What would an unpurged Soviet military look like by 1941?

I am somewhat familiar with Tukhachevsky's writings on deep battle. However I wonder how well he could actually have implemented his doctrine in practice, and what kind of force structure he envisioned for the Soviet army.

Also I wonder if tactics would have been any better. It's one thing to do large scale exercises, it's another thing to run them realistically and not railroad your soldiers into desired outcomes, instead of making it scripted. I know after the purge there was a general decrease in quality of training (e.g. for reasons of avoiding "sabotage" accusations in case of accidents) but I don't know how it compared to the training before.
 
Better tactically but worse strategically. Leaving rivals alive could lead to people like Vlasov being more common or ousting Stalin mid war leading to peace or collapse.
 
Better, but with some problems still. The replacement of cavalry wasn't going to be an overnight process, but the junior officer corps being in better shape will help.

The Soviets tactically speaking under Tukachevsky still had a problem in that their armored formations were far too tank heavy without enough supporting vehicles or spare parts, and the motorization of the Rifle Divisions was going nowhere. Now, perhaps if he is around, he learns more from the Battle of France and makes some adjustments. The Soviets in 1941 were not the Polish in 1939. The army was well equipped, and for the most part front line personnel fought reasonably hard under bad circumstances, with the number of POWs less from morale collapses and more from tactical and strategic encirclements that destroyed cohesion and command/control.

As for deep battle, I can think of some better things for the Soviets to be doing in 1941 besides concentrating tank forces for offensives while being supported by an unmotorized army. Having concentrated armored formations as a strategic reserve may help avoid disasters, however. But the tenets of deep battle required more than just a bunch of tanks.
 
More officers obviously, more debate (the USSR had lots of open debate on tactics and strategy, the purges put an end to this), officers more willing to do what is military correct for the situation instead of doing what will cover their asses.

Training was also disturbed during the purges with no purges the level of training will be higher than it was in the OTL.

The purges did not only affect the military, science and industry was hit as well, rocket designers, tank designers were killed, and also the whole industrial production fell during the purges.

Agriculture was hit as well with the idiot Trofim Lysenko, with his hairbrained ideas took over which lead to far lower agricultural output then would have otherwise have been

So without the purges there would be more stuff and better stuff for the military to use and more soldiers and better feed soldiers which all translates into better performance.
 

TDM

Kicked
I am somewhat familiar with Tukhachevsky's writings on deep battle. However I wonder how well he could actually have implemented his doctrine in practice, and what kind of force structure he envisioned for the Soviet army.

Also I wonder if tactics would have been any better. It's one thing to do large scale exercises, it's another thing to run them realistically and not railroad your soldiers into desired outcomes, instead of making it scripted. I know after the purge there was a general decrease in quality of training (e.g. for reasons of avoiding "sabotage" accusations in case of accidents) but I don't know how it compared to the training before.


TBH they couldn't even do it in large scale wargames prior to the purges (or maybe the war games were run between two purges I can't quite remember)

The "Deep Battle doctrine" was always a bit like nailing mist to the wall when it actually came to creating a workable and dependable thing. There's a lot to this but fundamentally they never worked out some big things:

1). having separate infantry and tank formations work together even in close proximity at the break though points in the front, let alone at the theorised distances (which in some iterations of the idea were in the hundreds of miles)

2). Integrate infantry in with tanks in the formations that were going to punch through the enemy lines and on into enemy territory (they messed with everything from tank riders to paratroopers)

3). how they we're going to supply these marauding tank formations


However on top of that the doctrine was constantly changing even in theory for all sorts of reasons. (I'd recommend the Chieftain's recent video on Russian interwar tank doctrine which I'm basically parroting here anyway)
 
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Better, but with some problems still. The replacement of cavalry wasn't going to be an overnight process, but the junior officer corps being in better shape will help.

Soviets would be better off not disbanding their cavalry formations to the same extent as OTL pre-Barbarossa, IMO.

Their cavalry divisions were a workable substitute for motorized formations, and with soviet logistical problems of OTL they're better suited for maneuver warfare than other branches of RKKA.

Later on, once their logistics improve and more trucks are available, reformation of cavalry into motorized and mechanized divisions would be done; But such reforms are not in the cards pre-Barbarossa.
 
Soviets would be better off not disbanding their cavalry formations to the same extent as OTL pre-Barbarossa, IMO.

Their cavalry divisions were a workable substitute for motorized formations, and with soviet logistical problems of OTL they're better suited for maneuver warfare than other branches of RKKA.

Later on, once their logistics improve and more trucks are available, reformation of cavalry into motorized and mechanized divisions would be done; But such reforms are not in the cards pre-Barbarossa.
I'd agree with this if they used their cavalry divisions in this manner, as relatively fast moving infantry divisions, and yes, the potential for motorization once Lend Lease kicks in is certainly there. The problem is that the Soviets did not do this. There was a focus later on of using them as breakthrough (sometimes in the 3rd or 4th attack echelon) troops for strategic offensives in which they were quite useful particularly in the Southern front once the war entered the Balkans, but at the start of the war, this is not how they were used.

In 1941, they were often detached for raids in the Southwestern Front during the Kiev campaign (which were disastrous non-starters), ordered to attack as the second part of an echelon along with doomed Mechanized Corps counterattacks near Smolensk (usually long after unit cohesion had broken down), and generally speaking were about as poorly performing as most Red Army units were, but with the additional logistical nightmare of supporting horses that were combat ready in the field (which was ultimately why they were disbanded in huge numbers in 1942 and turned into Rifle Divisions), which believe it or not, was almost as tough for the Soviets as supporting their spare parts starved Motorized and Tank formations. They ran out of horses, and quickly, for use in a combat role; the Soviets did not employ cavalry in headlong charges or anything near as foolish as that, but they required horses for mobile artillery batallions and for transport of mounted troops in poor terrain while under fire, and these kinds of horses are not as common as one may think. An unfortunate and grisly part of this is because of the massive food shortages the Red Army dealt with before Lend Lease really started kicking in (I would count the food aspects almost as important as the motorization aspects for Soviet success) led to horses being rather appetizing targets for frontline troops in the winter of 1941-42.

The tactical use they were employed for later in the war was fine, but the Soviets early in the war did not need specialized breakthrough troops to carry out deep battle alongside mechanized and shock army formations. They needed troops who could hold a position, and could quickly react to breaks in the lines to throw back the enemy. The Mechanized Corps they had in 1941 actually were not poorly suited for this and had a decent mix of infantry to tanks (albeit with a horrific spare parts problem), but there just were not enough of these nor were they fighting in more concentrated groups. Rather, cavalry corps were expected to bridge the gap and they were poor for this
 
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