re: The affect of the strategic Air War on the Eastern Front of WWII

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I've debated you on this before and shown that the lend-lease trucks only accounted for somewhere like 25% of the movers in the Soviet arsenal. However, I'm not here to argue material. The simple fact is that German manpower could never defeat Soviet manpower. It doesn't matter how many tanks or trucks you have. You need men. I disagree with you that the Soviets wouldn't have lasted without American food support. The things that the US supplied were all a luxury to the Red Army. None of it was crucial to their victory in the East.

When you look at WWII, you can't view it from a material perspective. The Germans had great optics, planes, tanks, etc but they didn't have men who firmly believed in their duty and they had a leader in Hitler who was completely incompetent in military matters. With those two factors combined, the Germans were never going to win. You can't win a war against an enemy that has more willpower and more manpower. You can bomb them to hell all you want but unless you send the guys in to kill the men, you won't win

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Are you trying to argue that the German soldier was any less fanatical and devoted to their cause than their Red Army counterpart? We both know better than that.

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The US bombed the absolute hell out of the Vietnamese in the Vietnam War. They still survived and eventually took Saigon after the public and politicians back home couldn't tolerate it.

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Terrible analogy to try and compare the total warfare of the Eastern Front of WWII to Vietnam. Two totally different wars that have no resemblance to one another.

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The Chinese had no where near the technology that the US and allies did in the Korean War but were able to beat them back to the 38th parallel

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Another bad analogy. The situation on the Korean peninsula in 1950 was nothing like what was seen at anytime on the Eastern Front in WWII. And the Chinese nor North Koreans were not exactly fighting with just PPSh-41. They were well equipped with, at that time, still very modern and capable, T-34/85 tanks and Soviet artillery. The only reason you read mostly of infantry "waves" is due to the mountainous terrain of Korea. The truth of the matter is the communists were very well supplied and armed. And keep in mind that the PLA was in 1950 a very veteran army, having just won the Chinese Civil War.

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You have to kill them on the ground. The factories don't run, the planes don't fly, the tanks don't shoot if there's no manpower there to make it happen. The Soviets had the manpower and willpower to do this. The Germans could never completely destroy the enemy at any point.

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But what you're not seeing is without those factories and those supplies and resources, you don't even have an army. All you've got is an unarmed mob being led to slaughter. Yes the fighting formations are what wins a war, but it's the logistics train that that makes the difference. Without it, there is no army. And the simple fact is the Soviets did not have a complete logistics train in WWII. They just didn't.

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Here is the difference darth. You're thinking with a western mindset. You have to throw all of that out the window. You have to look at the situation as stalin did. Stalin was willing to let every man woman child and animal die. This alone ensured his victory. Over nothing else. He would have sent 10 year old boys with sticks, barefoot, to charge the enemy. He simply didn't care. As long as there was a man, woman, or child alive, the fight was on. This was a war that Germany could never, and would never, win.

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I'm not looking at it from a "western" standpoint any more than it would be valid to look at it from an "Eastern" standpoint. I'm looking at it from a factual standpoint. Sure Stain was willing to let millions of his countrymen die. But that would have done them no good if those millions had no capacity to wage a modern war.

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Logistics don't matter. Guns don't matter. Food doesn't matter. If you're willing to have your country completely wiped off the map, there is no hope for the other side to win.

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Please don't take offense, but this is absurd. Logistics don't matter? What good does an army of millions of starving unarmed men do against an army of millions (or even hundreds of thousands) of fully armed and trained combined arms soldiers with air support to back them up? Put 5 men inside a Tiger and march 10,000 men at them armed with nothing but bolt action rifles. When the dust settles either there will be 10,000 corpses around that tank or what's left of the mob will be scattered to the wind.

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I'm not looking at it from a "western" standpoint any more than it would be valid to look at it from an "Eastern" standpoint.

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"one death is a tragedy, a million, a statistic "

That is the mentality you need when looking at the war on the eastern front. Not a "well logistically this is a bad idea" or "what about the boots for the men?!"

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But that would have done them no good if those millions had no capacity to wage a modern war.

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They had the capability. And let's be real for a moment. The Germans would have never been able to truly cut off and maintain control over the oil fields in the caucuses. Op blau was a complete cluster frick and ended in the decimation of the German 6th army. So even had the oil fields been captured outright, they would have been reclaimed soon after. Making the oil argument moot.

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Please don't take offense, but this is absurd. Logistics don't matter?

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Of course logistics matter. I simply meant that logistics wasn't a point the Russians wouldn't base What they did off of what made sense "logistically" "who cares if there's only one rifle for every3 men, ATTACK!"

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Put 5 men inside a Tiger and march 10,000 men at them armed with nothing but bolt action rifles. When the dust settles either there will be 10,000 corpses around that tank or what's left of the mob will be scattered to the wind.

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Or the 10k sends a few mine dogs, or throws a few molotov cocktails under the tiger.

But to each his own.

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Very good post. In 1944, Stalin sent a General Order saying to stop human wave attacks. Indeed, they were running short of manpower. Their losses from WWII affected them for generations after

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They may have ordered it. But in practice, the Soviet offensive tactics never evolved much at all. Early in the war they'd just send as many men as possible screaming towards the German lines hoping at least some would make it far enough to do some damage.

About the only modification they made to this as the war progressed was to add more preparatory artillery followed by better coordinated "creeping barrages" (which the British had perfected in 1916 but the Soviets were still trying to figure out in 1945) and the addition to waves of tanks and heavy assault guns to augment their infantry. And really, those tactics were Soviet doctrine until the fall of the soviet Union. Basically the war the Soviets fought in WWII was first dreamed up in the mid-1920s and they really didn't change much over the next 70 years.
Soviet Deep Battle

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1942 was the crucial year on the Eastern Front. The Allied bombing campaign didn't hit its stride until 1943, and didn't really begin to have any appreciable effect on the German war machine until 1944.

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And it was in 1943 & 1944 when the Soviets finally had the strength to really go on he offensive. Now imagine had the Germans not had to divert massive amounts of effort to defend the Fatherland from waves of American & British heavy bombers and instead could focus all heir energy and resources on holding the Eastern Front. Even with the Strategic bombing campaign the Soviets were almost at the end of their rope by May, 1945. They were so short of men by then that every time they liberated a prison camp, they'd press the Soviet prisoners into the Red Army despite the fact most of them were almost tee weak to even pick up a rifle.

The Luftwaffe had superior aircraft and vastly greater numbers of them.

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To this you may add that from a percentage standpoint, the losses of the RAF Bomber Command exceeded those of the British Army in the trenches of WW1. That's not a typo, WW1, 1914-18.

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The losses to the bomber crews was just incredible. The US 8th Air Force suffered the highest casualty rate of any American unit in the war. And that's including the army, navy, and Marine corps. That's right, even the most bloodied army or marine division didn't suffer casualty rates like the 8th Air Force saw.

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The US 8th Air Force suffered the highest casualty rate of any American unit in the war. And that's including the army, navy, and Marine corps.

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FALSE

During World War II, the U.S. Navy's submarine service suffered the highest casualty percentage of all the American armed forces, losing one in five submariners.[Wiki]

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But in practice, the Soviet offensive tactics never evolved much at all

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This is contradicted by Glantz.

I know of no scholar that would agree that Soviet tactics, combined arms and otherwise, "never evolved much at all" during the period of 1941 to 1945.

"Deep Battle" is a Soviet Operational Doctrine that they began to develop in the 1930s and used it throughout the war. They never abandoned that operational theory.

But the Operational level is a step up from the tactical level. The Red Army's tactical execution did not remain static. How could it? As Red Army commanders gained combat experience, they used improved tactics. As they observed successful German combined arms tactics, they learned from that, and Red Army combined arms tactics improved during the war. And, of course, the Soviets had military academies that trained their combat leaders. Those schools operated throughout the war.

It's not logical to conclude that the Red Army's tactical proficiency remained static from 1941 to 1945.