Why did the Red Army suffer such massive losses in 1944/45?

Why did the Red Army continue to suffer massive casualties in 1944/45 even when facing a Wehrmacht that was degraded by years of losses on various fronts and wasn't at its fighting best?

According to Wiki the Soviet Union suffered 6,878,641 total military casualties (including deaths) in 1944. In 1945 it suffered 3,013,507 casualties (not including the Far East). That means in both years they suffered more casualties than the WAllies did for the entire war combined. That's insane.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the_Soviet_Union
 
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The Wallies were engaged in a continental style war in Europe for only 11 months after a vast amount of preparation, training and virtually air supremacy vs no more than 33% of the German forces and the Russians were engaged for far longer vs 66%+ of the German forces who were geared up for the fight over a much larger area following several years of national survival.
 
The Wallies were engaged in a continental style war in Europe for only 11 months after a vast amount of preparation, training and virtually air supremacy vs no more than 33% of the German forces and the Russians were engaged for far longer vs 66%+ of the German forces who were geared up for the fight over a much larger area following several years of national survival.

This. The West got away with high body counts because the Germans put most of their resources in the East, AFAIK. Part of the reason that while I still hold Western intervention invaluable during WWII, I respect the Soviets more because they decimated the majority of the Wehrmacht.
 

Pangur

Donor
This. The West got away with high body counts because the Germans put most of their resources in the East, AFAIK. Part of the reason that while I still hold Western intervention invaluable during WWII, I respect the Soviets more because they decimated the majority of the Wehrmacht.
There is most certainly the above and there is whole nature of the war in the east, a level of barbarism that's mind bogbling. Also in the mix would be shall we say the less the optional tactics used by the Russians
 
Then how come there was no Battle of the Bulge in the East?

There were multiple 'Battle of the Bulges' in the East - just one in the West - which was a massive unachievable gamble by the Nazi's to knock the Wallies out of the war by breaking through the weakest point tin the Wallied lines in the Ardennes and loop around to capture Antwerp and trap the British and Canadian Army's - the operation failed hard, was the largest and costliest battle the US has ever fought and robbed the German Army of most of its armour and infantry reserves not to mention lots of its fuel reserves.
 
The Soviets also were utterly uncaring about casualties, only results. The battle on the zeelow heights for example was classic early War soviet doctrine. Repeated frontal assaults against a prepared enemy.
 
I suppose because the Wallies were democracies with educated (no disrespect to the Soviet forces ) rank and file as a result they had to do all they could to keep casualty figures as low as possible remember the Wallies troops didn't have either the NVKD or SS stood behind them, also the East was a war of ideologies.
"One death is a tradegey, one million is a statistic" speaks a lot about the mindset over there.
 
Using Krivosheevs numbers the Red Army loss for the 18 months comes out to a bit over 13,000 per day. This includes sick according to the chart provided in the Wiki article. It also includes wounded & sick returned to military service. Krivosheevs irreoverable losses as shown in the Wikki article are 2,614,700. Or a bit under 5,400 per day.

For the Allies in the three months from 6th June through the capture of Paris in August the losses given by Hastings were 209,672, or 2,329 per day average for 90 days. (I did not have time to check Hastings claim against any other source.) For comparison Hastings claims 450,000 irrecoverable German losses during the same 90 day period, or 5000 per day.

I dont have time to refine any of this further. If this is a serious question vs a WI I'd recommend discussing on the Axis History Forum as there are some historians & other with acess to a broader set of sources and analysis on losses.
 
Continued tactical deficiencies among a very noticeable proportion of Red Army sub-units is the best explanation. The battalions of the 5th Guards Mechanized Corps may have been the equal or better of any of it's German counterparts at any part of the war, but the battalions of the 4XX rifle division attacking across some inconsequential few kilometers of swamp likely wasn't.

However, the fact that Soviet irrecoverable losses in 1944 and overall casualties in 1945 were usually below that of the Germans indicates that the remaining disparity wasn't very serious.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
However, the fact that Soviet irrecoverable losses in 1944 and overall casualties in 1945 were usually below that of the Germans indicates that the remaining disparity wasn't very serious.

And just points to how much of a meat grinder this kind of war is. Probably the biggest example of white-on-white violence of all time.
 
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However, the fact that Soviet irrecoverable losses in 1944 and overall casualties in 1945 were usually below that of the Germans indicates that the remaining disparity wasn't very serious.

Precisely. The raw numbers in the OP are just that, a raw mass of figures. To get to really useful comparisons you have to get down in the weeds, sort the apples from the oranges so like can be compared to like, ect...
 
Why did the Red Army continue to suffer massive casualties in 1944/45 even when facing a Wehrmacht that was degraded by years of losses on various fronts and wasn't at its fighting best?

According to Wiki the Soviet Union suffered 6,878,641 total military casualties (including deaths) in 1944. In 1945 it suffered 3,013,507 casualties (not including the Far East). That means in both years they suffered more casualties than the WAllies did for the entire war combined. That's insane.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the_Soviet_Union

The Soviet Army was badly disrupted by the Great Purge. Then Stalin's insistence that Germany was not going to attack set up the USSR for an enormous sucker punch at that start of BARBAROSSA. The Soviet Army lost millions of men including a lot of the trained cadre. In the desperation fighting of 1941, the Soviets "burned money to keep from freezing"; they threw instructors and technicians into the line as infantry, just to plug holes and block otherwise unopposed advances.

It's arguable that the Soviet Army never recovered from these losses during the war; that the quality of Soviet Army leadership was, from sergeants to generals, was deficient. Not in bravery or determination, but simply in military expertise, through being vaulted up the command structure faster than they could learn the techniques. Zhukov wrote about this once, though he was mainly referencing the effects of the Great Purge in in a post-Stalin. He wrote that many times, visiting an army or corps or division HQ, he discovered that the commander had neglected something important because he'd never learned about it. At the non-com level - they made sergeants without requiring the necessary training and experience. Many men were promoted beyond their abilities. Some of these grew quickly into their responsibilities; some learned bloody lessons; and some just couldn't cut it.

This happened because at every given moment, they needed more troops quickly. Even in 1944 and 1945, when the situation was less critical, the Soviet Army still didn't have the time to train and promote and evaluate carefully.

This problem had an on-going effect on Soviet planning and tactics. The Soviet Army noticed its quality problems, and adapted by planning operations and adopting tactics that the troops they had could execute - methods which relied on brute force, with comparatively high casualties.

The political system of the USSR also had an effect. Stalin demanded results, and didn't care much about casualties. This ruthlessness carried down into the Army. At all levels, casualty rates that would have checked US or British commanders were accepted in Soviet operations.
 
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