The new tanks did not begin to arrive in the frontier zones until April-May 1941, and, on June 22, in all the five Military Districts, there were no more than 508 KV's and 967 T-34's in all. True, there were considerable numbers of old tanks (BT-5's, BT-7's, T-26's, etc.) but by June 15, only twenty-seven per cent were in working
order.
Worse still—
The training of specialists for the new tanks required a considerable time. Since there was a shortage of tank crews, it was necessary to transfer to the tank units officers, sergeants and soldiers from other army formations—from infantry and
cavalry units. But time was too short to let these learn their job properly. By the beginning of the war, many tank men had had only one-and-a-half to two hours'
experience in actual tank driving. Even many officers in tank units were not fully qualified to command them... Similarly, our airmen had not become properly
familiarised with the new planes.
[IVOVSS, vol. I, pp. 475-6.]
Thus, in the Baltic Military District those operating the new planes had had, by June 22, only fifteen hours' flying experience, and those in the Kiev Military District as little as four hours— extraordinary figures when one considers that in the US air force, for
instance, 150 hours' flying experience are required before combat.
Such were some of the extraordinary shortcomings in the Red Army on the day the
Germans attacked. There were many others, with which the History deals in some detail.
The frontier was an extremely long one—the Finnish frontier, between the Arctic and the Gulf of Finland about 750 miles long, and the "German" frontier, between a point just east of Memel on the Baltic and the mouth of the Danube in Rumania, over 1,250 miles long.
No doubt the Soviet Government took a few belated precautions in May 1941; but the
troops that were moved nearer the frontier "were neither fully mobilised nor at full strength, and they lacked the necessary transport. The railways worked according to a peacetime schedule, and the whole deployment of these troops was carried out very
slowly, since it was not thought that the war would start in the immediate future."
By June 22, most of the troops in the frontier areas were scattered over wide spaces.
In the Special Baltic Military District they were scattered over a depth of 190 miles from the frontier; in the Western District over a depth of 60 to 190 miles, in the Kiev District over a depth of between 250 and 380 miles.
The General Staff of the USSR assumed that these troops would be brought up to full
strength during several days that would elapse between mobilisation and the actual
beginning of military operations.
The whole defence of the State frontier was based on the assumption that a surprise attack by Germany was out of the question, and that a powerful German offensive
would be preceded by a declaration of war, or by small-scale military operations, after which the Soviet troops could take up their defensive positions... No
operational or tactical army groups had been formed to repel a surprise attack.
[IVOVSS, vol. I, p. 474.]
The History goes on to quote a table showing that in the main invasion areas the Germans had a clear four or five-to-one superiority over the Russians; but, in addition to this numerical superiority, they also enjoyed great qualitative superiority, many of the Soviet soldiers in the frontier areas being fresh conscripts—youngsters without any knowledge or experience.
There was also, as already mentioned, an appalling shortage of modern tanks on the
Russian side, and of properly trained tank crews. The equipment of the frontier troops, says the History, "was not to be completed until the end of 1941 or the beginning of 1942".
Even grimmer is the story of how the modern Russian planes in the western areas were destroyed, mostly on the very first day of the invasion.
The fast new planes required longer runways than had existed before; and it so happened that in the summer of 1941 a whole network of new airfields was being built in the
frontier zones. This building of new airfields and the reconstruction of the old ones was in the hands of the NKVD. And here comes, in the History, the suggestion of perhaps deliberate sabotage on the part of Beria's organisation. Taking no notice of the warnings from the military, Beria proceeded to build and rebuild a large number of airfields in the frontier areas simultaneously.
[In reality, there appears to be no "objective" proof that Beria was a traitor or a German agent, but he has always been available when in recent years awkward facts have had to be explained. This footnote should not suggest that the author has ever had any kindly feelings for Beria.]
As a result, our fighter aircraft were concentrated, on June 22, on a very limited number of airfields, which prevented their proper camouflage, manoeuvrability and dispersal. Also, some of the new airfields ... had been built much too close to the frontier, which made them specially vulnerable in the event of a surprise attack. The absence of a proper network of airfields on June 22 and the overcrowding of a small number of the older airfields—the location of which was perfectly well known to the enemy—account for the very grave losses our air force suffered during the very first days of the war.
[IVOVSS, vol. I, pp. 476-7.]
Everything else at the frontier went wrong on that 22nd of June. The carrying capacity of the railways in the frontier areas—all acquired since 1939—was three or four times lower on the Russian side than on the German side. Also, the building of fortifications along the
"new" borders was only at an initial stage in June 1941. A plan had been drawn up in the summer of 1940 for fortifying this border, but it was a plan stretching over several years.
The fortifications on the "old" (1938) border had been dismantled, and, on the "new"
frontier only a few hundred pillboxes and gun emplacements had been built by the time the war started. Anti-tank ditches and other anti-tank and anti-infantry obstacles had been built to the extent of less than twenty-five per cent of the plan. The Germans were, of course, very well informed about these fortifications, airfields, etc. The History mentions not only numerous German commando raids that had taken place since 1939, but also the more than 500 violations of Soviet airspace by the Luftwaffe, 152 of them since January 1941. To avoid any unpleasantness with Hitler, the frontier troops, according to the History, had been given strict orders not to shoot down any German reconnaissance planes over Soviet territory.
[ The History actually attributes this order not to Stalin or Molotov, but to "traitor Beria"
who had the frontier guards under his jurisdiction.]
A significant conclusion made by the History is that the Soviet General Staff had some perfectly sound plans for "making the frontier much less vulnerable by the end of 1941 or the beginning of 1942", but that, in view of the German menace in 1941, everything had been done "too slowly and too late". And there follows the assertion that neither the General Staff, nor the Commissariat of Defence would have shown such incompetence
"if there had not been those wholly unjustified repressions against the leading officers and political cadres of the Army in the 1937-8 Purge".
This reference to Tukhachevsky and the other victims of the Purge is, of course, a