| To change the theme somewhat, from my last topic. I have read extensively about the various European Armies which fought in WW2 and I believe, I have a fairly good overall picture of the their overall organisation/composition, the way they fought, their strengths/weaknesses etc.
The one exception to this is the Red Army. Inspite of the throwing open of Soviet archives since the fall of Communism and the publication of numerous books on this topic by David Glantz among others, I still do not have an overall ‘feel’ as to how the Red Army really operated – especially in the latter part of the war from 1943-45. David Glantz’s works convey a very simplified impression of all Soviet citizens working happily together with the Red Army to defeat the German invaders, while Stalin sits quietly in the background.
From what I have gleaned on this subject from other sources (notably John Erickson, Albert Seaton and Steven Zaloga, many of whose works were published before the fall of Communism) this was certainly not the case. Stalin kept very tight overall control of all Red Army operations as it advanced relentlessly against the Wehrmacht from 1943 onwards.
The Red Army possessed a vast array of different forces ranging from tank corps, artillery divisions, engineer regiments, guards divisions etc, etc – the list goes on. But how did these different forces cooperate with each other?, What was their reinforcement and replacement system?, Were there real differences in the quality of Guards divisions versus non-guards divisions – comparable to say the German Army and Waffen SS? What about regional differences between various Red Army units - say between rifle divisions from Georgia and Kazakhstan? This is all very unclear.
As far as I can judge, Red Army offensive operations between 1944-45 were a mixture of advanced WW1 tactics (infiltration, artillery barrages plus deception measures) with the basics of WW2 mobile operations thrown in which was applied against a static German defence. Regarding the Red Army Summers offensives of 1943, I am unable to envisage how they were really conducted.
I was just wondering whether you had any ideas/suggestions on this subject matter??
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