OT:US don't qualify for EU membership, don't spank children, WW2 history.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Ruatha:
Was there any industrial capacity left in Moscow?
I thought it was all moved east in case Moscow would fall.
Wasn't the Soviet army bad trained and under equipped? In that case it wouldn't be very hard for Soviet to fill the ranks again as they had a vast population to recruit from.

They were only able to do that because they had the industrial capacity to begin with, and the troops avaialabe to allow them to slow the Germans with a fighting retreat.

The location of Tankagrad was chosen because it was far enough east to avoid German air power, but still close enouhg to support the defenders of the western Russian cities. If those cites had fallen and the armies captured or destroyed there would have been nothing between the Germans and the relocated factories. They would have been destroyed by waves of German bombers taking off from the captured airfields east of Moscow.

There would have been nothing to move farther east, and nowhere suitable to place it. Even if there were the Russians would have nothing to slow the German persuit. You can move an armored division faster then you can a factory.

As poorly prepared as the Russian army was at the begining of the war, it was still the cream of the crop that they had available. Some training is better then none, and with no industrial capacity at all there would be no way to equip them. Determination and patriotic ferver won't do much to stop a bullet. You have to have something to fight back with. Hammers and scythes against Tanks and machine guns isn't going to do much.

And actually east of Moscow there was no vast population. As oleg alluded to it's mostly undeveloped wilderness and rural areas. At least that was the case during the time we are talking about. I don't know if it's much different now or not.

Geoschmo

[ July 27, 2003, 15:18: Message edited by: geoschmo ]