RE: Russia and Ukraine
April 18, 2022 at 10:25 am
(This post was last modified: April 18, 2022 at 10:43 am by Anomalocaris.)
Attack exposes the attacker much more entrenched defender exposes the defender. When you take the offensive against a entrenched defending force at least equal to you in skill, you are likely to suffer far higher casualties than the defenders. That’s why the classic rule is the attacking force needs 3:1 superiority over entrenched defending force to succeed. The fact that the Soviets were continuously on the offensive from 1943 to the end of the war means one would expect them to be taking much higher casualties most of the time.
But looking deeper, another cause of higher Soviet casualties is their tactical level leadership remain far inferior to German’s even in 1944 and 1945, even while Russian operational level leadership caught up with the germans.
the number of senior operational level officers needed by an army is very few compared to total number of officers needed by an army, The Ruthless filtering process from 1941-1943 identified maybe 100 very talented and capable individuals and their supporting staff. That is not surprising in an army with literally millions of officers to chose from.
but at the bottom of the million officer pyramid things are different. The very high casualty rate for junior abs field grade officers during the first 3 years also mean new not enough survived to give large large percentage of tactical units the benefit of their experience, snd their attrition rate means traing and promotional program can’t be as lengthy or thorough as required. the lack of large enough body of highly qualified junior officers at the beginning of the war created a hole so deep at tactical level they never managed to climb out of it before the end of the war. So even by 1945, when quality of most german units have declined precipitously, German units on company and battalion level were still much more effective man for man than their soviet counterpart.
So at the end of the war, the soviet army was led well at the top, at the level of marshals and colonel generals. indifferently led at mid level of colonels to lieutenant generals. much better led at tactical level than in 1941, but still notably poorly led at the lieutenant colonel and below compared to the germans.
But looking deeper, another cause of higher Soviet casualties is their tactical level leadership remain far inferior to German’s even in 1944 and 1945, even while Russian operational level leadership caught up with the germans.
the number of senior operational level officers needed by an army is very few compared to total number of officers needed by an army, The Ruthless filtering process from 1941-1943 identified maybe 100 very talented and capable individuals and their supporting staff. That is not surprising in an army with literally millions of officers to chose from.
but at the bottom of the million officer pyramid things are different. The very high casualty rate for junior abs field grade officers during the first 3 years also mean new not enough survived to give large large percentage of tactical units the benefit of their experience, snd their attrition rate means traing and promotional program can’t be as lengthy or thorough as required. the lack of large enough body of highly qualified junior officers at the beginning of the war created a hole so deep at tactical level they never managed to climb out of it before the end of the war. So even by 1945, when quality of most german units have declined precipitously, German units on company and battalion level were still much more effective man for man than their soviet counterpart.
So at the end of the war, the soviet army was led well at the top, at the level of marshals and colonel generals. indifferently led at mid level of colonels to lieutenant generals. much better led at tactical level than in 1941, but still notably poorly led at the lieutenant colonel and below compared to the germans.
