WI: No Barbarossa?

Deleted member 1487

You can dispute why they were effective fighters in a purely offensive war, but not that they were.
We know they weren't effective fighters based on the loss rates and disaster of an invasion that it proved to be. We just know that by and large they fought to some degree. I'm challenging the idea of how hard they actually fought due to the likely motivation being fear of being executed if they didn't advance, which doesn't translate into military effectiveness, just a greater motivation to follow orders than not and a fear of retribution if they try to desert. Though in the Winter War with nearly 40,000 Red Army soldiers missing without a trace out of over 126,000 dead/permanently missing, about 1/3rd, it is likely there was a lot of desertion given that the Finns only took about 5,600 POWs.
 
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We know they weren't effective fighters based on the loss rates and disaster of an invasion that it proved to be. We just know that by and large they fought to some degree. I'm challenging the idea of how hard they actually fought due to the likely motivation being fear of being executed if they didn't advance, which doesn't translate into military effectiveness, just a greater motivation to follow orders than not.

Take a look at the strategic idiocy Soviet high command forced on them. Then get back to me about whether or not you think they were effective soldiers. And keep in mind that all armies were known to execute deserters, yet I notice people always go after the soviets...it's like saying the Union army during the Civil War wasn't effective because of Grant's 'bleed them dry' strategy.
 

Deleted member 1487

Take a look at the strategic idiocy Soviet high command forced on them. Then get back to me about whether or not you think they were effective soldiers. And keep in mind that all armies were known to execute deserters, yet I notice people always go after the soviets...it's like saying the Union army during the Civil War wasn't effective because of Grant's 'bleed them dry' strategy.
Kind of hard to talk about soldier effectiveness then if you just blame all the issue on the command.
The reason that people go after the Soviets on executing deserters, is that the Soviet executed more of their own men than all the other armies of WW2 combined, including the Nazis in the last 12 months of the war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the_Soviet_Union
S. N. Mikhalev included in his figure irrecoverable losses the deaths of 994,300 Soviet military personnel that were convicted of offences during the course of the war (422,700 sent to penal battalions, 135,000 executed and 436,600 imprisoned) [66] Steven Rosefielde estimated 1 million military deaths of men drafted from the Gulag into penal suicide battalions [69]
 
How much of that effort was to avoid the punishment that would come from shirking? In 1939 the Great Purge was had just ended and hit the army hard, so it isn't as if it was safe not to fight as hard as possible.

Not as much as commonly believed. To be sure, there’s no doubt that force or threat of force was an integral element of the Red Army. But the Winter War contained plenty of opportunities where Soviet soldiers could have shirked without much fear of reprisal... yet they still fought and fought hard.

Also Reese wrote another book about Soviet willingness to fight before WW2:

Sure, an older book that was overturned by new evidence.

We know they weren't effective fighters based on the loss rates and disaster of an invasion that it proved to be.

Except that doesn’t idicate anything about military effectiveness as defined by Reese. It’s a measure of capability, that is how well the Red Army fought, but it says nothing about how willing they were to fight. Your getting the two confused.
 
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Deleted member 1487

Not as much as commonly believed. To be sure, there’s no doubt that force or threat of force was an integral element of the Red Army. But the Winter War contained plenty of opportunities where Soviet soldiers could have shirked without much fear of reprisal... yet they still fought and fought hard.
Such as?

Sure, an older book that was overturned by new evidence.
Such as?

Except that doesn’t idicate anything about military effectiveness as defined by Reese. It’s a measure of capability, that is how well the Red Army fought, but it says nothing about how willing they were to fight. Your getting the two confused.
So he just redefined the meaning of an existing word to mean something else. Fine. 'Willing to fight' is something with a lot variance in meaning and causes. Thing is some 40,000 Soviet troops disappeared during the WW out of about 126k total dead/missing, about 1/3rd. Less than 5,600 PoWs were taken, which has already been deducted from the 40k number.
http://www.winterwar.com/War'sEnd/casualti.htm#soviet
That indicates a lot of desertion, as the equivalent for the Finns was 1712 missing out of ~26k total dead/missing. I.E. less than 7% of the total.
 

Patriotism, propaganda, indoctrination, in-group loyalty, rewards and recognition... the usual stuff armies do to motivate their soldiers. It takes more then just threat of force to motivate soldiers: the Imperial Russian Army also empowered their officers to summarily execute their soldiers yet that didn't prevent the revolts and disintegration in 1917. Motivations are a complicated thing and can't necessarily be boiled down to a single element, but contrary to what the movie stereotypes about evil empires might have you believe, fear isn't enough to motivate a army of millions to fight.


Archival material of NKVD reports, military reports, combat reports, etc. etc.

So he just redefined the meaning of an existing word to mean something else. Fine.

More like he found a word to express the definition he uses and used it consistently. To be ultra-specific, he states that "military effectiveness is, at it's core, the ability of an army to sustain battle". For obvious reasons, he identifies the ability to motivate soldiers to fight as a crucial element of this even as he also recognizes it's merely one of several.

’Willing to fight' is something with a lot variance in meaning and causes.

Which renders it odd that you try to boil the case of the Red Army down to something as reductive as fear.

Thing is some 40,000 Soviet troops disappeared during the WW out of about 126k total dead/missing, about 1/3rd. Less than 5,600 PoWs were taken, which has already been deducted from the 40k number. That indicates a lot of desertion, as the equivalent for the Finns was 1712 missing out of ~26k total dead/missing. I.E. less than 7% of the total.

This contains the obvious flaw that you simply assume that every last one of those missing are deserters instead of the equally plausible explanation of them being killed and their deaths never verified. What’s more, your also cherrypicking the numbers so as not to give a proper sense of scale: stating that a third of Soviet irrecoverable were missing ignored that total casualties were 381,000, which renders missing as 10% of casualties, and that over one million Soviet soldiers fought in the war, meaning even if all 40,000 missing were deserters they still only represent less then 4% of the men who fought! Certainly, the Soviets in their subsequent, and otherwise scathing, review of their war performance found no endemic case of desertion or problems with their soldiers motivation. It's also worth considering why, if the 5,486 men captured by the Finns really had believed they would be prosecuted upon repatriation, did only 74 of them ever even make the attempt of requesting asylum in Finland?
 
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They possibly could have gotten all that if Stalin went to war with Hitler in 1939, without 20 million Soviets dying and having some of the most economically valuable regions of the Soviet Union devastated by the Nazis.

Why do you think that in your scenario they would not suffer huge losses? The Red Army circa 1939 suffered from the numerous problems from quality of the officers corps and all the way to equipment some of which had been at least marginally addressed after the Winter War. German army, as was demonstrated against France (leaving aside Poland), had a huge quality advantage which in OTL allowed it to keep advancing all the way to the end of 1942. A major offensive is a complicated thing and it does not look like the Red Army was capable of accomplishing it against the Germans in 1939. Strictly speaking, it was only capable of doing so on a limited scale in the late 1942 and even that under the very favorable circumstances (stretched front with the ill-equipped German allies on the flanks). Even then, shortly before the final Stalingrad counter-offensive (numerous earlier attempts failed miserably) commander of one of the newly-created tank corps sent a panicking letter personally to Stalin citing huge problems (starting with an absolute lack of experience in most of his troops) and predicting a disaster (fortunately for him, this did not impact his career and his corps ended up as the Guards).

So the Soviet offensive along the whole new Soviet-German border in 1939 would most probably end up as a series of the major encirclements of the Soviet troops with the Germans advancing into the Soviet territory. Not sure if by 1939 the same numbers of the reserves as in 1941 were available.
 

Deleted member 1487

Patriotism, propaganda, indoctrination, in-group loyalty, rewards and recognition... the usual stuff armies do to motivate their soldiers. It takes more then just threat of force to motivate soldiers: the Imperial Russian Army also empowered their officers to summarily execute their soldiers yet that didn't prevent the revolts and disintegration in 1917. Motivations are a complicated thing and can't necessarily be boiled down to a single element, but contrary to what the movie stereotypes about evil empires might have you believe, fear isn't enough to motivate a army of millions to fight.
Sure, though the Soviets were a lot more feared than the Czar was and quite a bit more brutal. Plus there was the punishing of families element to the equation.

Archival material of NKVD reports, military reports, combat reports, etc. etc.
If anything it looks like they cover different time periods. The first leading up to 1941 and the second the actual WW2 period with some call back to the Winter War. From what I've been able to find Reese used those archival materials for his earlier book as well.

More like he found a word to express the definition he uses and used it consistently. To be ultra-specific, he states that "military effectiveness is, at it's core, the ability of an army to sustain battle". For obvious reasons, he identifies the ability to motivate soldiers to fight as a crucial element of this even as he also recognizes it's merely one of several.
Or not:
http://oxfordre.com/internationalst...90846626.001.0001/acrefore-9780190846626-e-35
Military effectiveness is defined as the ability to produce favorable military outcomes per se, including the outcomes of minor skirmishes at the tactical level of war and the outcomes of wars or even long-term politico-military competitions at the strategic or grand strategic levels of war.
Certainly sustainment is a factor, but hardly the only necessary one. Even there motivating soldiers to fight is only a subset of sustainment, again a necessary factor, but hardly the only one.

Which renders it odd that you try to boil the case of the Red Army down to something as reductive as fear.
That is not what I said or was trying to get across, rather that fear of consequences was a major factor, one that was seemingly left out of your statement and one that would be somewhat at odds with that a Soviet forces after Stalin would have to deal with, given that the regime brutality towards it's own soldiers and citizens dramatically decreased after de-Stalinization. So using the Winter War as an example isn't necessarily relevant to a post-Stalin Red Army tasked with invading NATO.

This contains the obvious flaw that you simply assume that every last one of those missing are deserters instead of the equally plausible explanation of them being killed and their deaths never verified. Certainly, the Soviets in their subsequent, and otherwise scathing, review of their war performance found no endemic case of desertion or problems with their soldiers motivation.
I didn't say that ever last one was killed without being identified, I just was pointing out the huge gulf between the two sides in terms of percentage permanently missing, which indicates there was a considerable amount of desertion. I'm sure that the Soviets wouldn't have found much to complain about with getting their soldiers into combat compared to the actual problem of getting positive results in combat. They had after all had ample opportunity to perfect their methods of motivation during the Civil War when blocking detachments had been invented. Of course they might have also avoided the problem altogether in the review given that they clearly had a lot greater number of more pressing problems to contend with.

What’s more, your also cherrypicking the numbers so as not to give a proper sense of scale: stating that a third of Soviet irrecoverable were missing ignored that total casualties were 381,000, which renders missing as 10% of casualties, and that over one million Soviet soldiers fought in the war, meaning even if all 40,000 missing were deserters they still only represent less then 4% of the men who fought!
Now you're the one cherrypicking. I specifically compared the death+missing of both sides, not overall casualties. If you go by that metric the Finnish percentage goes even lower, as their overall casualties were about 70k of which 1700 were missing, much lower than 10%. Also you do realize of the 1 million men who participated in the war on the Soviet side, only a fraction of them were combat troops, so you'd have to actually compare the number of combat troops with desertions, as non-combat troops have far less of a reason to desert and arguably less of a chance to do so given the limited nature of that campaign compare to WW2.

It's also worth considering why, if the 5,486 men captured by the Finns really had believed they would be prosecuted upon repatriation, did only 74 of them ever even make the attempt of requesting asylum in Finland?
They probably weren't expecting it, instead assuming that they had fought honorably and would be treated as soldiers, not criminals. That or they were resigned to their fate and thought that trying to stay in Finland would put their families at risk.
If we compare the situation with that of WW2 the Soviet PoWs had learned and many had to be forceably reparated by the Wallies (operation Keelhaul).
Plus there was the situation of defectors during WW2:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...from-ed-army-solders-to-hitlers-collaborators

Clearly there was a varied situation when it comes to motivation to fight for the USSR. Russians were much more likely to be patriotic willing participants than many of the various minority populations that faced repression, so it would certainly help to know of the Winter War Soviet participants how many were ethnic Russians vs. minorities and whether they were in a position to desert. It could also very well be that Soviet troops by and large didn't the ability to run away as much during the Winter War as they did during WW2 or the Civil War or war with Poland in 1920. In that sense The nature of the conflict matters quite a bit too.
 
This one of best proposals for Nazi Germany. They don't loose 10s of thousand people at East, plus not squandering war material there (tanks, guns, aricraft, fuel, ammo), all while trading hi-tech goodies for Soviet raw materials.
BoB 2.0 in starts in May 1941.

Except Uncle Joe kept shorting the delivery's and/or they were late, whilst the Germans kept sending finished goods East including machine tools on time.

Even if BoB 2 starts the RAF is a lot stronger and the quality of both aircraft and crews were increasing. The invasion is still not happening as the RN would still be much stronger than the Kriegsmarine by a nautical mile.
 

Deleted member 1487

Except Uncle Joe kept shorting the delivery's and/or they were late, whilst the Germans kept sending finished goods East including machine tools on time.
Other way around, the Soviets were on time, the Germans were delaying payment. Stalin started playing hardball in August 1940, which got the Germans to pay up, but by 1941 the Germans were badly in arrears and Stalin, afraid of invasion, kept on sending materials while letting the debt build up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi–...41)#German_summer_worries_and_procrastination
Germany, which was provided 27 months to finish delivery of its goods, procrastinated as long as possible.[133] Germany did initially deliver some floating cranes, five aircraft, an electrode shop, several gun turrets (with fire control apparatuses and spare parts), two submarine periscopes and additional ship construction tools.[156] A few months later it delivered a sample of its harvest technology.[148] Labor shortages caused by German rearmament pushes also slowed Germany's ability to export material.[157] By the end of June, Germany had only delivered 82 million Reichsmarks in goods (including 25 million for the Lutzow) of the 600 million Reichsmarks in Soviet orders place by that time.[158]

Delivery suspension
By August 1940, Germany was 73 million Reichsmarks behind on deliveries due under the 1940 commercial agreement.[148]The Soviet Union had provided over 300 million Reichsmarks worth of raw materials, while the Germans provided less than half of that in finished products for compensation.[148]

That month, the Soviet Union briefly suspended its deliveries after their relations were strained following disagreement over policy in the Balkans, the Soviet Union's war with Finland (from which Germany had imported 88.9 million Reichsmarks in goods in 1938[12]), the German commercial delivery failures and with Stalin worried that Hitler's war with the West might end quickly after France signed an armistice.[159] At that time, the Soviet also canceled all long range projects under the 1940 commercial agreement.[148]
.........

Soviet willingness to deliver increased in April, with Hitler telling German officials attempting to dissuade him of attack that concessions would be even greater if 150 German divisions were on their borders.[191] Stalin greeted Schnurre at the Moscow railroad station with the phrase "We will remain friends with you – in any event."[190] The Soviets also deferred to German demands regarding Finland, Romania and border settlements.[190] In an April 28 meeting with Hitler, German ambassador to Moscow Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg stated that Stalin was prepared to make even further concessions, including up to 5 million tons of grain in the next year alone, with Acting Military Attache Krebs adding that the Soviets "will do anything to avoid war and yielded on every issue short of making territorial concessions."[190]

Stalin also attempted a further cautious economic appeasement of Germany, shipping items in May and June for which German firms had not even placed orders.[185] German officials concluded in May that "we could make economic demands on Moscow which would even go beyond the scope of the treaty of January 10, 1941."[185] That same month, German naval officials stated that "the Russian government is endeavoring to do everything to prevent a conflict with Germany."[185] By June 18, four days before the German invasion, the Soviet had even promised the Japanese that they could ship much greater totals along the Trans-Siberian Railway.[185]

Soviet rubber shipments greatly increased in later months, filling up German warehouses and the Soviet transports systems.[192] 76% of the total of 18,800 tons of vital rubber sent to Germany was shipped in May and June 1941.[193] 2,100 tons of it crossed the border only hours before the German invasion began.[192]
 
Except Uncle Joe kept shorting the delivery's and/or they were late, whilst the Germans kept sending finished goods East including machine tools on time.

Okay, then don't send the machine tools until the previous batch(es) are paid for, as per contract(s).
(nija'd by wiking)

Even if BoB 2 starts the RAF is a lot stronger and the quality of both aircraft and crews were increasing. The invasion is still not happening as the RN would still be much stronger than the Kriegsmarine by a nautical mile.

BoB 2.0 != invasion.
I will not go that far to declare that BoB 2.0 is an insta-win for the Germans, despite the agregate advantage their fighter force has, as well as for not having range problems of 1940.
 

Deleted member 1487

BoB 2.0 != invasion.
I will not go that far to declare that BoB 2.0 is an insta-win for the Germans, despite the agregate advantage their fighter force has, as well as for not having range problems of 1940.
Fighter range in the BoB wasn't really the primary issue. It was the lack of aircraft. Certainly the F-series fixed a ton of problems with the Me109E, but even with the advantages it had over the current crop of RAF fighters I don't think they had fixed the lack of fighter pilots problems and certainly hadn't fixed the lack of aircraft production, with production rates only slightly higher in 1941 than in 1940. The Do17 had been mostly phased out, so there is that, but the RAF had gotten cannons in their fighters by 1941, so they are going to be a lot tougher to deal with, especially given their improvements in experience and training by then. Plus compared with being on the offensive in the Channel raids, they again have the defensive advantage while chaff was only discovered in August 1941 (at the earliest, might be a typo on the report) by the Luftwaffe:
http://www.cdvandt.org/dueppel.htm
 
Fighter range in the BoB wasn't really the primary issue. It was the lack of aircraft. Certainly the F-series fixed a ton of problems with the Me109E, but even with the advantages it had over the current crop of RAF fighters I don't think they had fixed the lack of fighter pilots problems and certainly hadn't fixed the lack of aircraft production, with production rates only slightly higher in 1941 than in 1940. The Do17 had been mostly phased out, so there is that, but the RAF had gotten cannons in their fighters by 1941, so they are going to be a lot tougher to deal with, especially given their improvements in experience and training by then. Plus compared with being on the offensive in the Channel raids, they again have the defensive advantage while chaff was only discovered in August 1941 (at the earliest, might be a typo on the report) by the Luftwaffe:
http://www.cdvandt.org/dueppel.htm

Also if the Luftwaffe launches a new bombing campaign then the RAF is far better equipped to retaliate than it was in 1940 with the Stirling and the Halifax entering squadron service in early 1941.
 

elkarlo

Banned
NATO never made such a conclusion, nor does the historical evidence show much agreement. Roger Reese analyzes the Red Army's "military effectiveness" (a term which is defined, at least in this case, as the ability of a military to motivate it's men to fight) in not just the Second World War, but the Winter War and found that Soviet soldiers fought incredibly hard in a offensive war against a liberal democracy that had done almost nothing to the USSR.
That's interesting, but I disagree in general. Let me get my sources together and see what I can find.
 
Fighter range in the BoB wasn't really the primary issue. It was the lack of aircraft. Certainly the F-series fixed a ton of problems with the Me109E, but even with the advantages it had over the current crop of RAF fighters I don't think they had fixed the lack of fighter pilots problems and certainly hadn't fixed the lack of aircraft production, with production rates only slightly higher in 1941 than in 1940. The Do17 had been mostly phased out, so there is that, but the RAF had gotten cannons in their fighters by 1941, so they are going to be a lot tougher to deal with, especially given their improvements in experience and training by then.

LW performance in BoB was hampered by many key issues: ideed the lack of aircraft (fighters mostly), lack of coherent target prioritization, ditto for how the combat vs. FC fighters it to be conducted (freijagd vs. close escort), short range and low firing time of their best fighters type, low performance of their LR fighters, low production of both aircraft and pilots, small bomb load on Do 17, small number of Ju 88s, Ju 87 vulnerability etc.
Cannons were installed in minority of RAF fighters by mid-1941, stil not as reliable as the .303s, still with 60 rd drums.
 

Deleted member 1487

LW performance in BoB was hampered by many key issues: ideed the lack of aircraft (fighters mostly), lack of coherent target prioritization, ditto for how the combat vs. FC fighters it to be conducted (freijagd vs. close escort), short range and low firing time of their best fighters type, low performance of their LR fighters, low production of both aircraft and pilots, small bomb load on Do 17, small number of Ju 88s, Ju 87 vulnerability etc.
Cannons were installed in minority of RAF fighters by mid-1941, stil not as reliable as the .303s, still with 60 rd drums.
Which of those had been fixed by 1941?
 
Sure, though the Soviets were a lot more feared than the Czar was and quite a bit more brutal. Plus there was the punishing of families element to the equation.

That's not really in evidence though. The proportion of punishments handed out to deserters amount to only 8.6% the number of instances of desertion/defections we have the records for. For the other 91.4%, they were simply returned to their unit. The number of total executions is 3.5% the number of desertions/defections and that is without factoring in that a number of executions would have been for certain criminal actions rather then desertion or defection. The Red Army may have used the death penalty more frequently then other armies, but the numbers still show it's use still wasn't widespread... and the soldiers knew it.

Also interesting is that of the 2.846 million desertions recorded during the war, a majority (54%) turned themselves in.

If anything it looks like they cover different time periods. The first leading up to 1941 and the second the actual WW2 period with some call back to the Winter War. From what I've been able to find Reese used those archival materials for his earlier book as well.

No, Reese covers a fair bit of the pre-war in the book.


That's a red-herring. I made it clear the term Reese uses, what his definition for that term is, and what it is measuring. For the definition you provided, he tends to use the term "military efficiency" instead. I don't necessarily agree with his use of the term myself, but it is what it is and citing a different definition does not change the fact he was talking about how well the Red Army was able to motivate it's soldiers to fight rather then how well it was able to fight.

Certainly sustainment is a factor, but hardly the only necessary one. Even there motivating soldiers to fight is only a subset of sustainment, again a necessary factor, but hardly the only one.

It is, in the end, what Reese is studying and he makes clear that the ability of the Soviet Union to motivate it's soldiers to fight was every bit as capable as that of the Germans, Japanese, or Anglo-Americans.

That is not what I said or was trying to get across, rather that fear of consequences was a major factor, one that was seemingly left out of your statement and one that would be somewhat at odds with that a Soviet forces after Stalin would have to deal with, given that the regime brutality towards it's own soldiers and citizens dramatically decreased after de-Stalinization. So using the Winter War as an example isn't necessarily relevant to a post-Stalin Red Army tasked with invading NATO.

It pretty obviously was what you were saying and was trying to get across, what with you making hay of the number of executions the Red Army used in WW2, but the reality is that would have been quite inadequate on it's own. Descriptions of Soviet soldiers being driven on by blocking detachments firing into their rear rests in the realm of Nazis propaganda rather then reality. In any case, the Winter War shows that the Soviet soldiers, for whatever reason, were quite willing to fight and fight hard in a offensive war (although, it is worth noting, Soviet propaganda had largely convinced them the whole war was Finland's fault). If anything, Soviet soldiers in the post-WW2 era would be even more motivated and willing then their Winter War counterparts to fight as, unlike the Winter War Red Army, there was a solid sense of professionalism and had a talented pool of junior leadership better able to lead... well until the officer corps ossified and the Dedovshchina got out of hand, that is.

I didn't say that ever last one was killed without being identified, I just was pointing out the huge gulf between the two sides in terms of percentage permanently missing, which indicates there was a considerable amount of desertion.

Which, as I pointed out, is a unsubstantiated conclusion which assumes that a significant number of the missing were deserted without evidence. In reality, it's much more likely that the vast majority of the missing were soldiers who were killed in the chaotic Motti engagements up north and whose deaths were never identified. The number of desertions would be vastly smaller and probably was similar to the number of surrenders at several thousand.

If you go by that metric the Finnish percentage goes even lower, as their overall casualties were about 70k of which 1700 were missing, much lower than 10%.

Sure, but that's based on the bad assumption that missing = deserted while ignoring that the Finns were in a much better position to accurately identify their own dead at the end of the Motti Battles.

Now you're the one cherrypicking. I specifically compared the death+missing of both sides, not overall casualties.

Which is why your cherry picking and I'm not. You threw out a (deliberately) limited number that did not give a proper sense of scale of the conflict which shows that the number of missing is very small in relation to the total casualties and number engaged. Even that ignores that a missing soldier is not proof of desertion.

Also you do realize of the 1 million men who participated in the war on the Soviet side, only a fraction of them were combat troops, so you'd have to actually compare the number of combat troops with desertions, as non-combat troops have far less of a reason to desert and arguably less of a chance to do so given the limited nature of that campaign compare to WW2.

It's actually rather the opposite, interestingly enough. The documented instances of Soviet desertion we have in the course of the Winter War largely occurred in the rear-areas.

They probably weren't expecting it, instead assuming that they had fought honorably and would be treated as soldiers, not criminals. That or they were resigned to their fate and thought that trying to stay in Finland would put their families at risk.

The evidence indicates they weren't expecting it. Of the returned, only less then a thousand escaped punishment. 350 were executed and 4,354 were sentenced to hard labor in the camps for terms of five to eight years. There is no indication their families were punished, at least not overtly.
 
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Which of those had been fixed by 1941?

Short range and low firing time of their best fighters, number of Ju-88s in service, reliance on Do 17s - that was certainly fixed.
Expecting from LW to repeat the mistakes in target prioritization and the mistakes in a way to combat FC fighters is equal to expecting them to be stupid this time around.
In 1941, neither Dowding nor Park are in charge of air defense.
 
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Not as much as commonly believed. To be sure, there’s no doubt that force or threat of force was an integral element of the Red Army. But the Winter War contained plenty of opportunities where Soviet soldiers could have shirked without much fear of reprisal... yet they still fought and fought hard.

Referring to an earlier discussion where you cited the small numbers of Soviet POWs in the Winter War as proof of the high loyalty of the Red Army soldiers, I tend to disagree with your argument about the Red Army soldiers having "plenty of opportunities to shirk without a fear of reprisal". As I answered you in that thread, there really were not that many opportunities at all to surrender to the Finns during the war, not in the "motti" battles up north or in the heavy fighting on the crowded Karelian Isthmus. On both these theatres, objective conditions made it unlikely for the Red Army soldiers to surrender en masse, in the way that they did surrender to the Finns in the early stages of the Continuation War - in much greater numbers than in 39-40 even if in that war they were fighting a purely defensive, justified battle against a foreign invader (which arguably should have been good for loyalty and morale).

To see my argument in more detail, look at the post I am referring to.
 
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Short range and low firing time of their best fighters, number of Ju-88s in service, reliance on Do 17s - that was certainly fixed.
Expecting from LW to repeat the mistakes in target prioritization and the mistakes in a way to combat FC fighters is equal to expecting them to be stupid this time around.
In 1941, neither Dowding nor Park are in charge of air defense.

So basically you seem to think the Luftwaffe has improved so dramatically that they will pulverise the RAF who have done nothing to improve the quality of their aircraft or increased their production or improved their supply of pilots? The reality is that by 1941 the Luftwaffe has received no useable replacements for the Ju87 or the Bf110 and its bomber force is dependent on the Ju88, an aircraft that had not proven nearly as effective as hoped in 1940. The RAF by 1941 were introducing centimetric AI radar, and had largely removed the obsolete aircraft from their order of battle as well as Fighter Command transitioning its pilots from the Hurricane to the Spitfire. The best the Luftwaffe can achieve in 1941 is a battle of attrition over Southern England that will still massively favour the RAF.

Oh and on the stupidity front Park and Dowding may be gone but Goering is still firmly in place.
 
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