How did Azerbaijan triumph over Armenia? Azerbaijan placed bets on sophisticated, pricey weapons, while Armenia relied on old Moscow -made arms

[BahamaBob]

Yes that is true, but that was a political geostrategic goal, not an indication of the Red Army's doctrinal development.

My point was that the main purpose of these head on, high casualty attacks was not a sound military operation. The German units were isolated and their supply chain was effectively severed. He could have waited them out and let the Americans and British finish off the Germans. However, he wanted territory quickly and the only way he could acquire that was attacking in mass.

 

[Jredbaron96]

My point was that the main purpose of these head on, high casualty attacks was not a sound military operation.

By the time the Soviets pushed into Europe their preference was not at all for head on assaults. Bagration, Vistula-Oder, Western Carpathia, and Leningrad-Novgorod all involved elaborate deception efforts, and they all accomplished significant strategic goals. The comparison is not there.

 

[beerftw]

No, it wasn't. Soviet troops were supposed to assault weak points in the line to exploit them and breakthrough, not go directly for them. I have no idea why you think the Soviet's thought it was a good idea to attack the strongest enemy hardpoint head on, when they're behavior both during WWII and the Cold War clearly demonstrated they did not.



To me this clearly indicates you don't understand the subject at all.

Soviet troops were trained to advance as deep as possible in order to destroy lines of supply, communication, and to seize vital areas and locations. They were not told to do so as part of a competition to see who could go the farthest, they did so because they had specific objectives to accomplish. In WWII this had been bridges across the Oder, and in WWIII it would have been bridges across the Rhine. The Soviets *absolutely* emphasized attacking the rear echelon, to suggest otherwise is nonsensical because we can see from their plans they intended to do so, often with nuclear and conventional weapons, and with both airborne, heliborne, and mechanized forces.

Well here is one for you straight from wiki

Deep battle envisaged the breaking of the enemy's forward defenses, or tactical zones, through combined arms assaults, which would be followed up by fresh uncommitted mobile operational reserves sent to exploit the strategic depth of an enemy front.

If you did not catch on the idea was to attack the enemy head on, and from the side, and from the rear, and any other direction. The head on fight was to attack forward defenses, by literally attacking head on with combined arms, while using reserves to attack the rear echelon. The strategy worked off deception, but also by being bold, and exploiting the enemies ability to defend multiple fronts against combine arms, especially when they did not expect it.

Now during the cold war, they focused havily on invading the rear echelon, which is pretty much what I said, blocking re enforcements, or you can say logistics or whatever, in the soviet invasion plans they avoided battle and chose to drive deep into the rear echelon rather than the deep battle plan of attacking every echelon and controlling the battlefield through it,.

FYI attacking the rear echelon does not equal deep battle, hence my point the soviets ditched it post ww2 as it required attacking every echelon with a large amount of troops thrown into attacking the front line with reserve troops being sent in for strategic objective. One involved attacking every aspect of the enemies offense and defense and logistics, the other sought to avoid battles and push as hard and as fast as possible to the rear echelon of the enemy.

The later soviet strategy took core ideas from deep battle but it is not deep battle.

 

[beerftw]

While this is true, you are missing part of the equation. Stalin wanted to control as much land as possible when the war ended. He was more than willing to sacrifice his people to reach that goal.

That is not true, despite stalins cruelty, stalin nor the commanders wanted mass death, as an army is useless if most of it's soldiers died. The mass deaths during deep battle were deemed necessary, and the soviets had no shortage of men who were patriotic to die for that cause.

The idea with deep battle was to break through the front line, from behind, and everything inbetween, through the use of shock troops, reserves, combined arms, and deception.

This worked well as it did defeat the nazi's, people like you look at it like human waves, but to the strategists, those waves were a cog in the wheel, heavily defended german positions could not easily be taken, so the strategy was combined arms assault against their front lines, exhausting the front lines while also attacking their logistics to prevent more supplies and troops.

The soviets also deployed deception(many armies did actually) things like sending out messengers as defectors, only to lie about numbers and positions. Things like using cover to make a big force look small or use decoys to make a small force look big. When a heavy frontal assault is combined with deception and forces also moving to the rear echelon, it actually is enough to topple any military who did not already predict such moves coming, this is why it worked so well against nazi germany.

 

[Jredbaron96]

Deep battle envisaged the breaking of the enemy's forward defenses, or tactical zones, through combined arms assaults, which would be followed up by fresh uncommitted mobile operational reserves sent to exploit the strategic depth of an enemy front.

If you did not catch on the idea was to attack the enemy head on, and from the side, and from the rear, and any other direction.

Well for starters,

No where in your quote does it say head on assaults, you added that in yourself or misread. In fact we have explicit orders from Zhukov against frontal head on assaults, so clearly this is something you are not familiar with.

Second, the quote clearly stated the deployment of the operational reserves was a sequential effort to be conducted after the tactical breakthrough was achieved. You seem to believe that the Soviets during WWII preferred to attack both the front line and the rear echelon simultaneously, while in the Cold War they avoided attacking the front line and only focused on penetration.

This is untrue, and in fact its impossible. During the Cold War the front line of the West German border did not allow for any significant gaps in NATO's frontage, especially not with Forward Defense. The Corps boundaries withing NORTHAG and CENTAG were the closest you could get but even these areas were heavily guarded and focused on. So your claim that the Soviets never focused on attacking the tactical frontage of the enemy is nonsense; we know because the Soviets invested heavily into studying how they would do it.

In both periods the Soviets did not believe in wasting time and effort focusing on the most forward of the enemy's combat power, which is why in your own quote they mention tactical zones. The purpose of the initial assault was to create a breakthrough after which the mobile armored forces would move into the breach and pursue into the rear echelon. There is a sequence of these things that seems to elude you, and it's something the Soviets believed in from 1941-1991.

FYI attacking the rear echelon does not equal deep battle,

It is literally the cornerstone of it, which is why your own quote proves you wrong

"which would be followed up by fresh uncommitted mobile operational reserves sent to exploit the strategic depth of an enemy front. "

 

[Litwin]

 

[Novalis]

A shame not to help the Christian Armenians.