Soviet
Germany to the East I
With his decision for war with the Soviet Union, Hitler had closed off other strategic options. The Soviet Union, he stressed, posed a long-term threat to Germany that had to be eliminated, and, in any case, the time was right as at the moment the Red Army was poorly trained, inadequately led, and badly equipped. Besides, as Halder recorded his…
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Russian Preparation for a New Offensive on the Karelian Isthmus 1940 Part II
High Level Conference on Future Operations. A meeting was held at II Corps Headquarters on the morning of 14 February. It was attended by Marshal Mannerheim and Colonel Airo, the Marshal’s right hand for plans and operations. Lieutenant General Osterman, the Isthmus Army Commander, and his Chief of Staff, Colonel…
Lessons Learned in 1939-40 Winter War
The Setting is the Enemy The peculiarities of the Finnish theater of war that caused the greatest combat difficulties were the absolute lack of roads and the close character of the terrain which, with its vest zone of virgin forests, is so very different from the European landscape in latitudes…
Russia’s Early Jets: The Ugly Ducklings
Following the acquisition of the first captured German turbojets at the end of 1944, various Soviet design bureaux were ordered to begin a crash programme aimed at producing operational fighters designed around these engines. The bureaux involved were Mikoyan and Guryevich (MiG), Lavochkin, Sukhoi and Yakovlev. By the time initial…
MOSCOW OPTS FORÂ ROCKETS
Curtis LeMay could not understand that his bombers were in danger of being undermined as a credible deterrent by the advance of technology. In strategic terms, they were coming to represent the past. He was not heeding von Kármán’s warning to Arnold in 1945 that “the men in charge of…
Soviet Guards Bomber Air Regiments of the Naval Air Forces I
In early July 1944 Soviet intelligence detected a large warship in the Finnish port of Kotka. It was erroneously identified as the coastal defence ship Vainamoinen, the largest warship in the Finnish Navy. In reality this vessel was the 6000-tonne German heavy anti-aircraft depot ship Niobe, formerly the Dutch coastal…
Soviet Guards Bomber Air Regiments of the Naval Air Forces II
Following the encirclement of the huge German formation in Kurland, the trading port and base at Liepaja took on particular significance for the besieged Wehrmacht. Troops were brought in through this location, and up to 30 transports would be loaded simultaneously. Making use of some favourable flying weather, aircraft of…