Soviet Troop Quality

I found an interesting book at our library this weekend: "Tank Rider: Into the Reich With the Red Army" by Evgeni Bessonov.

It is a memoir of the author's combat experiences during the Great Patriotic War. It seems that he is a platoon leader of a tank descent submachine gun company in a Mechanized Brigade (he states that his unit has no rifles, only SMG's).

I'm only half-way through it so far, but I'm struck by several things:

He belongs to the 4th Tank Army and it seems that this unit is part of deep penetrations against the Germans. But even so, they are always critically short of men. I think the company must number about 30-40 men total (at least that's what the author constantly states).

I'm curious as to how I'd rate his unit. I'd have to go back and count the exact number of times the unit breaks and retreats from combat, but it seems like over half the fights the unit participates in, they break and run. A few times, he can't even get his platoon out their foxholes to attack. (There are some attacks and defensive actions that are successful, of course).

He tells that, in most cases, the replacements he receives don't even know how to clean their SMG's and have had little range time.

Every German tank is either a panther or Tiger (sounds like a gamer! ).

His unit can barely muster the coordination to get tanks and infantry together at the same place and the same time. Artillery support (even from battalion mortars) is spotty and rarely on target.

I'm still reading, and I'm interested if some of these issues get straightened out as the war progresses (I'm at the winter of 44-45 right now).
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"The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse." ~Don Juan

Actually, if you read him carefully (its a great book) he has little but praise for Soviet artillery, which he contrasts critically with Soviet mortars. Conversely, he has contempt for German artillery, but great respect for German mortars. The two times he discusses Katyushas, it is in terms of "playing a joke" on their own infantry. He also indicates that in most attacks where the Red Army keeps on coming, the German infantry take to their heels.

One thing I would be careful of is drawing too many general conclusions from one man's experience. In his unit, when they were trained on mortars, no one in the unit knew how to use them, and the instruction was given by an officer with the manual in one hand. That would not be true in some other cases, sometimes Soviet mortar technique was quite good.

The business about units being understrength, however, is going to be true in most cases, certainly for the Red Army (except for units built up before a major attack or fresh from being formed), and in fact in practically any army in the field. Last weekend I flew to SF and sitting next to me was a Marine, had a son born four days ago, going to Iraq for his second tour next week. NOT a happy man. Told me his unit usually ran about 60% strength.

He is a .50 caliber gunner on a hummer. Last tour had one explosion that cut an ear in half and cut the other side of his face pretty good. He said his platoon leader was considered quite the fool, never in combat, and his platoon sergeant, an ex-DI who hadn't seen combat either. It wasn't until he mentioned it that I looked carefully at the shirt that he was wearing - there was a familar face on it in several places. I was a bit taken aback. ¡Compañero Ernesto "Che" Guevara, PRESENTÉ! Ah, yes, its all coming back to me... This is the kind of Marine I met a lot of back in the day.

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Originally posted by Jack Radey:
Actually, if you read him carefully (its a great book) he has little but praise for Soviet artillery, which he contrasts critically with Soviet mortars. Conversely, he has contempt for German artillery, but great respect for German mortars. The two times he discusses Katyushas, it is in terms of "playing a joke" on their own infantry. He also indicates that in most attacks where the Red Army keeps on coming, the German infantry take to their heels.

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One thing I would be careful of is drawing too many general conclusions from one man's experience.

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The business about units being understrength, however, is going to be true in most cases, certainly for the Red Army (except for units built up before a major attack or fresh from being formed)

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