Art wrote:
Now a question: what were mistakes made by Krivosheev when comparing balance loss with reported loss?
No response followed, so it's me to answer. The most striking thing is that figure #1 (reported losses) includes the losses of NKVD troops, while the balance figure doesn't (it's quite obviously follows from the method of calculation). So the real difference between the numbers produced with the two methods is not 500 thousands but 500 + 159 thousands (NKVD troops losses), that is roughly 660 000. The second error is somewhat less evident. Using the balance method Krivocheev recieved the 11 944,1 thousands deficit, and interprets this deficit as a number of dead and missing. However, as we remeber roughly 940 thousands men were registered as missing but returned to the Soviet Armed Forces by the end of the war and thus are not included in the balance deficit. So to recieve the correct number of dead and missing one have to add them to the deficit figure. The same can be explained in the other way: the number of men mobilized was corrected to exclude double count, that means that 940 thousands discussed are subtracted from it. Hence in fact Krivosheev subtracts this number twice, first time from the number of men mobilized, second time from the calculated deficit, that is, of course, incorrect.
An attempt to made a correct calculation using the balance method was made by professor Mikhalev. He took into account the two aforementioned mistakes and then he used more modern figures for the Soviet Armed Forces Strength in June 1941 and June 1945 published in the handbooks "The combat and numerical compsotition of the Soviet Armed Forces in 1941-45" produced by the Institute for Military History. Namely it's 4 629, 5 thousands men in ranks on 22.06.1941 (Handbook #1) and 10 549,9 thousands in ranks by June 1945 (Handbook #11). Taking all the other components the same as used by Krivocheev, he obtains 22 280,2 thousands for total "outs" (as opposed to 21 636,9 thousands in Krivosheev) and 12 587,4 thousands for deficit attributable to losses. The total dead and missing figure is obtained by adding 939,7 thousands (missing returned under military control by the end of the war), that is 13 527,1 thousands. To obtain demographical loss (dead and non-returned missing) one have to subtract 1 836,6 thousands POWs repatriated after the war from the deficit, that gives us 10 750,8 thousands. As we remeber that figures stands for the losses of the Army and Navy, to get the full losses we have to add the same figures for the NKVD troops. So the final result is
13 698 thousands dead and missing (as opposed to 11 944,1 thousands calcualted by Krivosheev), of them
10 921,9 thousands are demographical losses, i.e. dead and non-returned missing (9 168,4 thousands according to Krivosheev).
Mikahlev's method IMO has its own weak points, but at least it seems to be more consistent than Krivosheev's one.
