thanks, also for bringing this thread back to WW2
but ... before last Christmas I purchased some very interesting book on Wilhelm Canaris, was able to read one third of it back then, and only this or next week I'll find some time to finish it (which is uncertain), my point is the number of interesting books grows much faster than I could read them LOL (I'm a complete amateur of history ... another "complication" is I do four languages)
as for the German attack ... I've read Heinz Guderian in "Achtung, Panzer!" (19
37) at first put the estimate of 17,000 tanks to be available to the Red Army, but he changed this to 10,000 (which wasn't believed either) ... but the German problem was his initial estimate was pretty accurate! (for example, according to some credible Russian source, on June 1, 1941, just in the Western Special Military District there were 10540 combat-ready tanks, 2157 of them were "brand new")
Another book which will interest you greatly is:
A autobiography of a polish boy captured by the red army when he was trying to escape the partition of Poland and eventually ending up in Canada. (my copy which I lent my friend a decade ago had not been returned)
The issue with statistics and USSR especially is that; there are some truth in the figures, but it is easily manipulated.
Without Voldka will show some of those, and Iron Triangle, will show the other stuff like, what good is a tank when you do not issue fuel to it? or sending tanks into battle with only training rounds, or crews were only trained for 2 hours before sending them into battle, etc.? I mean, if I am in a F22, I would most likely lose to the Red Baron in his triplane because I probably won't be able to take off and sit at an airstrip.
Another thing is, a soviet division is not the same as a german division or a comonwealth division or a us divison or a japanese division or a chinese division.
nominal real strength of typical divisions, not the end of war, or campaign decimated formations. These are combat strength not including support and auxiliary, e.g. for every american combat troop, he have a support troop of ~3 people imeadiately behind the front line (cooks, hospital staffs, guards, reserves etc), while germany is closer to 1:1 while the USSR is more like 1:0.5
Soviet divisions are around 5000-8000 men, online sources quote:
Chinese divisions are around 8000-9000 men
German divisions are around 13000-17000 men
German Super divisions are around 20000 men (Lehr, Wiking, Grossdeutschland etc)
British divisions are around 13,000 men
US Division around 15,000 men
Japanese Divison around 11000 men
They were also supplied differently:
With american divisions grossly oversupplied compared to other nations
They also have very different firepower, e.g. German rifles units were bolt action rifled armed, supported by a MMG (MG34 & MG42), and many varied disposable antitank weapon. American rifles, were with semiautomatic rifles and specailist with automatic rifles, bazookas, and SMGs. The divisions had different artillery, HMG, and others support.
So in general, combat effectiveness of a German division is around 1.3-1.5 that of an British/American division, A german division is around 4X the combat effectiness of a Russian division. A romanian/finish division is around 2X that of a russian division (doesn't mean they were better than the British/American, e.g. the Panther tank was mainly retained in the western front, and the eastern front soldier on with Panzer IVs i.e. the stronger german divisions are in western europe where the supply lines are shorter). A Japanese division is around 3X Chinese division, An American division is around 2-4X that of a Japanese division (marines are different from army). And it varies with time too, the Japanese division of 1939 is easily 2X that of a british division in Asia.
My point is, we have to look pass the stats.
