Aida1 wrote: ↑11 Oct 2019, 11:06They were convinced most of the red army was in the western districts and would fight there.Obviously there was theoretically the possibility of the red army doing a 1812 but that was not expected to happen and it did not happen. Political leaders never like to give up terrain, even temporarily.
With the information available, it was certainly not dumb or a sign of hybris that one was convinced the red army could be finished off quickly. What saved the USSR from the same fate as France and Poland was space and large reserves.Hindsight is always easy.
Quite so.Max Payload wrote: ↑11 Oct 2019, 11:13I don’t know much about FHO methodology and have never seen the raw data on which its assessments were made. In terms of the pre-invasion assessments, FHO grossly miscalculated the Infantry/Cavalry divisional ratio and while designating Soviet tank divisions as mechanised brigades, underestimated unit numbers by around 20%. But the key point is that on 22 June the Wehrmacht expected to face around 200 Soviet divisions in ‘European Russia’ and on 22 June there were in fact around 200 Soviet divisions deployed west of the Leningrad-Rostov line. Consequently, whatever influence the FHO estimate had on decision-making before Barbarossa, it could not have been a particularly adverse one.
The FHO briefed on 22 June 1941 that the Red Army in European CCCP alone consisted of 154 Schutzen Div, 25 Kavallerie Div, 10 Panzer Div, 37 Pz or Mech Bde and 7-8 Fallshirm Bdes. In reality, the 37 Pz/Mech brigades had been redesignated as divisions within the reformed Mechanized Corps recreated in late May. The FHO does not seem to have picked up this late reorganisation.
Earlier the FHO had briefed a mobilization would add a further 209 Schutzeddivision and at least 36 mechanized brigades ddivisions).
How does that compare to reality? Far underestimation?