I used to have friends who would argue endlessly about these sorts of points with respect to various wars (not just World War II). We usually ended up pulling out histories, biographies of the leaders, tank encyclopedias and the like to make this point or that. I will, as a result, take the opportunity to bring up some counter-points.



I agree completely. Not only that, but existing Soviet fortifications and defensive positions were actually dismantled in the period between 1939 and June 1941. The "Stalin line" and the "Voroshilov line" were two sets of defensive lines that stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea and were designed to make it much harder for an enemy to just "roll through". However, they would impede the forward movement of Soviet troops in a westward direction as much as the forward movement of enemy troops in an eastward direction.



It's debatable how much of the Soviet debacle in Finland was due to the purge and how much was due to a bad plan by Voroshilov (who was a terrible strategist; he survived because he was a crony of Stalin's but was removed from all actual military command as a result of Finland). Tukhachevsky's own record is spotty - he's credited with defeating Kolchak and developing a Soviet theory of blitzkrieg, but in both cases he may be taking credit for what others did. On the other side we know that he failed in 1920 against the Polish army because he didn't believe in having a reserve, and his best "successes" were in killing innocent villages of his own people with poison gas during the Tambov uprising. When one looks at Blücher, Uborevich and the others, the pattern repeats itself. One of them (I forget which one) commanded the first conscripts of the Red Army on February 23, 1918. They were instructed to stop the Germans. A couple of weeks later, these "heroes" had to be detained as far away as Samara (thousands of kilometers south and east of the "battle" scene). The Germans had stopped on their own for supply reasons. Despite this, the date is commemorated as "Soviet Army Day" and a legend was forwarded for decades that it was a victory against the Germans. In reality, the soldiers (and their officers, up to the ultimate commander) deserted and fled.



I admit that this may be a case of "hindsight is 20/20", but if Hitler had exploited the 1943 breakthrough and broke the Soviet line, he might have been able to recreate the situation in 1941 where mass numbers of prisoners were taken and the whole front collapsed. It was unlikely, but it was his best chance to win the war, since he could throw the victorious armies at the Allies with a vengeance. Given how Hitler gambled with the German army, I'm surprised he didn't.



But wait. The German's worst numbers in a proportional sense were taking place in 1943-1945. In 1941 or 1942, the Russians were losing approximately 5 soldiers for every 1 German. Even at Stalingrad this was the ratio. Yes, the Germans lost, in absolute numbers, more troops and equipment at Stalingrad than anywhere else prior to the isolation of Army Group North in the Baltics in Operation Bagration in 1944. However, the Soviets still lost about 5 soldiers for every German one.

At that ratio, the Soviet Union would be unable to sustain the war. However, due to better equipment (including all the equipment sent by Lend-Lease), by 1943 this ratio went down, such that if the war were a war of attrition, Germany would lose. The Soviets had more planes, more tanks, more mobility and were able to mount offensives in a way they hadn't been able to in 1941 or 1942.

So yes, the Germans were still slaughtering the Russians in disproportionate numbers all the way to Berlin. But the disproportion was one that was still going to end in Germany losing, as it indeed did.

As for Stalin's timing, yes, it was planned well.



You still have Pzkpfw III Ausf. G-N and Pzkpfw IV F-J operating on the Eastern Front at the same time, which is enough variety to give headaches to support crews and factories back in Germany. Of course, those factories were still working under peacetime constraints with respect to shifts and production (production actually went down in 1940 and 1941). I don't think anyone would disagree with Buchanan or Taylor that Germany was unprepared for war in 1939, and equally (more oddly so) unprepared for total war in 1941. By contrast, the Soviets just continually produced the T-34, the T-34, and the T-34. Yes, they introduced new designs as well (like the IS-2, a direct counter to the Tiger), but they varied less and so they still did produce more (even if their figures are inflated, which I don't doubt - I have yet to meet a Soviet statistic that isn't probably a lie).



Not so. The Russians repaired and recovered units fairly well. The ability to repair and recover machines on both sides was in large part due to the momentum of the battle. In the early war, all Russian breakdowns were scrap because the Russians were in headlong retreat. In the later war, the German breakdowns were scrap because they had to be abandoned as the Germans retreated.



You mean 1941, not 1940. Most people who know about the war aren't going to argue that the Soviets traded space for time. It was a propaganda justification for the reality on the ground, which was that the Blitzkrieg tactics, combined with Russian geography, were making it impossible to maintain a good, solid line and as a result enveloping massive amounts of troops. The source of this propaganda is 1812, when Kutuzov did consciously trade space for time and drew Napoleon farther into Russia so he could mass more troops. He still lost his battle (Borodino), but his tactic did materially contribute to Napoleon's failure to subject Russia to his will. But that is a separate discussion.

I think that the assertion that the Germans were equally vulnerable to a Soviet offensive isn't quite accurate, because the Soviets did not have, at least in 1942, the motorization necessary to allow a Blitzkrieg tactic to be employed. The Germans could break their line and exploit the breakthrough, but the Russians, if they broke the German line, could not properly exploit it. They were really only able to do this starting in late 1943. Furthermore, between the Volga and the Dnepr there is a good, solid river that is deep and forms a line of defense - the Don. Operation Little Saturn would almost certainly have failed if von Paulus had moved back to reinforce the line on the Don. Stalin had been able to hold that line very well in 1941.