#17
Post
by Art » 27 Jan 2008, 19:21
Some comment on military losses which may be not directly related to the topic but I hope will be useful to expand the discussion. The principal source for military losses is the research made by Krivosheev's group. It uses two different methods:
1. The first one is based on reports on losses recieved from units. By the end of the war the following losses were reported:
KIA and died of wounds during evacuation - 5 226,8 thousands
Died of wounds - 1 102,8
Non-battle deaths (deseases, accidents, executions, suicides) - 555,5
MIA 3 396,4 thousands
Unregistred losses (the personnel of units whcih were completely destroyed) - 1 162,6 thousands
Total 11 441,1 thousands
From this number the people registered as missing but returned under military control are exluded - total 2 775,7 thousands of them 939,7 thousands men reconscripted on the occupied territories till the end of the war and 1 836,0 POWs repatriated after.
So the resulting "pure" loss (killed died and not returned from captivity) is 8 668,4 thousands. This figure pertains to the losses of the Army, Navy and NKVD forces (the last acount for 159,1 thousands)
2. The second method is based on calculating the losses based on balance figures. In short it looks as followes:
The Soviet Armed Forces (Army and Navy) had 4 826,9 thousands men when the war started
Apart from this 74,9 thousands men of military pesonnel were in the civilian organizations
During the war 29 574,9 thousands were mobilized excluding the cases of repeated mobilization (particulary 939,7 thousands mentioned earlier) .
That gives a total resource of 34 476,7 men which could be employed in the Armed forces.
By the end of the war (1st July 1945) the number of military personnel amounted to 12 839,8 thousands, of them 11 390,6 in ranks, 1046,0 in hospitals, 403,2 in civilian organizations.
The difference between the two numbers is 21 636,9 thousands, that is the total loss. Of this 9 692,8 thousands left the Armed Forces without being killed, dead or missing. These were:
3798,2 retired due to wounds or deseases
3614,6 transferred to undustry for labor employment or to paramilitary organizations
1174,6 transferred to NKVD troops or military formations of other organizations
250,4 transferred to foreign Armies (Polish, Czechoslovakian, Romanian)
206,0 - miscellaneous losses
212,4 deserters
436,6 sentenced and sent to penitentiary system
The remaining loss of 11 944,1 must be attributed to the losses as dead and missing
One can see that there is a 500-thosands difference between the "reports' and "balance" figures. This difference is interpreted by Krivosheev as draftees who didn't arrived to military units, yet it can be explained as an inaccuracy of either methodic. It should be noted the round character of this figure is purely accidental. If we add them to the 8 668,4 pure loss figure we'll recieve roughly 9 170 thousands for irrevocable losses.
Now a question: what were mistakes made by Krivosheev when comparing balance loss with reported loss?
