Picture of the day

RRCo. said:
That's not Pavlichenko in the upper photo, but no doubt the war did take a toll. This is her:

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Slavic women tend to strongly built, at least the "peasant stock" ones. A friend of mine knew one who could lift a full oil drum onto the tailgate of a truck; remember they used to hitch women to the plows back in the day.

By the way, Pavlichenko went on PR tours of the UK, Canada and USA. In the UK she was presented with a No.4 Mk.I(T) complete in the chest. Must be in some Russian museum now.

Prettiness was not a requirement for the job.

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In the photos of the sniper companies on the march you can see that not all of them have scoped rifles. Perhaps only the best shots got them, or it was the "pick up the casualty's rifle" you read about elsewhere.

This lady is holding something unusual, but I doubt she was any kind of sniper

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This is Natalyia Kovshova and she's definitely not holding a Moisin-Nagant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalya_Kovshova

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ht tp://englishrussia.com/2012/03/08/outstanding-soviet-female-snipers-of-wwii/2/

And it doesn't end well for most

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Besides Natalia's fighting qualities, she seems to have been a good time girl as well. Looks like she took a roll in the hay with that Springfield.
 
Christopher Bell's Absolute War is a good read if you're interested in the scale and numbers of the eastern front war. The pre-war Soviet army suffered 250% casualties by 1943. Max Hastings points out in his book Armmegeddon that the US and Britian could not have beaten Germany by themselves. The democratic armies simply would not have put up with losses on the scale of the eastern front battles, they would have mutinied. The home fronts wouldn't have stood for the losses either.

Before everybody starts firing up the flamethrowers, this says nothing about the courage of the GIs or Tommies. Both books speak to the nature of the armies, the German and Russian troops having the attitude either that they were professional soldiers or there was no where else to be. (both feelings found in both armies) Whereas the soldiers of the democracies felt much more that they were "citizen soldiers" there to do a job, get it over and get on with their real lives.

Also the leadership of the various countries differed greatly. The democracies certainly couldn't shoot down soldiers who refused to fight. Say what you will, putting the NKVD troops behind the attack with maxim guns works a treat to stiffen the line.
 
Cottage Hill Bill said:
Christopher Bell's Absolute War is a good read if you're interested in the scale and numbers of the eastern front war. The pre-war Soviet army suffered 250% casualties by 1943. Max Hastings points out in his book Armmegeddon that the US and Britian could not have beaten Germany by themselves. The democratic armies simply would not have put up with losses on the scale of the eastern front battles, they would have mutinied. The home fronts wouldn't have stood for the losses either.

Before everybody starts firing up the flamethrowers, this says nothing about the courage of the GIs or Tommies. Both books speak to the nature of the armies, the German and Russian troops having the attitude either that they were professional soldiers or there was no where else to be. (both feelings found in both armies) Whereas the soldiers of the democracies felt much more that they were "citizen soldiers" there to do a job, get it over and get on with their real lives.

Also the leadership of the various countries differed greatly. The democracies certainly couldn't shoot down soldiers who refused to fight. Say what you will, putting the NKVD troops behind the attack with maxim guns works a treat to stiffen the line.
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also, both sides had a take no prisoners approach on the eastern front, if you were in the western front, and you put out a white flag, you would likely spend the war in acceptable conditions, but if you were on the eastern front, you would likely die imprisoned in a gulag or concentration camp, if you made it that far.
as the old line goes, it takes a brave man not to be a hero in the red army
 
I think that we can all agree that the Russians played the major role in grinding down the German military machine on the eastern front and thus making it considerably less costly for the western allies. The Russians sustained some 26 million dead, incl 10 million military deaths and suffered the devastation of a large part of their country in the process. It was quite amazing how the spirit of patriotism to `Mother Russia` persisted through it all in the face of initial military ineptness due to Stalin`s purges and the devastating losses and the levels of misery and deprivation which the Russian people had to endure in what was truly a struggle for national survival.

Some can quibble with the figures, but they do show some relativity. Here are deaths by some WW2 participants on the allied side expressed as a percentage of their 1939 population;

Canada .40%
UK .95%
US .32%
France 1.35%
Soviet Union 14%

And on the axis side:

Germany 10%
Japan 4%
Italy 1.03%
 
So how many Russians of the 26 million dead were killed by the Germans and how many by their "own" people?
how many trucks/jeeps/planes were supplied to the Russians by the industrialized west?
to say "we" couldn't have beat the Germans without the Russians always seem a little weak given it was a team effort.
and by Russians of course I mean Soviet.
 
Donny,

Bell's book is heavy on numbers, in fact it can be a bit of a slog in places, bit over all is very readable. He points out that the lend-lease or outright gifts from the west only amounted to about 5-10% of Russia's total war material. However, it came at a time when it made the difference between continuing the war and losing. The most important thing we sent them is pictured above, trucks. They could build enough T-34s and airplanes but just didn't have the manufacturing capability to make trucks. The Studebaker was a Russian favori

Hastings, in Armageddon and also in his book Overloard makes the point that many US and British commanders lamented that there were actions they wanted to undertake but couldn't because the troops available were not competent to carry them out. Basically the troops were just not aggressive enough. He mentions that the Germans would much rather face the Brits or Americans than Russian, they didn't have to work as hard. Compare the Soviet losses in one army in the month long push toward Berlin, something north of 78,000 to the losses at Normandy.
 
Numbers like that are to be expected from a regime that shoots and represses it's own people. Not all Soviet soldiers were Heroes of the Soviet Union, willing to die in the great Patriotic War. The NKVD motivated lots of them with their machine guns and political Commissars.

I've read that Allied troops became reluctant to die towards the end of a war that was all but won. No one wants to be the last man to die in any war.
 
The propagandists wanted to make it evident that the sniper was female.

She could also have been exposed as a result of a body search for documents. The nicety of covering her breast might have occurred after the photo.
 
Cottage Hill Bill said:
Christopher Bell's Absolute War is a good read if you're interested in the scale and numbers of the eastern front war. The pre-war Soviet army suffered 250% casualties by 1943. Max Hastings points out in his book Armmegeddon that the US and Britian could not have beaten Germany by themselves. The democratic armies simply would not have put up with losses on the scale of the eastern front battles, they would have mutinied. The home fronts wouldn't have stood for the losses either.

Before everybody starts firing up the flamethrowers, this says nothing about the courage of the GIs or Tommies. Both books speak to the nature of the armies, the German and Russian troops having the attitude either that they were professional soldiers or there was no where else to be. (both feelings found in both armies) Whereas the soldiers of the democracies felt much more that they were "citizen soldiers" there to do a job, get it over and get on with their real lives.

Also the leadership of the various countries differed greatly. The democracies certainly couldn't shoot down soldiers who refused to fight. Say what you will, putting the NKVD troops behind the attack with maxim guns works a treat to stiffen the line.
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And you can read German statements that after experiencing Allied artillery and air attack on the Western front they "longed to return to the East, where it was man against man, and tank against tank." Maybe someone remembers the source of that quote? It was one of the senior officers.

Sharps '63 said:
The propagandists wanted to make it evident that the sniper was female.

She could also have been exposed as a result of a body search for documents. The nicety of covering her breast might have occurred after the photo.
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Mostly the propaganda issue, or at least proving to whoever looks at your war snaps later that the sniper was indeed female, in the unlikely event you make it back to the vaterland to show you war snaps to anyone!
 
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Donny Fenn1 said:
So how many Russians of the 26 million dead were killed by the Germans and how many by their "own" people?
how many trucks/jeeps/planes were supplied to the Russians by the industrialized west?
to say "we" couldn't have beat the Germans without the Russians always seem a little weak given it was a team effort.
and by Russians of course I mean Soviet.
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You completely miss the point. The Soviets were the bait. They had moved their factories well away from most contentious areas and never quit producing arms/equipment/ammo/aircraft/tanks/ships etc. Mostly, they had more people than they had weapons to give them. Their attrition rate on weapons and personnel was phenomenal.

If they hadn't stopped the axis forces where they did and when they did, the war would have taken a completely different turn. Granted, their leaders were absolutely brutal. They used the Axis attack as an excuse to purge their military of any and all officers/men that may or may not have been planning on overthrowing Stalin or were considered to be detrimental to the regime.

The Allies on the other hand were in some cases reluctant to send men overseas to fight a European war, especially since they had one already going on in the Pacific theatre where the outcome was still up in the air as well. The one thing they did have though was a lot of ordnance and materials to fight with.

If it hadn't been for the Soviet Front, the Axis powers would have had access to oil, grain, metals and other raw materials to run through their factories to create more weapons of their own. Not only that, the biggest donation to the war the Soviets offered was actually withholding their own people from the Axis to be used as incorporated troops and slave labor.

Men capable of carrying arms and supporting troops were in very short supply. If the Axis had managed to get the control of the millions of Soviet troops that were already battle hardened an in many cases quite willing to get out from under Stalin's iron fist regime, we would likely have lost the war.

When you consider how much material we sent to the Soviets, it really wasn't that much but the spin doctors made it sound like they couldn't have won their war without it. In reality, the real contribution we had to winning the war was taking on the Axis and Nipponese forces on other fronts. If Hitler wasn't as mad as a hatter, he would have continued on in the manner he started the war and taken out one or two objectives at a time. The Brits would have allowed him to continue on with little they could do about it. Yes, they had a rather loosely held empire but they didn't have the necessary forces or equipment to fight on several different fronts at the same time. They would have been taken out a bit at a time by the Japanese/Axis coalition.

We won the war because of the Soviets willingness to send their men to war unequipped. It cost them millions of their population. Anywhere from 10-20% of their population was lost.

The biggest mistake made at the end of WWII was to allow the Soviets to keep control of the nations they invaded. IMHO, it would have taken everything the non Soviet Allies had to take those nations back. Likely even that wouldn't have been enough.

Patton knew it and when he made his request to keep right on rolling into Russia, he knew his chances of winning were poor at best. The Soviets had as many people in uniform as the rest of the Allies put together. Not only that their factories in the Urals were operational and unreachable. Their equipment was crude but as those who have seen and used it know, it was perfectly capable of doing the job and in some cases better than what the Allies had to throw against them.

The one thing the Allies had on their side, belonged to the US and that was the atomic bomb. The Soviets hadn't been able to develop one yet but they had the German/French/and other scientists and captured equipment to develop one in a few years.

So much of that propaganda from WWII is still believed today. The facts were buried but it doesn't take a lot to figure out the truth once you are pointed in the right direction.
 
Donny Fenn1 said:
So how many Russians of the 26 million dead were killed by the Germans and how many by their "own" people?
how many trucks/jeeps/planes were supplied to the Russians by the industrialized west?
to say "we" couldn't have beat the Germans without the Russians always seem a little weak given it was a team effort.
and by Russians of course I mean Soviet.
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Yeah--lots of Soviets ended up working for the Germans, and were subsequently shot if recaptured.

I've frequently wondered how the war would've gone if say, Hitler retained peace with the Soviets; or if it was just the Germans vs. Soviets, who would come on top?

Anyhow, did the Western Allies pass along Ultra intelligence to the Soviets? I know Churchill warned Stalin about Babarossa, but Stalin didn't believe it. And I know the Soviets knew the Germans were coming at Kursk-was it because of Ultra?
 
There was a good bit of ULTRA intelligence passed along to Russia.

Intelligence is worthless if it is not trusted, or if it is not acted upon.

As far as Kursk is concerned, Britain gave Russia everything they had. Russia knew where, when, how many, what with, what formations, number of men, order of battle and the basic plan of battle. THAT time they used it. There is still a huge amount of ULTRA material which has not been released. The facts regarding Kursk were released comparatively recently.


The big purge hit the Red Army hard beginning in 1938. At that time, Hitler already had been promising to rid the world of Bolshevism for 15 years and had been Prime Minister and President of Germany for 5 years.

In the ONE case of which I have personal knowledge, a Red Army Major was arrested and spent almost 3 years in a slave-labour camp in Siberia. He was released back to his Regiment in 1941, after Barbarossa, to defend Comrade Stalin. His passport bore the permanent stamp "VRAG NARODA" ("Enemy of the People"). He never did learn who had denounced him..... but he did manage to get out, with his family. They ended up as Refugees in Occupied Denmark and, being ethnic Ukrainians, were permitted to immigrate to Canada in the post-War years. (Incidentally, he could make REALLY decent wine out of just about anything!)

In the only OTHER case of which I have personal knowledge, a fellow born in 1907 was drafted into the Wehrmacht very late, owing to the fact that he spent a lot of time out of the country, being employed by Hamburg-Amerika Linie on the big cruise ships. He did his time in the Wehrmacht, including the invasion of France. At that time he was an Army cook and rather happy about it: he had an uncle in the French Army and a cousin in the RAF! He was demobbed late in 1940, his Service completed, and allowed to go home to Frankfurt. He had been a Party member for some time (joined on his 21st birthday) and so was able to join the Waffen-SS, went into Russia in a tank during Barbarossa. The point is, he joined the Wa-SS because he KNEW that Hitler was going to have a go at Russia; he told me that in so many words when I was working with him. BTW, he fought in the Wa-SS until the end, was taken prisoner in Berlin, did 2 years slave-labour as a convicted War Criminal (he volunteered; that made him a war criminal) and got home in 1947. He was able to immigrate, with his family, to Canada in the 1950s. When I knew him, he was open and candid about a lot of things.... but he had VERY little good to say about Hitler.


As far as Aid to Russia was concerned, we sent Russia a HUGE pile of equipment that OUR FORCES NEEDED. Canada set up a whole factory to produce Valentine tanks, made about 1400 of the things. They ALL went to Russia.... while OUR troops, a year later, still were training in Renault FT copies. In another field, Russia got more than TWO THIRDS of ALL Bell P-39 Airacobras ever built. Hundreds were rebuilt, many from scrap, all to "new - zero hours" at Aircraft Repair in Edmonton, went out the door and up the Alaska on my Dad's signature. The Airacobra today is almost lost to aircraft historians but, at that time, it was putatively the best ground-attack bird we had until the appearance of the Typhoon. Stalin's own PIPE was a Dunhill, made in London: "Aid to Russia" was staggering in variety and in amount.... while our own Army NEEDED a huge proportion of that same equipment. You can include Shermans here as well, Harleys, Jeeps, Studebaker trucks ("Best truck in the world" - Stalin) and a thousand other products..... including 2 complete STEEL MILLS.
 
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Are we sure that Kovshova's rifle is in fact a Springfield? That is a pretty bad angle from which to photograph ANY rifle wearing a sling.

Granted, it is wearing a 1907 sling but it does look awfully LONG for a Springfield.

Considering that she was killed in August of 1942.... what OTHER rifle could it be?

That nose-cap does look awfully familiar, but I could be WAY off-base here.

Will someone who owns BOTH rifles kindly set me straight?
 
smellie said:
Are we sure that Kovshova's rifle is in fact a Springfield? That is a pretty bad angle from which to photograph ANY rifle wearing a sling.

Granted, it is wearing a 1907 sling but it does look awfully LONG for a Springfield.

Considering that she was killed in August of 1942.... what OTHER rifle could it be?

That nose-cap does look awfully familiar, but I could be WAY off-base here.

Will someone who owns BOTH rifles kindly set me straight?
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its a p14, Estonia was taken over be the Russians in 1940 they used p14s
 
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