Russian Military losses

[Art]

My understanding is that former Soviet unit commanders with access to the archives believed that the battle losses were greater than the Krivoshev report.

I don't think that many top generals were still alive by 1990. What the Soviet General Staff thought about casualties immediately after the war end is quite known:
viewtopic.php?f=79&t=48232&p=1352143
I rather strongly doubt that there are some top secret reports or collection of data that give "true numbers" but are so secret that they evaded public eye.

[Art]

Ilenkov gives us total deaths for the military

He doesn't actually.

while Kriv et al. (the typical 8.7 figure) refer to operational losses only

No, what he refers is supposed to be total deaths. That's quite clear from the book.

[thorwald77]

I rather strongly doubt that there are some top secret reports or collection of data that give "true numbers" but are so secret that they evaded public eye.

Maybe true, but the Archive documents relating to Krivosheev's figures are still not available for review. He referenced the Finland war battles.

[Stiltzkin]

He doesn't actually.

This is what it encompasses. It is the total loss figure, military personnel affected by the war no matter in what way, there is no difference between the correlation of German war dead to total losses and US battle deaths to war deaths. Statistical constants exist for each conflict and century, while it is true that there are differences and it might be just a crude method, it can nontheless give us a rough estimate on the losses sustained. It can be defined as the equivalent, as an "upper boundary" so to speak.
You can even calculate it by using the operational losses. Let me demonstrate: US approx. 400,000 war related deaths (all fronts) , which results in 280,000 battle deaths (291,557 to be precisely). German example: 5,3 million as the upper boundary, this leaves us with 3,710,000 irrecoverables (a bit high but 3-3,5 is usually the accepted figure). Now for Ilenkov, the figure of 13,850,000, results in 9,695,000. I'll leave the rest to you.

No, what he refers is supposed to be total deaths. That's quite clear from the book.

Then he is lying, because those are irrecoverables as a consequence of battle (in fact, fallen + missing form the majority of this figure), the number of total deaths is usually above that for any belligerent. You see, the USSR is not a unique case, the laws of warfare also apply to the glorious motherland. A man of his position knows that well, so I have to assume that there are politics involved.
If what he is saying is true, then there are two options: a) the Soviet armed forces performed poorly and could not effectively protect their civilians, b) the RKKA did in fact suffer such incredible losses, which sheds light on their performance.
You see, if they lost 2-3 men for every Axis soldier on the EF and also sustained 4 casualties for every Axis soldier, it would be quite strange to observe a disparity in German (+ Axis minors) military to demographic and Soviet military to demographic losses (independent of the fact that Germany lost the war, factoring in further reprecussions, retaliation, camps etc etc).
It would simply make no sense. If German irrecoverables resulted in 2,5-3 million for the EF, the Soviet figure must be n times greater. If German military (and attaché) personnel total deaths resulted in about 5 million (Hillebrand and Overmans estimate) then the Soviet figure would be at least twice, perhaps even three times greater.

Should anyone still have doubts, then realize that about 40% of all wounded are no returns and further 10% can be decomissioned personnel. People might even die in hospitals in 46 or 47. Krivosheev could not even establish an exact figure, even if he attempted to.

[thorwald77]

I rather strongly doubt that there are some top secret reports or collection of data that give "true numbers" but are so secret that they evaded public eye.

Art, I see from your posts that you have uploaded documents from the pamyat-naroda.ru website. Has anyone done an analysis to see if they agree with the figures in Kriosheev?

[thorwald77]

Russian Law Article 354.1/Статья 354.1

Question for members in Russia. Does the government use this law to suppress critics of the official version of the war?

[Virginian]

I do not consider Glantz a good source for accurate loss figures

Give the guy a break, he depends on the Russians for all that juicy info in his books. You don't bite the hand that feeds you. The same rule applies to the historians who cover the Ottoman Army like Erickson.

That is not true - Glantz uses Russian sources that have already been declassified or were always public, and in his works tends to criticize Soviet censorship. He isn't getting information from the closed funds of TsAMO, so nothing is feeding him.

[thorwald77]

That is not true - Glantz uses Russian sources that have already been declassified

It is true, in the 1980s Glantz was in Moscow meeting with the Russian military historians and war veterans that are no longer with us. He had a good working relationship with them. I remember him saying in 1991 that the real Soviet losses were 14 million based on his Russian sources. Also he had access to the Foreign Military Studies Office, Fort Leavenworth, KS. The man is familiar with the Russian language sources and is a recognized expert on the Soviet military during the war. I heard him speak for hours many times, he can narrate the details of the battles citing only Russian sources.

[Stiltzkin]

Does the government use this law to suppress critics of the official version of the war

Doesn't the official version change with every decade? Reminds me of 1984. Feels like Jelzins times were more transparent than they are today.

[thorwald77]

Feels like Jelzins times were more transparent than they are today

Oh No!No!No! The casualty figures we see today were computed in 1946, in the Glasnost era they were tweeked a bit but the bottom line remained the same. They had a problem in the Gorbachev/Yelsin era because the 1939 census numbers were overstated by 2.8 million and corrected in 1964, but this was kept secret. Gorbachev wanted to see the war dead figures of the government commission from 1946-25.3 million but the census back of 1939 was overstated by 2.8 million, casualties would have to come down by that amount. ADK were called in to solve the problem. They used the population estimates of Rosa Sifman who did a fertility study in 1974 that estimated the births from 1941-45 at 20 million, for the 41/2 years mid 41 to end 1945 16.5 million. There was a population analysis by the well known French demographer Jean Noël Biraben, it was published in the journal Population, check it on JASTOR. Biraben estimated births for the 5 year population 1941-45 at 16.250 million ADK misrepresented Biraben and compared their 4 1/2 year figure to Biraben's 5 yr estimate. Here we go again more disinformation and maskirovka. If we deduct the 2.0 million to correct for the 1939 census(per ADK) and use Biraben's births for 1939-45 the war dead are roughly 21 million not 26.6 million. ADK came to the rescue with the estimates of Rosa Sifman. Wheatcroft does not accept the Sifman birth figures for the 1930s, he believes they are "excessive" We need an Independent audit of ADK.

[Stiltzkin]

There was a population analysis by the well known French demographer Jean Noël Biraben

What makes you think that either Biraben's methodlogy was correct or the data he was fed? Anyway, I do not see much difference between his and Sifman's figure (from what you state), considering the timeframe. If a government is trying to obscure research then you should be wary of any data you will receive, or else your "mistrust" stands rather isolated. To me it seems that with every decade they are rather attempting to lower the overall death figure, while approximating axis casualties for the military. Multiple figures can be correct, but they need to be put into context. I know that the military sustained about 9 million battle related deaths and 14 million total war related deaths as an upper boundary, while the demographic loss is in the range of 20-26 million (excess deaths are higher from 35-45m). For the military history enthusiasts, operational losses are far more interesting.

[thorwald77]

What makes you think that either Biraben's methodlogy was correct or the data he was fed?

I never said Biraben's methodlogy was correct, I believe there should be an audit of ADK by competent professionals. The difference between the two is significant 3.8 million! ADK makes the computation of their total births by year a bit complicated, you must multiply the cohorts of women by age group using the fertility factors in ADK. Anyway the Rosa Sifman book is on the internet, I did not see these fertility factors, I assume they are the work of ADK . I will be glad to walk you through the necessary computations.

[Art]

Art, I see from your posts that you have uploaded documents from the pamyat-naroda.ru website. Has anyone done an analysis to see if they agree with the figures in Kriosheev?

Check this topic:
https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic ... 9&t=227772

[thorwald77]

Check this topic

I checked that topic Art. We have to thank you for your work to upload and analyze that data. 16 of 54 Fronts and Fleets are covered. I see that summary data is not provided for each. Art did you maintain a spreadsheet to keep a running tally of the figures for each of the fronts and fleets? Do you think it is possible to over all of the 54 Fronts and Fleets? A spreadsheet will allow us to compare Krivosheev with the pamyat-naroda figures.

The figure of killed in action for Army & Navy should agree. It will be our control to make sure we cover the entire war. Mikhalev's general staff figure of July 1945 is 5,191k, Krivosheev's summary schedule for the Army & Navy is 5,187k (including 10k in Far East Aug 45) Krivosheev's details for the 54 fronts and fleets (including 10k in Far East Aug 45) is 5,184K. These three sources are all in the same ballpark.

[Art]

Art did you maintain a spreadsheet to keep a running tally of the figures for each of the fronts and fleets? Do you think it is possible to over all of the 54 Fronts and Fleets?

Obviously you need a full set of numbers for all of them. In reality the scanned collection covers only a part of even front-level archival records (*) with some random pieces of information. Where it was possible to reconstruct annual totals or figures for individual operations which would be comparable with Krivosheev I did it.
Of course, you can go to the archive to work with original documents on paper but it would take plenty of time to collect stats for all Soviet fronts.

(*) The Front HQ consisted of many sections called departments or directorates: operations, intelligence, organizations, training, armor, artillery engineer, supply etc etc. Documents from every of them are stored in a separate section of the archive. All digitized documents of the front level belong to the sections of operations directorates, whereas reports dealing with casualties, personnel strength etc were handled by the organizations departments of the fronts' staffs, and they are not digitized (at least right now). So what we have in digitized collection is either appendices to the war diaries or records stored in operations directorates for whatever reasons. Availability of these data and their completeness is a matter of accident.
Then all the scanned documents belong to the TsAMO archive or to put it simply an Army's archive. Navy records belong to another archive and they are not digitized as far as I know.