IceBreakChron VIII: THE GREATEST IN ALL HISTORY

Started by JasonPratt, May 29, 2020, 06:31:25 PM

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JasonPratt

This catches up with June 13th events, on current June 13th.

As you might be expecting, the Soviet military and government will be very busy between now and June 22nd, 1941. How busy?

Busy enough that to fill out Suvorov's account of the preparations, and analyze the situation, between now and current June 21st, I'll be posting roughly fourteen and a half pages of material every day, starting tomorrow June 14th through our June 21st this year!

:o

(I'll slow down a lot from June 22nd onward, with an aim to finishing the series before the end of August, maybe around August 22nd, my brother's birthday.  8) )
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Back to the previous supercharged posting schedule! -- prepare for takeoff!  :D

June 14, 1941: eight days before Barbarossa, the NKVD SOF (Special Operations Force), starts forcibly deporting civilians living on the western border -- an operation ordered for this day one month previously (as shown in the May 14th entry). "Most of them never again saw the sun rise over their native land," claims Suvorov.

They are not being escorted to protect them from a Nazi invasion, which Stalin doesn't think will happen yet.

Stalin is currently moving his already-deployed First Echelon Forces even closer to the border than they already are. As the first example of this push-up, once the NKVD SOF have finished the deportation, they stay put.

Instead of disassembling pre-assembled SOF battalions, such as into regular infantry defense arrangements, Stalin decides there aren't enough at the border yet and orders the creation of new SOF battalions and even new SOF regiments on the border -- and then the creation of 2nd Division SOF -- and then creates a whole NKVD SOF corps organization to be the home of multiple divisions! This corps will be commanded by NKVD Division Commander Shmyryev, with Chumakov as its Commissar and NKVD Colonel Vinogradov as its Chief of Staff.

Westbound, no one will remain to clean with a whole eventual corps of secret police death squads, packing howitzers and tanks, except for people in Nazi territory -- and not nearby in Nazi territory anymore. The Nazis are finishing clearing their own civilians near the border, out of the way of their coming invasion of Russia.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

#17
June 14, 1941, eight days before Barbarossa, and one day after calmly preparing people to not bother noticing the even-larger logistic transfer of the Second Strategic Echelon as it begins: the Soviet news agency TASS puts out a calm report that there will be no war, while Stalin's NKVD special operations forces are removing civilians living on the border.  ::)

Meanwhile on this same day, the Odessa Military District Military Council convenes to re-create (or rather to de-merge) the 9th Army, with headquarters in Tiraspol on the Romanian border (per JMH, 1978, #4, p86.)

On the northern end of the western front, the Military Councils for the Baltics Area Special Military District, sign onto a plan for redeploying a number of divisions and separate regiments into a belt along the border line. General Ivanov also reports (in "Opening Phase of the War", p.211), "Simultaneous with moving forces forward from deep within the country, an undercover regrouping of formations began within the military districts near the border. In the guise of shifting the location of summer encampments, units were pulled closer to the frontier... Most redeployments took place at night..." Note my emphasis: he knew the summer encampments were a ruse.

From the official history of Kiev Military District, 1919-1972, p.162, "On June 14th, under the guise of maneuvers, Major-General Alyabushev's 87th Rifle Division was moved up to the international frontier." This historical document also bluntly calls the maneuver explanation a guise or a ruse!

Could any of these deployments be for the purpose of finally starting defensive operations? Zhukov in his "Memoirs and Reflections" (p.242) explains: "People's Commissar [or NarKom] of Defense S.K. Timoshenko [who sent out the June 13th directive] recommended to military district troop commanders to have formations conduct tactical maneuvers toward the international frontier..." for practice? for defensive preparations? "...to pull forces closer to areas designated for covering deployment." Remember, in Soviet doctrine going back at least as far as 1932, covering deployment means invading enemy territory to create massive safety zones for followup armies to safely arrive by logistic transport and safely deploy into combat formations within enemy territory, safely preparing for more offensive action. "Covering state borders" of Finland in December of 1939, for example, meant "preparing to invade Finland".

Zhukov goes on to note that, "The districts carried out this recommendation, albeit with one major qualification: a significant part of the artillery stayed put." Strictly speaking what he means is that a significant part of the artillery didn't have to go on the move. Rokossovsky, at that time Major-General of the 9th Mechanized (i.e. tank) Corps, clarifies why so much artillery stayed put, in "A Soldier's Duty" (1997, p.8 ): "The order to send the artillery towards the borders had been given somewhat earlier." The arty didn't start moving forward, because they had already moved forward!

Meretskov, four-star general and Deputy People's Commissar of Defense at this time: "On my order the mechanized [i.e. tank] corps conducted maneuvers. In the context of training, the corps was moved into the border area and indeed left there. I then told Zakharov, that Major-General Malinovsky's [48th Rifle] corps was in the [Odessa Military] district and was also to be moved out into the border area during the maneuvers." ("In the Service of the Nation", p.204.)

Ah, so this was a training maneuver, done in the context of training. That seems clear enou-- wait, no, Malinovsky in his JMH article, 1961, #6, p.6, reports, "Already on June 7th the Corps pulled out of the Kirovograd area into Beltsy and was in place as of June 14th. That repositioning [my emphasis] was masked as major maneuvers." The training maneuver explanation was a mask for what they were really doing.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Meretskov is a busy man during this time. He has ordered all military councils of the western Military Districts to send out their frontline army commands to their field headquarters by June 22nd and 23rd. He's probably talking to Zhakarov personally today, face to face, not by phone. Note the deadline by the way! -- and remember, they think Hitler will invade in mid-July, if he's going to go at all, which at this point they think he won't be doing this year! They have no idea he's planning to kick off on June 22nd. Or even earlier actually! -- Hitler will have delayed several times to dial in plans a little more tightly. Hitler was finished with preparations enough by now (June 14th) that the Soviets could have already been dealing with the Nazi blitz today.

Between June 13th and June 22nd (perhaps starting even earlier?) Meretskov will be zipping around the front line like a rocket! -- starting with a tour of the outer perimeter of the Kiev Special Military District with MD (now also secretly Southwestern Front) commander Colonel-General Kirponos. "From Kiev [and touring with Kirponos] I headed down to Odessa, joining District Chief of Staff Major-General Zakharov..." who is currently in charge of all forces and headquarters at the front, while his commander is busy escorting back the 9th Special Corps. "Together we then went to the Romanian border belt: there we are, looking over there, some military types looking back at us."

From Odessa, the Deputy People's Commissar for Defense makes a dash for Byelorussia, teaming up with General Pavlov to scan German territory on the secretly created Western Front border. Then to Moscow, in and out; and onward to the secretly created Northwestern Front, the Baltic Military District. He doesn't stay to tour the front here, but don't worry, Northwestern's / Baltic's commander Colonel-General Kuznyetsov is out touring the front.

Finally, Meretskov completes his rounds by meeting with (secretly created) Northern Front's commander Lieutenant-General Popov -- also not at his headquarters back in Leningrad (the only Military District which isn't splitting off its command staff to new Front HQ positions near the border). Where is Popov? Out touring the Finnish border, where Meretskov joins him! Just like old times for Meretskov, touring the Finnish border again!

From Anfilov's "Immortal Feat", p.65, "In June, right up to their invasion of the USSR, [Nazi commanders] Brauchitsch and Halder drove out to visit the troops time and again." Remember, when regular border scouting is being done by higher and higher ranks, this does not bode well, in increasing proportion, for the people on the other side of that border! In effect, a commander of level-x scouting the other side of the border, is planning to deliver x-level amount of ammunition downrange onto the other side of that border: company, battalion, regiment, on up.

When the generals in charge of front commanders start arriving at the border on a regular basis? -- the people on the other side of that border are about to eat allllllll the ammunition!

As you might recall from earlier entries, Meretskov instituted such border scouting for commanders up through divisional and corps level, all the way back in the summer of 1940. Even division and corps commanders based far in the rear would visit the border from then until now, and with increasing intensity.

Rokossovsky, at the time Major-General of a mechanized corps, stationed near but not right on the frontier, recalls later (unsourced by Suvorov) how he would often drop in on fellow corps General Fedyuninsky, whose corps was on the border itself. Fedyuninsky reminisces in his own memoirs about regular visits from fellow generals -- such as, for example, Rokossovsky! Suvorov says you can run across hundreds and even thousands of recollections like these in the memoirs of Soviet marshals and generals who are commanding at this time.

Even Military District commanders, as noted, have been visiting the frontier -- even the Moscow Military District Commander, of all people! But then, he has been planned, back as far as February 1941, to show up on the border as a high ranking commander around now. He isn't here yet, but we shall see if he gets here...

Meanwhile, now not only Military District Commanders (secretly activated as Front Commanders) are touring the border more regularly, but the Deputy People's Commissar for Defense himself is making a whirlwind tour of all the western borders! -- a man who currently outranks even Zhukov (who took his prior job back in February)! But Zhukov has been living and working on the border more or less continuously for many months already, especially after he took over Meretskov's prior job on border work.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Artillery Major-General Moskalyenko, in charge of High Command Reserve 1st Anti-Tank Brigade (eventually a Marshal of the Soviet Union), recalls in his "In the Southwestern Sector", p.21, how Major-General Potapov, the commander of 5th Army's tank forces, discussed the June 13th TASS Statement with him: "Pick some people who know what they're doing militarily, and send 'em up to the border. Have 'em reconnoiter, check out the lay of the land and watch what the Germans are up to. Fact is, you'll find it useful, too."

An anti-tank commander does have some business on the front lines during a defensive operation: anti-tank guns are a major component of defense against any modern invasion since the end of World War One, and increasingly so! There might even be some reason for local anti-tank commanders to look over what the Nazis are up to on the Nazi side of the border, since you would want to know lines of approach and sighting, in order to snipe off Nazi armor on the way to invade you, and ideally before they even cross your border.

However, the brigade commander for a high-command reserve has no defensive business touring the front line.

His brigade will never see action on the original front line in a defensive war, one way or another: his brigade will only be thrown into the defense from high command reserve, if the enemy has already breached through battalions, regiments, divisions, corps -- when the enemy has already overcome so much defense that their attack threatens the whole army and high command needs a last ditch defensive stand prepared at a place where there is no more doubt where the enemy plans to go (else the enemy will just drive around the anti-tank brigade).

Or rather, that's when an army or front's defensive reserves will be deployed. But Moskalyenko commands a high-command reserve brigade: his job is to arrive to stiffen the line in a final emergency for the breach of an entire front of armies, once the emergency has become totally strategic in scope. His brigade should never see the pre-war border; it means nothing to them, unless they are making plans to cross it -- long after the Soviet front advances over the border. Until then his brigade must be positioned hundreds of miles away from it so that he has the maneuverability to be deployed where the ultimate strategic defensive failure needs the most catastrophic emergency firepower.

There is one other scenario however.

The greatest array of military power ever assembled in all of human history, is deployed (and deploying) on the Soviet side of the Lvov salient. If this Soviet force moves forward, their right flank will be exposed to a potentially very strong Nazi counterattack. To protect the advance, an enormously strong anti-tank force -- let's say one of brigade size -- would be very helpfully deployed at that part of the border as a covering force to help protect against that Nazi counterattack.

So, where does Potopov end up deploying Moskalyenko? On the right side of the Soviet Lvov salient, up next to the border. But not deployed farther back in defensive layers. (Incidentally, why does Potopov even have the authority to deploy a high-command strategic reserve unit like the 1st Anti-Tank Brigade...?!)

As typical, sappers go with Moskalyenko, to look over what the Nazis are doing on the other side of the border. An anti-tank commander might want to know where to shoot the incoming enemy on the other side of the border -- which can work just as well for early offense -- but even local battalion sappers have less than no reason to be looking over enemy territory in preparing to defend against an invasion, much less sappers organic to higher levels of command, least of all high command reserve units. Of course, sappers are great as an attachment for even a high command reserve defensive brigade! -- they can help throw up last-minute defensive arrangements around your emergency-deployed heroic stop-gap brigade, once it arrives to where the enemy has breached, dozens or hundreds of miles back inside your territory. But if they're going to be familiar with any territory, they need to be familiar with the brigade's potential deployment areas. Not areas across the border. They should be studying how to protect approaches across the Dnepr where the high command 1st Anti-Tank brigade might be deployed in a strategically catastrophic emergency. Not studying hostile pre-war territory -- not in a strategic defensive plan.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

June 15, 1941, seven days before Barbarossa: Ribbentrop circulates top-secret cables among his ambassadors, projecting top-level negotiations with Moscow. "The Fuehrer is going to sort out relations and raise new demands." Nazi ambassadors are instructed to secretly pass this information along to selected individuals -- the idea being to select individuals who will spread it 'secretly' around to their close confidants, so that other governments will hear of it! For example, the Nazi government ambassador in Budapest is instructed to relay this as a special secret to the Hungarian president (per "It Must be Published", p.167)

On this same day, Sorge sends a cable alerting that the Nazis will invade on June 22nd.

His reputation has been somewhat restored thanks to his Japanese operations, but since he has no proof to send with this message, the GRU (rightly so, as Suvorov says) puts no faith in it. At best it's suggestive; but Stalin has been closely monitoring the non-existent winter-gear preparations for the Nazis, so he knows they couldn't possibly be about to attack to seize all Russian property and means of production -- which is what he and his subordinate leaders ideologically expect from their fellow militant socialist, who after all has been doing exactly this across Europe so far.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

June 15, 1941, seven days before Barbarossa: the headquarters of five military border districts dispatch combat orders to their army, corps, and division level generals, building on the top-secret May 5th directive.

These orders also remain top-secret, but are quoted a little more afterward than the May 5th directive. For example, the order sent by Baltic Region Special Military District HQ to its army and corps commanders, says (unsourced by Suvorov), "We must be ready at any moment to carry out our combat mission." Not a mere practice "maneuver mission", per the TASS radio announcement two days earlier (although maneuver missions for training have already been going on for months anyway). Which combat mission? To seize objectives on foreign territory, in line with the May 5th directive sent out by Stalin on the day when he became the public head of state for the first time in 19 years. (Suvorov does not provide references, however, for the specific detail of assault in the June 15th combat orders, at least so far as Chief Culprit.)

Eventual Major-General Iovlyev, then commander of 64th Rifle Division, of the 44th Rifle Corps, 13th Army, as he reports later in JMH, 1960, #9, p.56, "On June 15th 1941, Western Special Military District Commander Army General Pavlov directed divisions in our Corps to prepare for full-strength redeployment... the destination we were not told." But (per JMH, 1961, #6, p.6), the destination is up even closer to the border. The Military Council of the Baltic MD (per the "Soviet Military Encyclopedia", Vol.6, p.517) approved a similar plan for relocating a row of divisions and regiments closer to the border zone yesterday on June 14th.

Colonel (eventually Colone-General) Sandalov, Chief of Staff of 4th Army, Western Special Military District, from "Overcome" (aka "The Bydone"), p.71, "On 4th Army's southern flank a new division appeared: 75th Rifle. It had pulled up out of Mozyr and in the woods set up a carefully camouflaged tent city."

General Meretskov, Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, will later say (in his memoir "In Service to the People", p.204), "According to my orders, training exercises of the mechanized corps were conducted. The corps was brought out, as part of the training, to the border zone and left there. Later I told Zakharov that the corps of Major-General R.I. Malinovsky was also in the area, and must also be brought to the border zone as part of training exercises."

Major-General Zakharov, Chief of Staff of Odessa Military District, from "Historical Issues", 1970, #5, p.45, "On June 15th, under the guise of maneuvers," notice the ruse, he knew it wasn't just maneuvers, "the command of 48th Rifle Corps as well as of 74th and 30th Rifle Divisions was concentrated in the forests a few miles east of the town of Beltsy." Zakharov goes on to note that this guise also involved 16th Tank Division. Corps command and corps units are put on combat alert, although they are absolutely not on alert for Hitler to invade one week later.

Eventual Marshal of the Soviet Union R.I. Malinovsky, the Major-General in command of that 48th Rifle Corps, confirms (JMH, #6, 1961, p.6), "The corps left the Kirovograd region for Beltsy on June 7, and on June 14th it was in its place. This move was disguised as extensive training exercises." He also knows the training explanation is fake.

Bagramayan, then Colonel Chief of Operations for Kiev Military District, in "Thus the War Began", p.64, talks about the preparations needed to get ready to move five rifle and four mechanized corps from permanent base areas forward into the border zone. They receive the go-order today on June 15th. The five rifle corps, stepping off first, carried all requisites for combat operations. Why did they march first and not the presumably faster and offensively harder hitting mechanized corps? Because this move was at night to keep them under cover: easier to move rifle than mechanized corps at night. Colonel Lyudnikov, at that time commanding the 200th Rifle Division of the 31st Rifle Corps, adds (in "Through the Eye of the Storm", p.24) that they had to move not only at night but through wooded areas -- not so great for a Rifle Corps either, but this would have been extra hard on the Tank Divisions. They end up massing in the woods 6 to 9 miles northeast of the border town of Kovel.


The greatest logistic movement in all history, doesn't only move land forces. Sandalov from "Assignment: Moscow", p.63, "Beginning 15 June, we start to get new combat equipment. The Kobrinsky and the Pruzhansky Air Regiments take in cannon-carrying Yak-1 fighters, the assault regiment IL-2 aircraft, the [dive-]bomber regiment Pe2s."

That means 10th Combined Aviation Division is starting to receive delivery of 247 of the newest aircraft (62 per fighter regiment, 63 per assault regiment, 60 per bomber regiment). They still keep their old aircraft.

9th Combined, also stationed nearby in a forward base, also has 176 of the latest MiG-3s, along with several dozen Pe-2s and IL-2s, but on June 21st another 99 MiG-3s will finalize preparations to be shipped to Orsha Airbase (per "Soviet Army Command and Staff in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945", p.41) Orsha will receive the order to take delivery of them on the day Hitler is invading.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

WITHIN THE FINAL WEEK
----------------------------

June 16, 1941, six days before Barbarossa, Great Britain sends an actual warning about Nazi invasion to the Soviet Union.

British ambassador Cripps happens not to be in Moscow so the warning is handed to the Soviet ambassador in London, Maisky, who immediately transmits the message to Molotov in Moscow.

Not counting the mobilized Romanian army, Britain warns that 80 Nazi divisions are gathered in Poland along the border, 30 in Romania, and 5 divisions in Finland and northern Norway, for a total of 115 divisions. Detailed descriptions of each division are included.

This information is absolutely precise; Suvorov grades it as "outstanding work".

Five days later, that number will go up to 125 divisions in the Nazis' own First Strategic Echelon.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

June 16, 1941, six days before Barbarossa, General Zhukov sends out Memorandum #567240 from the Chief of Staff of the Red Army to the People's Commissariat of Soviet Aviation Industry, ordering 7500 gliders to be manufactured for use.

Specifically, he wants 500 5-seat gliders; 1000 11-seat gliders; 300 20-seat gliders; and 200 hydroplane 11-seaters, to be ready in 1941. These are on top of the gargantuan number of gliders already manufactured and finishing off for use in 1941 -- and by the same token, these extra gliders will be totally wasted if they are not also used before mid autumn 1941!

The remaining 5500 gliders are ordered for 1942, which can't be started until spring weather comes around again (allowing them to be safely stored), and just like this year they will be totally wasted if not used before mid autumn '42.

Also keep in mind that they cannot be stored outside, and the glider hangers are already totally full; but then of course the prior gliders will be totally wasted if not used before mid-autumn this year, whereas if they're used this year then there will be room for new gliders.

As it happens, of course, all the gliders will in fact be wasted six days from now, being totally useless on defense and unable to be feasibly rescued. But the Stalin and his government don't know that yet.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

June 16, 1941: Colonel I.A. Khizenko's memoir, "The Pages that Came Alive: Diary of a Political Officer of the 80th Lenin Rifle Division", 1963, p.5, starts with the chapter "Marching Toward the Border". He writes about his division in the 37th Rifle Corps, "In the evening of June 16, General Prokhorov [commander of the 80th Rifle] gathered all staff personnel for a conference. He declared an order from the commander of the Kiev Special Military District, to move the divisions to a new region of concentration... There are talks that the impending march will be an unusual one."

This citation is a little unusual because Suvorov, for whatever reason(s), doesn't quote often from political officers: the officers assigned by the Kremlin to military units (land, sea, and air), to ensure political correctness is taught and enforced.


Speaking of political operatives assigned to military units...

June 17, 1941, five days before Barbarossa: in accordance with the massive military retraining and rank-granting efforts of the March 1940 Politburo resolution, to bring bureaucrats of Triandafillov's sovietization strategies into better cooperation with invading Soviet military forces, another 3,700 Party bureaucrats are drafted into uniform.

The plans for the next Soviet invasion and occupation, wherever that might perhaps be  ::) :-" , have been calculated to be a little too short on instant occupational bureaucrats: over one hundred thousand such new military administrative officers wasn't enough yet!

Or, more likely, over time since March 1940, the normal attrition of retirements, criminal arrests, etc., among the bureaucracy, has required a new influx to replace the lost members. But this does serve as a handy reminder that Stalin thinks he needs over ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND new military administrative officers to act as instant Soviet governing liaisons with the military somewhere soon.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

June 17th-18th, 1941: during this night, according to Colonel Khvaley, at that time the Deputy Commander of the 202nd Motorized division, of the 12th Mechanized Corps, 8th Army ("On the Northwestern Front [41-42]", p.310), his division moves out on field maneuvers. What kind of field maneuvers? Oh, you know, the kind of field maneuvers where a whole motorized division (as the Colonel puts it) "just happens to" end up deploying past the border posts, sitting literally on the international border!

Colonel Chernyakhovsky, 28th Tank Division commander in that same 12th Mechanized Corps (later four-star general), receives an order later that day on the 18th, "...upon receipt of this order, [you are] to bring to combat readiness all units in accordance with plans to initiate a combat alert without, however, sounding that alert. All is to be done quickly, quietly, calmly, and discreetly, with proper amounts of supplies to be carried by hand or vehicle as needed for sustenance and battle..." (reported by him in a JMH article, 1986, #6, p.75.)

In other words, the Tank Division commander is to quietly order everything as though he has given a combat alert to his divisions, except without actually giving a combat alert. Supplies are to be distributed now from any stockpiles, to be carried by hand and vehicle. They will eventually be run over by the German invasion near Shaulya (aka Siauliai), but P.P. Poluboyarov (eventually Marshal of Armored Forces, at that time Colonel, Chief of Northwestern Front Mechanized Forces Command, reporting in his own "On the Northwestern Front [41-43]", p.114) says the 28th Tank Division is ordered to move out of Riga, bound for the frontier, where part of its corps is currently setting up in between the border posts and the border! -- the tanks just won't get there in time.

But they were rolling out on the 18th prepared for combat operations at the border, carrying their supplies in hand and packed in their vehicles, as if a combat alert for the start of hostilities had already been given -- just not officially. And, of course, these combat orders aren't preparing them to repel an invasion at all.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

June 18, 1941: four days before the Nazi invasion, NKVD Byelorussia Border Troops Chief Lieutenant-General Bogdanov decides to evacuate all military families from his area of command. While such an action might be a general punishment, usually commanders do this when they soon expect fighting.

Somewhere around this time (Suvorov doesn't provide a date), all Soviet railways are ordered to switch to military time (same time for everyone regardless of time zone), and to consider themselves as having started combat operations. (Per Anfilov's "Immortal Feat", pp.32-33.)


June 18, 1941: Major-General Zaporozhchenko, in JMH, 1984, #4, p.42, recalls what he knew, or subsequently learned, of the final Nazi deployment. "The culminating phase of [their] strategic deployment, carried out over the course of several nights prior to h-hour, was the clandestine advance of clusters of strike forces into staging areas for the offensive. Cover for the [eventual] advance was provided by troops from reinforced battalions pushed up to the border in advance and charged with holding each division's assigned sector of the front until main-force elements could get there. Forward-basing of airpower began in the last few days of May and had run its course by June 18th. In the process, fighter and tactical air-support aircraft were concentrated at bases located within 25 miles of the frontier, bombers no more than roughly 110 miles away."

During their strategic transfer, the Nazis are in very unfavorable positions: their front lines aren't ready to defend against an assault; their only solid defenses are off to the side and have had plenty of time to be spotted in by Soviet guns; their troops moving forward in the backfield are clogging up the rail lines, cannons aboard one train, ordnance aboard another. Combat battalions detrain where there are no headquarters; HQs get off where there are no troops. The Nazis haven't set up adequate communications yet, for security reasons, and existent radio nets have been largely silenced until they start their invasion. The Nazi forces have not bothered setting up or expanding or improving quarters for the winter of 1941, because they expect to be done in three weeks of fighting and in any case don't plan to be spending their winter this year at the Soviet border. Meanwhile huge quantities of Nazi troops along with supplies, aircraft, field hospitals, HQ contingents, and airbases, are stacked up on the Soviet border, with hardly anyone privy to what's going to happen four days from now: that information is the top-secret domain of only the uppermost Nazi command echelons.

These steps are being mirrored by the Soviets.

The only differences are scale (the Soviets are much more numerous) and the timing -- the Soviets started earlier, but due to such large numbers and the distances to travel, they haven't all arrived yet; plus they have a second large set of armies on the way as of June 13th, at which time their air bases also started moving forward.

Stalin started ahead, but by June 18th he is behind Hitler in preparation. Still, everything done by Stalin and his high command, and rated as stupidity by historians for defensive preparations, is being done by Hitler and his high command and rated as brilliant preparations for a surprise invasion.

Roughly speaking, Hitler is now relatively two weeks ahead of Stalin. And maybe not even that far ahead. The same article in this issue of the Journal of Military History (published by the Ministry of Defense of the USSR, requiring approval of its contents by the minister of defense as well as the chief of the General Staff), on page 34, says Hitler's attack derails Stalin's plans. (Not directly quoted by Suvorov.) That makes no sense if Stalin is preparing to defend or even to counterattack; on the contrary, the attack would signal that it's time to put the defensive plan into action! -- perhaps with significant adjustments, but troops and their leaders shouldn't have to improvise and change their plans completely around.

What will happen once Hitler has finished forming up at the border? History tells us, but so does theory. General Sikorsky, Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Army, knows: "You cannot keep playing a strategic waiting game beyond the point when all your forces are fully mobilized and assembled." He says this in "The Next War" (p.240), a book published in Moscow by permission of the Soviet General Staff for Soviet commanders. But Soviet military science already knew this, as in "War and Revolution", 1931, #8, p.11, "Under present-day circumstances the worst tactic to pursue during the start-up phase of a war is a waiting game." This goes back to the mobilization theories of Shaposhnikov in 1929. Late cold-war Soviet strategists still agreed in 1986.

Zhukov, Timoshenko, and former Marshal of the Soviet Union Voroshilov (now a Politburo member) know from first-hand experience: once you mobilize, either your Army degrades to useless, or you fight.

Once Hitler finishes moving up to the Soviet border, he must go, or his army is ruined, and probably his economy with it.

Once Stalin finishes moving up to the Nazi border...
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
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PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
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RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Undated quote from then-Colonel Starinov's memoir "Mines Awaiting Their Moment", p. 179, where he remembers with critique how Soviet Marshal Kulik was berating him: "Misnamed, that's what your division is. In tune with our doctrine they should've called it the Breaching & De-mining Division. Then [your troops'] thinking would've also come around. Instead, they've kept harping on defense, defense... Enough already! [...] Sapper, get me mine pickers, mine sweepers -- and be quick about it!"

But on the Soviet side, all mines have already been defused, all barriers lifted (Suvorov says, implying Starinov is talking about a time shortly before Barbarossa).

Marshal Kulik is complaining that the commanders of the engineering division keep talking and asking about defense, and so aren't cooperating with the prevalent Soviet strategic and operational doctrine -- where such a division should be concentrating on assaulting enemy defenses (e.g. breaching and de-mining German defenses), not putting up and strengthening defenses against enemy invasion!

Starinov reports (same page) that Army General Pavlov's Western Special Military District Headquarters (already secretly renamed Western Front, indicating an expected start to military action) is similarly complaining that, despite having removed all Soviet defenses, the training in removing defenses has not been up to the required standards.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

June 18th-19th 1941, four and three days before the Nazi invasion: the Black Sea Fleet conducts sweeping offensive maneuvers, including the first Soviet practice landing of an entire division (from Batov's 9th Special Rifle Corps) by amphibious assault against an enemy shore. High ranking commanders arrive from Moscow to observe the operation.

Describing this later in his memoir "Odessa Under Siege" pp.3-8, Vice-Admiral Azarov will write, "Everyone involved in the maneuvers felt they weren't staged out of the blue; that soon the time would come for the skills acquired to be put to use in war." They aren't expecting to put these skills to use, amphibiously invading an enemy, in a defensive war, however, which will catch them by surprise.

Theoretically there are only three options: amphibious invasion of Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey. The week before (on June 13th, the day of the TASS Statement), every soldier down to the rank and file of the 9th Special Rifle Corps received a Romanian-Russian question and answer book; not for tourism, but with military questions to ask and answer. The Corps must quickly be supported, however, or else land additional corps behind them, for which no preparations seem to be made; the only nearby overland troops to support any such amphibious invasion must come through Romania.

Fortunately they have some other more immediate reinforcement options practicing nearby, on these same two days, June 18th and 19th! -- the 3rd Airborne Corps practices dropping its divisions to secure enemy airports and then airlanding the rest of the corps. The entire corps command itself lands by parachute and/or glider, along with staffs down to brigade level.

14th Rifle Corps also continues to train its river assault marine-grade infantry divisions, to be landed from Danube Flotilla vessels; while 3rd Airborne Corps practices invading somewhere in chutes, gliders, and transports; while 9th Special Rifle Corps practices invading somewhere from warships in the Black Sea Fleet. They are not practicing to defend against a Nazi invasion from Romania (or anywhere else). But they are practicing their military questions in Romanian, and learning how to interpret answers.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

June 19, 1941, three days before Barbarossa: Stalin personally calls Lieutenant-General Yeremenko away from command of the original Soviet 1st Army, to come to Moscow for new orders.

On the way out of the Far East, he would have preferred to turn over 1st Army to his deputy, Major-General Berzarin (or Byerzarin. Suvorov's translators provide alternate spellings.) But in Late May, Bezarin had already been called by Stalin to Moscow, to secretly give him command of the Baltics-based 27th Army, a short distance from the Nazi frontier.

Yeremenko truly cherishes the 1st Army, and does not want to turn it over to Shelakhov whom he regards as a "staff rat"; his next pick would have been Major-General (eventually Lieutenant-General, and Red Army Airborne Assault Forces commander) Glazunov, who in early 1941 was in charge of 59th Rifle Division for the 1st Army, at the Far Eastern Front. He is in fact the only remaining competent general: all of Yeremenko's other deputies, corps commanders, and experienced division commanders, have already been scooped up and reassigned westward by Stalin. Yeremenko shoots off an encoded message to the General Staff; and Moscow agrees that while division to army commander is one giant leap, Glazunov is truly deserving of a vastly more important command. So of course, Moscow thanks Yeremenko of reminding them of Glazunov -- and promptly orders Glazunov, by encrypted cable, to turn over his division and rush for the Romanian frontier to take charge of 3rd Airborne Assault Corps!

Every Soviet airborne assault force, including those just transferred from the Far East, are massed on the western borders, or a few remaining eastward are about to embark on the way there. But they don't have enough experienced combat leaders, so as part of the June 13th westward surge, Stalin also pulls infantry and cavalry generals, like Glazunov and Zhadov, also Generals Usyenko, Karitonov, and Bezuglom, to warp-morph them into airborne assault commanders: not the best way to use them on defense, or even for a counterattack.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!