Comments by "David Himmelsbach" (@davidhimmelsbach557) on "I agree with Christer Bergström's "Operation Barbarossa: 9 popular myths busted" article" video.

@ Atanassov... But the Germans WERE drowning in a sea of Red soldiers -- at the point of attack. That's where the legend got started. The front was so long that neither army could truly maintain a continuous front -- in the western sense. What happened is that the Soviets 'got wise.' They discovered that it was much better to find a thin sector -- overwhelm it -- and then breach it deeply. With their new-found mobility, it proved very practical to swing left and right -- going miles into the German rear -- even if the starting point was not in a particularly sweet spot. Punching through -- miles away from enemy concentrations -- was the essence of the Blitz. That's what was new about WWII grand tactics. The Americans ran into the same dynamic in France. All obvious river crossing points were well defended. They couldn't get across no matter how intense their artillery. Yet, time and again, the same rivers were crossed in rural settings, where the German defense was thin -- provided by second-line infantry. Once across, the Americans found that it was easy to envelope the urban crossing (with the tank-rated bridges) every time. The elite German formations backed away rather than being trapped. This is what was happening in the East. To the guys getting their azzes kicked -- it always looked like the Soviets were beyond number. Well, that's the way it's supposed to be ! The Soviets finally figured out that you attack weakness -- not strength. Stalin, the dictator, never quite figured that out, but his generals did.
12
@ Lawrence -- neither army could really function during the Russian mud seasons -- two per year. That's why no major offensive was scheduled during the mud. The bigger problem for both Red and Black was plain vanilla breakdowns... even in good weather. In 1941 major Soviet tank counter-attacks broke down totally before even reaching the front lines. The Mark I tank was so terrible that it was pulled from service. Check out its suspension -- it's a fright. Neither army really solved tank suspensions during WWII. The labor and talent required to keep the tracks in good order is a fright. That's why "The Chieftain" obsesses over track tensioning. He's on youtube.
4
@ Dwarov -- the end of the Cold War blew up the CIA's ENTIRE data stream. Only after the war it became evident -- glaringly so -- that ALL Soviet stats were total fabrications. Red China is STILL doing it, BTW. It's in the nature of Socialist regimes to lie, lie, and lie again, lying like a Nazi, as we say. ALL such regimes regard such stats to reflect upon the Party. So only good stats will do. As for Red commanders reporting bad news to Stalin -- that often was a death sentence -- especially where Finland was concerned. Lying to ones military superiors was hardly confined to the Red Army. Famously the German commanders often lied to Hitler -- with Guderian being the exemplar in this regard. Monty, the British FM, so distrusted his subordinates -- WRT truth -- that he placed finks in all higher subordinate commands. You my friend are naive. Bad news is not well received at any time -- especially so in dictatorships. Look at how Red China is handling the corona pandemic. It's one lie after another. ALREADY lower ranking officials are being hung out to dry... mostly because they HID the truth about the virus. They were in a double bind. If they told the truth -- they're in BIG trouble. If they fudge the numbers -- they're in BIG trouble when the truth arrives. THIS was the dynamic all through the Stalin years. You're looking at it in Real Time -- RIGHT NOW -- with the coronavirus, yes, you are.
4
@Konttinen ... Glantz has a huge problem: he actually believes the Soviet archives that he's gotten access to. It's well established that the Red Army even lied to itself... and to Stalin. Truth would get you a bullet -- the fate of many Red commanders fighting the Finns. Unlike the Nazis or Soviets, the Finns have a very solid reputation for their statistics. Some are astonishing, how the Soviets DIDN'T know how to fight in the snow -- cold yes -- deep snow, no. If you think about it, tanks are useless in deep snow. They fall through it like it's water.
3
@ Grosek -- NO. Stalin is held to account for his OWN extermination campaigns. In "Unholy Trinity" Arrons & Loftus make a strong case that Stalin was an accessory to the Holocaust. Because of the Balkan names in its first part, it's a tough read. The West - the CIA and MI-6 are revealed to be either compromised or stupid -- take your pick.
3
@Horatio ... the USSR was taking fantastic medical casualties in Afghanistan -- due to DRUGS. This was only admitted to decades after the 1991 Revolution... by retired military doctors. At the time, no commander wanted ANY of his boys given that diagnosis. So every other illness was used as a proxy. Famously -- infamously -- Bergdahl went AWOL to purchase hashish. The US Army has done all that it can to suppress that truth. (Shades of the Red Army !) It was this latter phenomenon that had the Soviets freaking out. For their boys in Afghanistan were 'going into business' -- same as Bergdahl -- by the thousands. How bad did it get ? Their own internal documents showed that fully HALF of all draftees were becoming addicted. For those with long memories, the US Army had big problems in Vietnam along the same lines. Indeed, such notions became a recurrent plot device in many TV detective shows in the 1970s. ( Mannix, Rockford Files ) Yes, it was drug addiction and drug distribution that caused the Soviets to pull out of Afghanistan -- NOT Charlie Wilson's 'war.' Drugs were destroying half of the Red Army in contact. Wilson's boys were mere gnats in comparison. BTW, the jihadis saw the same equation. They did everything to push drugs into Soviet veins.
2
@ All you guys: It was ILLEGAL for anyone to publish honest statistics about ANYTHING in Stalin's USSR. This includes stats that one would logically presume to be accurate -- the 'internal' stuff. Yes, you can't trust ANY Soviet stat -- PERIOD. We see the same thing in today's Red Chinese economic statistics, too. They are manufactured to meet Party expectation. Any idiot who falls out of line is either shot or sent to prison for a very long stretch. Stalin was so extreme that he wouldn't even allow a national census after 1939. (!) All of the above is why the CIA -- and everyone else -- was totally wrong-footed about the Soviet economy -- why no-one saw the implosion that was to come. Like the posters above, the CIA actually took Soviet statistics as being even remotely accurate. They never were. As for the Nazi state -- different players -- SAME GAME. A culture famed for record-keeping has left historians a shambles of statistics. As TIK notes elsewhere, in Hitler's day nothing matched appearance. The only thing we can say for sure: Germany had the upper hand in 1941 -- because most Red soldiers were QUITTING -- something seen in the 1991 Gulf War and again in 2003 in the Second Gulf War. Quitting stopped after Nazi policies established beyond any doubt that Hitler was out to exterminate all Slavs. The Red Army didn't obtain favorable loss ratios until very late in the war. This reality was entirely due to Stalin. He would not permit his generals to fight a smart war -- no, not at all. Kursk was the FIRST time Stalin permitted his marshals to fight a strategically defensive super-battle. (Stalingrad devolved upon him. He didn't choose any part of its flow. He relented for Uranus ONLY because ALL of his great ideas were total busts.) The Reds NEVER really got sweet exchange ratios until the USAAF crippled the Nazi's fuel supplies. ( The Big Week, February 1944.) No fuel was the story of Bagration. By that time the USAAF and USA had sucked off virtually the entire Wehrmacht. Other than HG, GD, 3SS, 5SS EVERY super premium mobile formation had been sent west.
2
@ Dwarov.. put down the bong. EVERYONE on the planet knows that the Soviets, Nazis, Maoists murdered their citizens at the drop of a hat. The numbers ran into the MANY millions. Red china is STILL at it. Such is the nature of Socialism, of totalitarianism. Stalin infamously kicked no end of settled populations off of their farms... on no notice at all. ( Volga Germans, Chechens, et al.) His canal project northeast of Leningrad cost the lives of hundreds of thousands. ( Shades of Peter the Great ) It was a total dud.
2
@ Dwarov -- Put down the bong. Get therapy. Stalin triggered WWII in Europe by initiating the Soviet-Nazi Pact of August 23, 1939. Stalin wrote it, held the original in Soviet archives. Hitler merely signed on the line that was dotted. It, the document, was released to the world's press twenty-some years ago by President Yeltsin. His press conference was attended by the ENTIRE world's press in a huge auditorium -- the biggest in Moscow, IIRC. Stalin, not Hitler, partitioned Poland -- with his own Fat Pencil. So fat it was that you'd think it was smeared lip stick. Stalin had penal battalions by the dozen. They were suicide assault units. Defectors from such units became the German's most loyal 'volunteers.' Heh. Such 'volunteers' number in vast numbers by the end of the war. They never laid down their weapons, being 'ghosts' in the first place. Read also: "Bloodlands." It's a totally depressing eye-opener. Mass executions of politicals, partisans, Gypsies and Jews was strictly a Bloodlands phenomenon. No Western Power engaged in such atrocities at any time.
2
@Horatio: INRE Afghanistan. The Soviet medical officer I read (retired, he was) stated flatly that EVERY other disease known to man was used in the paperwork. He as forbidden to write up ANY soldier as being drug addicted. This was a general order to all medical officers. Obviously, they did not want new bloods to comprehend that drug use meant a quick ticket back home. This Soviet officer wrote that certain diseases were known as code words for all other medical officers -- being code for drug addiction. BTW, even NOW the Afghan Army is infested with drug addicts. You can watch totally frustrated American sergeants trying to train them// deal with them on You Tube. Some footage is hilarious. It's like viewing truants in high school detention -- but with guns and no toilets. Hashish butts are left strewn all over the ground -- while the Afghani denies that he's high. In fact, he's so high he can't smell his own discards -- and is drifting off even as you're speaking to him. Drug addiction explains why the Afghan Army can't fight its way out of a paper bag. Neither Afghan, American nor Slav wants to be there. Gorby realized that it was ESSENTIAL to get the Red Army out before things got even worse. It was producing too many veterans -- wounded veterans. Under the Soviet system, the authorities lived in denial -- same as Red China and the coronavirus right now. Consequently, they were releasing drug addicts into the general population. The 'secret war' was going public -- the hard way. While Tass and Pravda were talking things up -- the veterans were destroying the Soviet narrative. Ultimately, Afghanistan and Iraq set the table for the Russian Revolution -- 1991. An event I predicted TO THE DAY after the Gulf War fiasco. (I knew that the reactionaries would wait for Gorby to go on vacation... to Sochi... in mid-August... same as every year.)
1
@ Horatio I just remembered: "Cholera" was THE code word in the medical paperwork mentioned by the Soviet doctor whose meaning was drug addiction. True cholera was unknown in Soviet ranks. They did know how to dig latrines. Their officers were not that remiss.
1
Afghanistan is a hell hole now, has always been a hell hole. Just ask Alexander the Great. Imagine: the great man couldn't find the Kyber pass! Heh. One of the medical problems for the Soviets: Afghanistan is so HIGH that helicopters are compromised. So much so that the USSR crafted a 'chopper just for that war! MI-17: they gave the MI-8 even bigger engines and renumbered the beast. This machine even impressed the Americans -- years later. So Congress bought some. (!) Putin's antics put a stop to that. What all of this meant was that many Soviet soldiers couldn't be choppered out to a hospital. They had to take a truck. Ouch !
1
@Кремень I think we've read enough soviet propaganda from you commie ldiot.
1