't it? With some 3 million soldiers partcipating in Barbarossa if my memory is correct.

[Oskar]

By wars end, the US military has some 12 million troops in active duty, of which, at least 6 million were in the army. Does nayone have the total number of troops in active duty by war's end forother countries?

Oskar

[Gwynn Compton]

I'll have a look round, but numbers on the Soviet's are notoriously inaccurate when one can get them. I have a fleeting suspicion that it was a similar ammount to the Americans, however I'll have to find some figures to check this out.

[StormTrooper_38]

Russia as being a huge country had been very over populated so their army was huge but dont get mixed up as saying it was strong. The red army was huge but very disorginazed and "old" they still today have tanks and aircrafts of the Axis and Allies, which is being used in somewhat in their operations. 8) In my opinoin they only lasted in the war becasue of luck ( the winter weather that played a roll in the defeat of the germans) and numbers ( their exterimly HUGE population)

Thanks

[StormTrooper_38]

I have been doing some reading and in the time of WW2 America only had about 2 million soldiers ready for war and they lost 1 million as the war got more intense more soldiers sign up making the total about 10 million. The time of ww2 the US was weak and was not ready for a war. at the end of ww2 the americans lost a total of about 500 000, which is not ture, they lost about 2 or bout 1 million men. The government has not yet made it clear! 4 some reason

The Russians to this day have not given their exact losses in ww2 some people say it is becasue they lost many people and it would cause humeliation. The losses just for Stalingard was over 4 million and over 1 million injured or never found.

[Wiking]

The Russians to this day have not given their exact losses in ww2 some people say it is becasue they lost many people and it would cause humeliation. The losses just for Stalingard was over 4 million and over 1 million injured or never found.

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Sorry but that is not true. The Russians lost nearly 1.000.000 men at Stalingrad, the Germans also. All in all 2.000.000 men have died between summer 1942 and winter 1943 at this place as the result of Hitlers insane brain. Between : welcome Stormtrooper

[Oleg Grigoryev]

Russia as being a huge country had been very over populated so their army was huge but dont get mixed up as saying it was strong. The red army was huge but very disorginazed and "old" they still today have tanks and aircrafts of the Axis and Allies, which is being used in somewhat in their operations. 8) In my opinoin they only lasted in the war becasue of luck ( the winter weather that played a roll in the defeat of the germans) and numbers ( their exterimly HUGE population)

Thanks

Overpopulated? And what is the "reasonable" number might I ask? Also which axis junk do Russian army still uses (it did not use to much to begin with). As for huge population till the tide truned back and made population of occupied territories available for conscription USSR had roughly 70 million available at all. I believe that is less than Germany and its allies had a their disposals.

The Russians to this day have not given their exact losses in ww2 some people say it is becasue they lost many people and it would cause humeliation.

Russians did that long time ago: kia, died because of wounds, committed suicides, died in accidents 6885100 men.

[Oleg Grigoryev]

There are a few myth's about Russian mobilisation


The Heer was about 4 million strong in 1941 wasn't it? With some 3 million soldiers partcipating in Barbarossa if my memory is correct.

I have number of 8 500,0 thousand men for Germany and its allies for 06.22.41 and 4 826,9 men for RKKA and RKKF.

[Wiking]

Russians did that long time ago: kia, died because of wounds, committed suicides, died in accidents 6885100 men

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It is noteworthy the the major part of soviet losses were of ukrainian origin. Even some of the most famous generals of the Red Army,e.g. Zhukov had been a strong relation to Ukraine.
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Ukraine lost more people in World War II than any other European country. At the beginning of the war Ukraine's population was 41.9 million. Let us review some of the estimates of losses from largest to smallest. According to A Short History of Ukraine published by the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Kiev in 1986, as a result of the Second World War: "The population [of Ukraine] contracted by 13,614,000." (p. 239). This statistic is not explained.

In 1977 Stephan G. Prociuk estimated in a detailed analysis that Ukraine's World War II loss of population was 11 million. (Annals of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the U.S., New York 1977, vol. 13 no. 35-36, p. 23-50.

The American journalist Edgar Snow, who visited Ukraine in 1943 during the war and at the end of the war in 1945, reported in his book The Pattern of Soviet Power (New York 1945) that according to a high Ukrainian official "No fewer than 10,000,000 people had been lost to ... Ukraine since 1941." This statistic excluded "men and women mobilized in the armed forces." (p. 73).


Ukraine Lost 10,000,000 People


"Yet it was not till I went on a sobering journey into this twilight of war that I fully realized the price which 40,000,000 Ukrainians paid for Soviet--and Allied--victory. The whole titanic struggle, which some are apt to dismiss as "the Russian glory," was first of all a Ukrainian war. No fewer than 10,000,000 people had been 'lost' to... Ukraine since 1941, I was told by a high Ukrainian official. That excluded men and women mobilized for the armed forces.

A relatively small part of the Russian Soviet Republic itself was actually invaded, but the whole Ukraine, whose people were economically the most advanced and numerically the second largest in the Soviet Union, was devastated from the Carpathian frontier to the Donets and Don rivers, where Russia proper begins. No single European country suffered deeper wounds to its cities, its industry, its farmland and its humanity."

Edgar Snow
The Pattern of Soviet Power
New York: Random House, 1945. p. 73.

"At the end of the war, Ukraine lay in ruins: the population had declined by 25 per cent -- that is by approximately 10.5 million people; 6.8 million had been killed or died of hunger or disease, and the remainder had been evacuated or deported to Soviet Asia as political prisoners or had ended up as slave laborers or emigres in Hitler's Germany..." states Ann Lencyk Pawliczko in Ukraine and Ukrainians Throughout the World (University of Toronto Press, 1994, p. 62). Prof. Kubijovych, a geographer, says "the population of the Reichskommisariat Ukraine fell from 24,100,000 in 1939 to 16,900,000 -- a drop of 30 percent. The population of the larger cities dropped by 53 percent. ... We may assume that in 1943 the population of the Ukrainian SSR in the current boundaries was about 30 million, ythat is, 10.5 million less than in 1939." (Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopedia, University of Toronto Press, 1963, vol. 1, p. 204.) V. Trembitsky gives a total of war losses to Ukraine in 1941-45 of 8,545,000. (Za Vilnu Ukrainu, 24 serpnia, 1994 p. 3). Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Shcherbitsky in 1974 gave a statistic of 6,750,000 as Ukraine's World War II losses. (Radyanska Ukraina, 18 October, 1974).

[Wiking]

Lend-Lease: Lifeline for the USSR

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American, British and Canadian Lend-Lease made a significant difference in the progress of the Soviet armies against Hitler's armies. However, the USSR tried to keep this information limited and the role of Lend-Lease is generally not well known although it constituted about 15 per cent of the total equipment used by the USSR, particularly almost one-half million American trucks. It was said that the only thing that moved through the mud towards Germany were the Ukrainian T-34 tanks with their wide tracks and the American Studebaker trucks.

The USA supplied the USSR with 6,430 planes, 3,734 tanks, 104 ships and boats, 210,000 autos, 3,000 anti-aircraft guns, 245,000 field telephones, gasoline, aluminum, copper, zinc, steel and five million tons of food. This was enough to feed an army of 12 million every day of the war. Britain supplied 5,800 planes, 4,292 tanks, and 12 minesweepers. Canada supplied 1,188 tanks, 842 armoured cars, nearly one million shells, and 208,000 tons of wheat and flour. The USSR depended on American trucks for its mobility since 427,000 out of 665,000 motor vehicles (trucks and jeeps) at the end of the war were of western origin.

[Wiking]

Mr.Stalin himself admitted in 1946, that the Sovietunion would not have made it alone without the Lend-Lease Program. Not a wonder indeed, if we have got a closer look about the given counts.

[Wiking]