Thanks, Art always has the best cites on SU.KDF33 wrote:which compares to 3,203,400 men conscripted from the new age classes of 1925-7.
The '42-'43 numbers are revealing, with RKKA taking every 17/18yo it could get, leaving almost nothing for later drafts.
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What do we think of the Schadenko report's casualty figures as of 1.9.42? 4.92mil MIA+KIA? Ostheer had claimed ~4mil PoW by then. And we know that RKKA found 937k men in liberated territory for re-enlistment who were previously MIA (most just walked home, probably all claimed to have joined the partisans). [Cite given by Lopukhovsky: Russia and the USSR in Wars of the 20th Century, 2001, p. 237, Table 120.] Most of these would have "de-enlisted" by September '42. Even assuming some of the Ostheer PoW were non-RKKA personnel that would fall under "lost on enemy territory" (e.g. fortification-diggers overrun during construction), there's little room for KIA in Schadenko's figure.
2mil KIA would be a conservative estimate by Sept 42. I've previously brought up GKO's decree on locating "dead souls," which implies internal recognition of a KIA error perhaps as large as 1mil. Maybe RKKA's manpower reserves were lower than even it thought at this time...
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On the issue of SU surviving an ATL '42 which it enters with 2mil fewer men, possible emergency measures:
- 1. Shrink the absolute and relative size of the internal military districts.
- 2. Strip "operating fronts" facing Japan and Turkey.
- 3. Mothball the navy.
- 4. Largely stop producing aircraft, scream at W.allies for them (negligible shipping cost for delivery).
Nonetheless, I could see RKKA doing nearly as well as OTL with these measures until Fall '42 when lower force generation starts to bite (assuming no Japanese attack). Ostheer holds the Blaulands and SU is desperate but still alive by Spring '43. In that condition, I could see FDR moving heaven and earth to put a few million men in France in Spring '43: Casablanca goes much differently absent clear Soviet dominance over Germany. I'm talking complete embargo on troop movements to Pacific, recall of landing craft and even of divisions from there. If ROUNDUP happens in Spring '43 then Ostheer perhaps can't deliver SU the coup de grace. Then it's perhaps a question of whether SU starves out in '43, absent the Blaulands.
Again not a rigorous analysis, just an outline of possibilities.