The fallen of WWII

[The Infidel]

A quite comprehensive analysis of the fallen of WWII. It makes you think.

http://www.fallen.io/ww2/

[orbitingpluto]

The part where Soviet deaths just kept climbing really gets the point across about the how many there were in a way numbers just fail to. What an interesting film.

[Simon_Jester]

The bone-chilling part... is that each of those rows used to tally the war dead in the big columns is twenty thousand people.

A disaster that kills twenty thousand people is an almost unfathomable tragedy, destruction on a scale that stuns the mind and batters a small nation to its knees. Each disaster is a row in those columns.

Then you look at that column of dead Soviet soldiers- scrolling up, multiple rows flashing past every second, to a stack over four hundred rows high.

Then they start talking about the Holocaust... and suddenly the rows are a hundred figures long... because at twenty to a row they'd form a stack that ran off the screen.

[The Infidel]

The part where Soviet deaths just kept climbing really gets the point across about the how many there were in a way numbers just fail to.

And then he says that the number they are using, is a conservative, official estimate, and some says the number is even 5 million greater than that.

It is mind boggeling.

[Lord Revan]

The part where Soviet deaths just kept climbing really gets the point across about the how many there were in a way numbers just fail to.

And then he says that the number they are using, is a conservative, official estimate, and some says the number is even 5 million greater than that.

It is mind boggeling.

considering how boneheaded the soviet tactics at the Winter War and early parts of WWII were (not mention that Nazis hated Slav almost as much as they hated the Jews) it's not so difficult to understand why the figure for Soviet Union were so high.

[Sea Skimmer]

The Axis vs Soviet military killed on the Eastern Front is less then 2:1 in favor of the Axis, but removing POW deaths (the Russians could have killed millions more had they acted the same as the Nazis anyway) its more like 1.5 to 1, including those massive losses in 1941. The really big difference is ~9 million civilians the Axis also found time to murder. Nothing the Soviets did, even counting the Soviet's reprisals against their own population for collaboration which continued for years postwar, could match that.

A lot of statistics about the Eastern Front are grossly distorted to make the Germans look like more awesome uber fighters by just totally ignoring all other Axis troops, and even counting large numbers of pro German Soviet volunteers whom served the Axis as Soviet losses. Which well, they are Soviet citizens dead, but its hardly a reasonable match up to compare them against German dead! The Germans didn't loose so utterly by having massively favorable kill ratios. Even in the 1941 invasion when almost no Soviet units were actually combat ready the Germans had something like 650,000 casualties before the end of the year.

[Purple]

Another thing to consider is how the two sides counted their losses. Here are some interesting articles on the subject:
Cheating at Statistics
Cheating at Statistics 2
Cheating at Statistics 3: Standards

In essence the Red Army would count any person or piece of kit not available for action right this moment as a loss where as the Germans only counted what they had to admit was irrevocably lost.

[Sea Skimmer]

Standards for counting vehicles and men were different in and within different militaries, however in both world wars the Germans did not count men with minor wounds not requiring evacuation from the divisional area as wounded, while most of the allies did, at least as long as the man visited an aid station. On the other hand it appears some Russia death figures for WW2 actually include estimated birth losses caused by disruption from the war, and thus loss of potential rather than actual population.

That wounded issue though has caused particularly large distortions of the casualty figures of some WW1 battles, but the full impact is still in dispute. But as an example of what it may mean, the Allied-German losses on the Somme may have been just about 1:1 in killed and wounded, which considering that the British and French did gain ground rather completely changes the traditional narrative of that campaign. In fact the Germans may actually have had greater personal losses when the rather large toll of POWs (mostly captured in those supposedly awesome but tactically flawed deep gallery shelters) are taken into account.

But you know, Germany super awesome made good allied propaganda in the wars, and then just endlessly carried over into popular culture postwar.... and the average moron never bothers to think about just why it is the Germans in the end massively lost both world wars on the battlefield, such that no military victory was remotely possible, and how that could possibly be compatible with incredibly favorable results.

And then we have China in the Sino Japanese war where I'm not sure anyone has any real clue to the final count to within 5 million actual dead people. Nobody had a firm administration from 1911 onward, millions died in floods and famine, linked and not directly linked to the war, vast amounts of archives were burned or scattered in the final nationalist retreat and the whole general situation was just hellish. The Japanese couldn't even make effective study of the results of dozens of bio warfare attacks because so many diseases were already circulating. Also because the Unit 731 'scientists' made Nazi vivisection 'doctors' look like organized geniuses.

[Thanas]

It's not that hard to be slightly better at fighting and still lose the war when the enemy simply has vastly higher reserves of manpower and industry.
It is also not that hard to take larger losses and be willing to do so if you can afford to.

[K. A. Pital]

Nazi equipment manufacturing was just not up to the total two-front war task. The Axis had plenty of time to ruthlessly massacre prisoners and civilians, but apparently failed to streamline even tank production to reduce the man-hour and steel inputs. They also gathered Nazi scum all across Europe to help them kill the subhumans, but these units failed to turn the tide.

The Nazis were better at war up to 1943, by which time most important innovations in field tactics and unit composition trickled down to the Red Army, and the Nazis met their well-deserved fate in the fields of Western Russia.

[Simon_Jester]

It's not that hard to be slightly better at fighting and still lose the war when the enemy simply has vastly higher reserves of manpower and industry.
It is also not that hard to take larger losses and be willing to do so if you can afford to.

But if you're inflicting losses at a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio... Russia wasn't THAT much bigger or richer than Germany. If all the panzer and Luftwaffe claims of lopsided kills were true, not even the overwhelming weight of Soviet (and Lend-Lease) arms production could have compensated for it.

[Zinegata]

The total number of Soviet soldiers mobilzed in the first place was only around twice that of Germany, because that's the population ratio. This is why the Germans couldn't have scored a better than 2:1 ratio. They would have in fact won because the Soviets ran out of men.

Moreover, the key statistic which I've seen come to light recently was ammunition and fuel expenditure - with the Germans actually firing more artillery rounds and using more fuel than the Red Army in 41-43. Quite simply, having tens of thousands of tanks is meaningless if most of them are lacking fuel and ammo loads.

Nazi equipment manufacturing was just not up to the total two-front war task. The Axis had plenty of time to ruthlessly massacre prisoners and civilians, but apparently failed to streamline even tank production to reduce the man-hour and steel inputs. They also gathered Nazi scum all across Europe to help them kill the subhumans, but these units failed to turn the tide.

Yep. It's often claimed for instance that the 45 ton Panther tank was only slightly more expensive than the 30 ton MK IV or Stug, but in reality the damn thing apparently cost nearly 50,000 man-hours to build which is equal to a US Liberator bomber.

And to achieve the production rate you basically had to strip the units of spares and logistical tail. The Tiger for instance only had one spare engine for every ten tanks, leading to the necessity of a logistical tail consisting 130 trucks and assorted vehicles to keep a battalion of 45 running. The Panther was about as unreliable but did away with the logistical tail, leading to half of the Panthers the Allies recovered in Normandy being found with a broken final drive. By contrast a US Sherman battalion had 60 tanks and needed only 30 trucks.

[Thanas]

It is also not that hard to take larger losses and be willing to do so if you can afford to.

But if you're inflicting losses at a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio... Russia wasn't THAT much bigger or richer than Germany. If all the panzer and Luftwaffe claims of lopsided kills were true,[/quote]

Kill inflation happened by all armies, heck one famous German submarine was supposed to have been sunk six times. Though the Luftwaffe protocols for recognizing kills was actually stricter than that of the US.

not even the overwhelming weight of Soviet (and Lend-Lease) arms production could have compensated for it.

Well, some people are arguing that without Lend-Lease the Soviet stock would have been in fact depleted. I don't know how much of that is true or not - and it really does not matter with regards to the end result.

As to the casualty ratios, I am a bit confused. How many Germans do you think died and how many Soviet soldiers did die?

[K. A. Pital]

Seriously? Stock depletion? Red Army car park (I think I posted this before):

The orange is the Soviet and trophy-taken cars, the yellow is the import (lend-lease) cars.

Casualty ratios. For the Germans and satellites, ~5 million lost overall, including dead and taken prisoner. For the Red Army, and satellites, these losses stand at 11 million. These are not deaths alone. The kill ratios favor the Germans because they deliberately killed between 1,5 and 2 mio. POWs. Basically, a 2+ dead Soviet soldiers and allies vs. one dead Nazi European (I will refer to them collectively, because the Nazi satellites also lost quite some men).

The 2:1 ratio is logical, because that is about by how much the Soviet mobilizational reserve exceede the German one, and by how much the total number of people passing through armed formations exceeds the Germans (it's ca 35-36 mio for the USSR, probably 40 mio if you take all irregulars into account, and 17 mio for the Germans, which is 20 mio if all the irregular collab scum is accounted for).

This is a very dirty calculation based on wide experience, but feel free to check it. I may write something on this subject later, too.

[Thanas]

No, I absolutely agree with that, the ratio is about what I often read myself. Simon's post read to me like he questioned the overall ratio.

[K. A. Pital]

I think the main beef is with the lopsided equipment losses claims, which, if one were to consider that these claims are being made about 43-44 mainly, do not stand the test of logic.

I would also note that deliberately killing POWs and following a genocidal policy towards the civilians that also happens to kill off massive numbers of guerillas does improve the loss ratio for a given army, but it is atrocious to say the least and doesn't really imply that Germany was better at fighting. If anything, it implies that it was willing to use tactics that went well beyond "total war" to genocide.

If the massacred are substracted, the ratios for combat would not be so favorable at all. I mean, just think about it. If Germany had a 10% or even 20% death ratio in its POW camps (pretty bad!), most of the ~4 million Soviet POWs would've still lived, and by 1945 be saved. This relates to Soviet KIA as 0,5 to 1, upping the number of the dead from 6 million to almost 9.

[Thanas]

I would also note that deliberately killing POWs and following a genocidal policy towards the civilians that also happens to kill off massive numbers of guerillas does improve the loss ratio for a given army, but it is atrocious to say the least and doesn't really imply that Germany was better at fighting. If anything, it implies that it was willing to use tactics that went well beyond "total war" to genocide.

That is of course correct, though even if we subtract POW losses the casualty rates are still in Germany's favor (4.4m vs 7m), which IMO is easily enough explained by the disasters of 1941 and subsequent (though smaller) issues like equipment, tactics, logistics etc.

[K. A. Pital]

Sure.

But I think the main factor is that the original RKKA was almost destroyed in 1941, KIA and POW together would compose the majority of the then-existing army. Most of pre-war recruits were lost. Many were taken prisoner en route to mobilization points, not even enlisted (hence the ~1,5 mio disparity in prisoner counts between Germany and Soviet Army POW logs). The losses in 41 and 42 were horrendous, and the Red Army had to fight with a lot more freshmen in the ranks through 43-44. Germany had to fight with freshmen the two last years, and in general the attrition of mobilizational reserved kicked in a lot later for the Wehrmacht.

And fighting with freshmen and young officers versus people who just demolished the bulk of the RKKA without taking unacceptable losses was a tough task, many lives were lost. That's also why 1942 and 1943 were so critical for the Soviet Army.

Tactical organization and support system for German mobile units was better, arguably until early or mid-1943, when the reforms started giving the desired effect for the Soviet tank armies - a rather different type of mechanized unit vs. the pre-war ones.

The losses of 41 left a massive impact on the whole course of the war later, because so many were taken prisoner, including command staff, and it was not easy to replace them. It's like a massive on-start cap, just like the sudden assault of Barbarossa was a massive start boost.

[Zinegata]

Well, some people are arguing that without Lend-Lease the Soviet stock would have been in fact depleted. I don't know how much of that is true or not - and it really does not matter with regards to the end result.

Regarding Lend-Lease, I think the answer can really be found by looking at which ports were in operation during which time periods; which avoids all the propaganda and controversy. Vladivostok was actually the first main port for Lend-Lease supplies, but as the route had to pass through Japanese-controlled waters there was apparently an agreement by the Soviet Union and Japan to use it strictly for non-military supplies. Hence early on LL really only provided food and other non-military supplies.

Murmansk was used primarily for British deliveries, which included tanks. The problem here is that the route was often attacked and disrupted, and quite frankly the British seemed to be skimping on the quality of their deliveries. The Soviets had an almost universally poor opinion of the British deliveries not just because of bad British tank design (which was pretty bad until the Centurion), but because they apparently got a lot of hand-me-down or rejected equipment. The only British tank with a good review is the Valentine - and the Soviets are verified to have gotten fresh factory deliveries instead of hand-me-downs. Coincidence? I think not.

The main route for supplies was Iran, but that took until around 1943/44 to get running in a big way; and I think a decent case can be made at this point that the Soviets could not have advanced as quickly into Germany without the Lend-Lease supplies at this point given the devastation of Soviet infrastructure (notably, the Soviets in fact started demobilizing soldiers in 1944 to help with the reconstruction).

Other than that, the Soviets apparently really, really liked the Sherman - receiving around 4,000 which all went to Guards units and it was deemed equal to the Panther. That half of the deliveries were of 76mm Shermans, and some Soviet units may have paradoxically received their 76mm Shermans before some American units did, was an interesting bit of research that had only come to light recently