As we all know, in the early days of the Soviet-German War, the Soviet troops suffered extremely heavy losses. From the 194 1 June War to the end of that year, the Soviet Union lost about half of its pre-war national defense forces, reaching 2.7 million people, more than 70% of its tanks and self-propelled artillery, 55% of its artillery and mortars, and 83% of its combat aircraft were destroyed or captured.
However, under the condition of near collapse, the Soviet army gradually got rid of the unfavorable situation of losing streak from 1942 to 1943, and finally turned the tide at the gates of Stalingrad and reversed Gan Kun in one fell swoop. So, how did the battered Soviet army get out of the shadow of failure? How did they reinvent themselves from the brink of death to become invincible victory teachers?
Learn from your opponent.
The sudden attack by Nazi Germans shattered the old Soviet organizational structure in an instant. After a series of failures, the Soviets realized that they were not prepared for the war. The seemingly powerful mechanized army is actually bloated and clumsy; The proportion of arms and services of each group army is seriously unbalanced and does not have unique combat effectiveness; Outdated cavalry units occupy a lot of resources, but they can't play an active role in mechanized warfare at all.
To this end, the Soviet army began to pay attention to learning from the German army, which was the best opponent in the world at that time, and simply overthrew the original establishment system to make the army more suitable for war.
194165438+in February, according to the experience and lessons of the half-year war, the Soviet high command began to reduce the number of group army soldiers, cancel too many command levels, organs and infantry units, add technical arms such as tank brigade, anti-tank artillery brigade, engineering, air defense and transportation, and at the same time try to form a fast mobile force integrating tanks, cavalry and motorized infantry. Although it can be seen from the paper data that the strength of the newly formed group army is greatly "shrunk" compared with the pre-war group army, the rational allocation of multiple arms makes it extremely flexible in carrying out its tasks, and its relatively small scale is easier to be grasped and used by commanders who are hastily promoted and lack wartime experience, thus enabling the Red Army to train a group of high-quality command talents more effectively.
At the beginning of 1942, the Soviet army began to further reform the establishment system. The original large but useless mechanized army was dissolved and replaced by the 15 tank army and mechanized army formed after the German armored division and motorized division. These new armored units immediately showed stronger combat effectiveness than before in the battle, prompting the high command to set up eight new tank units and mechanized units that summer.
In the Battle of Stalingrad, the Soviet army began to try to form the first batch of four new tank army groups to follow suit, to counter the armored forces that the Germans were proud of. As a "test field", these troops accumulated valuable mechanized combat experience for the Soviet Union, which was immediately popularized on a large scale. After enriching the logistics support and the cooperation of the air force, by the end of the war, the fully mature tank/mechanized army and tank group army were prepared and used, which became a devastating steel punch of the Soviet Union.
An increasingly mature commander
Due to the influence of a series of domestic political movements, the military literacy of Soviet officers, especially senior generals, before the war really could not be compared with that of their German counterparts. A series of fiasco at the beginning of the war were largely due to their unfamiliar strategic campaign control and poor operational command level. Therefore, the Soviet high command had to lead all officers and men of the Red Army to learn how to carry out modern warfare in the war, including the ability to control strategic campaigns, organizational support at the tactical combat level, and logistics, training, education, publicity and even various guarantees.
The way the army can win the war, continue to run at high intensity. Although this learning process is expensive, it ultimately benefits the Red Army.
The defeat at the beginning of the war made Stalin determined to establish a lean and efficient strategic command organization, that is, the high command, which effectively integrated the forces of the Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the General Staff and the Red Army's general bureaus and necessary institutions, thus giving timely and professional guidance to the war. The General Staff Department set up a special war experience utilization department (later upgraded to a bureau) to collect and sort out battle documents, action plans, analysis reports and battle summaries, and issue corresponding suggestions for the current war situation at the first time, which has become an important basis for command departments at all levels to formulate laws and instructions.
At the same time, in September of 194 1, the Soviet Union began to carry out military training and education for the whole people nationwide. The High Command and the Ministry of National Defense have carried out large-scale reform and expansion of the military education system, and hundreds of various colleges and universities and 68 training institutions have emerged. 194 1 the number of military command trainees increased by 67%. In addition to training officers, colleges and universities also serve as think tanks, which are responsible for comprehensively analyzing operational actions and the latest operational tactics theories, providing important reference for officers at all levels, especially commanders, to compile operational regulations.
The Soviet Union also paid special attention to selecting outstanding personnel from those who returned from injury to enter the commander training class, organizing staff officers with rich practical experience to set up field training groups, teaching commanders of various units combat skills, and organizing comprehensive training of various services and arms on the spot. The general bureaus and bureaus of the various services and arms of the Ministry of National Defense also directly send commissioners to various corps and units to carry out teaching and training, and participate in the compilation of tactical manuals and fatwas of various services and arms.
From June 1942 to September 1943, the Soviet army received a total of 360,000 officers at all levels (including commanders, political workers and staff officers) who graduated or finished training, including12,500 senior commanders (colonels and above), and another 250,000 officers graduated from the reserve or attended training courses after injury.
After the baptism of war, the military literacy of these Soviet commanders has been greatly improved, which has further promoted the combat effectiveness and technical and tactical level of various Soviet ministries to make a qualitative leap. Even their opponents, the most combative Germans at that time, had to admit: "During the war, they (referring to the Soviet army) have been making progress, and senior commanders and staff officers have become able to adapt to local conditions, take the initiative to attack and improvise ... These qualities are very important for excellent tacticians." (Tank Battle: Research on the Application of Armored Forces in World War II)
Double substitution of equipment and theory
Before the war, the Soviet Union made great achievements in the research and development of new weapons. Although the outbreak of the war disrupted the original pace of weapons renewal in the Soviet Union, Soviet military workers quickly digested and absorbed the advanced achievements of military science and technology before the war, and quickly provided a large number of weapons and equipment to officers and men of various ministries based on the wartime system. Excellent T-34 tanks keep going to the front line, replacing a large number of old T-26 and BT series; "Katyusha" multi-barrel rocket launchers are increasingly becoming the most popular suppression firepower for Red Army officers and soldiers; The advent of Jacques series and La series fighters completely eliminated the vulnerable I-15/ 16 series fighters.
More crucially, the new Soviet equipment was developed and built completely according to the needs of war. Through ingenious system design, the performance of the main technical and tactical indicators can compete with or even surpass that of similar weapons in Germany, while the other standards are compressed as much as possible under the condition of ensuring reliable use. Although this kind of weapon seems to be "rough" and not as attractive as the German "tall" equipment, it is several times the output of the same type of equipment in Germany, and finally "civilian weapons" overwhelm "elite weapons".
The transformation of command power, the continuous improvement of equipment level and the continuous accumulation of experience of officers and men have finally made the development of Soviet strategic campaign theory advance by leaps and bounds and surpassed its German counterparts. 1943 after the battle of shakursk, the Soviet army began to practice the "great depth battle" that had been brewing before the war in a planned way. Soviet troops often put in more than a dozen troops at the same time or continuously, and made many uninterrupted attacks and breakthroughs on hundreds or even thousands of kilometers of wide fronts, exerting great pressure on the Germans from all sides. It was these "thousands of pieces" that seriously weakened the strength of the German army and laid the groundwork for its disaster in 1944.
At the same time, the Soviet high command and commanders at all levels, who grew up in the war, became more and more skilled in planning, coordinating and controlling these battles, and even the combat level of a single group army or group army was significantly improved. This shows more clearly that both the hardware and software of the Soviet army have the ability to carry out a fatal blow to their sworn enemies. The only question is when the blow will be launched.
In short, because of the amazing failure, the Soviet Union had to set out to build a new type of army to confront the most powerful enemy in the world at that time. In order to avoid total annihilation, the Soviet leadership and the Soviet army made strenuous efforts. By constantly learning from each other's strengths on what kind of new army to build and how to use this army, plus their great efforts and sacrifices, they finally got out of the shadow of failure and continued to move from victory to victory from 1943.