About the "shell hunger" in the Red Army

Soviet 152-mm cannon model 1935 Br-2 at a firing position on the outskirts of Moscow. November 1941

Pre-war mistakes

At the beginning of the war, there was a shortage of both special types of shells and ammunition in general. This became one of the prerequisites for the heavy losses and defeats of the Red Army in the initial period of the war. This situation was eliminated during 1942 - the first half of 1943, when a radical turning point in the war occurred.

One of the pre-war problems of the ammunition industry was the personnel problem - the formation of qualified management personnel. The country was created literally from scratch. There was a shortage of qualified managers and scientific personnel.

This led to errors in the organization of the technological process at enterprises and in the coordination of their activities with other branches of heavy industry. In particular, the management of ammunition factories deliberately violated the technological process in order to reduce production time. This was manifested in the manufacture of shells and in the equipment production. Enterprises often produced those products that were financially profitable, which led to the sabotage of government orders. In order not to spoil the performance of advanced factories, the development of the production of new ammunition elements was transferred to more backward enterprises. For example, this led to a shortage at the beginning of the war of much-needed 76-mm armor-piercing rounds.

To a large extent, issues of increasing the production of ammunition by increasing the capacities of existing enterprises and building new plants were lost out of control. This led to a lack of gross capacity for the production of pyroxylin gunpowder and the impossibility of rapidly increasing it in war conditions. Therefore, gunpowder and explosives for various ammunition were supplied by the United States under Lend-Lease.

The calculation of the Soviet 203-mm howitzer B-4 of the Western Front is preparing to open fire. 1942

Personnel problem

The personnel problem led (an acute shortage of scientifically trained managers) to the low effectiveness of control over the relevant design bureaus and research institutes that were part of the ammunition industry. Scientific and design organizations did not provide enterprises with assistance in the gross development of new products. The enterprises themselves, not having the appropriate personnel, delayed the start of production of new products. This had a negative impact on the production of ammunition for artillery systems that were put into service on the eve of the war. So, for example, in the production of a 37-mm fragmentation tracer for an anti-aircraft gun of the 1939 model.

Another problem was the delay by research and development organizations in the development of new technological processes for the production of new powerful explosives. For example, the development of a new powerful blasting explosive - hexogen. The technological process for its manufacture was developed from 1929 to 1941, but by the beginning of the war it had not been fully finalized. Also, the development of new types of raw materials for gunpowder and gunpowder itself was slowly carried out. In particular, the employees of NII-6 for 12 years (1926–1938) delayed the process of developing formulations of nitroglycerin gunpowder. As a result, before the war, they did not create either a raw material base or a capacity for the production of gunpowder, they did not work out powder charges for some important types weapons.

To increase the effectiveness of anti-tank artillery, it was necessary to create new types of ammunition for existing artillery systems. Such ammunition was sub-caliber armor-piercing and cumulative ammunition. In the USSR, sub-caliber ammunition was created for aviation guns, and for tank and field - no. The problem of creating sub-caliber shells as effective anti-tank ammunition was not dealt with. Insufficient attention was also paid to the development of cumulative munitions. For comparison: in Nazi Germany, such ammunition was created in 1936-1939. using facts that were published in the Soviet press.

Another mistake is the insufficient study of the issue of developing a raw material base for the ammunition industry. In particular, toluene is the feedstock for the main blasting explosive - TNT. In the Soviet Union, it was possible to expand the production of this hydrocarbon. Based on the increase in coking coal production in the area of ​​the Kuznetsk basin. However, in the 30s, this problem was not paid attention to by the leadership of the ammunition production industry, and the industry itself in 1932-1936. subordinated to the civilian People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry. This led to a shortage of toluene during the war, which was compensated by American Lend-Lease supplies.

Therefore, on January 5, 1941, People's Commissar of Defense Marshal Timoshenko, together with Marshal Kulik, presented Stalin with a report on the unsatisfactory state of production of artillery ammunition. The report stated that "this most important area of ​​the military industry is still in a highly disorganized state and does not provide for the defense of the country."

Soviet artillerymen firing from a 76-mm regimental gun on the Kalinin Front. 1942

Mistakes of the military command

To the mistakes that the pre-war leadership of the ammunition industry made, were added the mistakes of the military themselves. So, by the beginning of the war, in relation to the real average annual consumption in the war, for artillery ammunition of various positions, more than 100%. That is, in the first year of the war, the army should not have experienced the problem of lack of ammunition. Even in the conditions of the evacuation of industry to the east, its restructuring, when the release of ammunition was sharply reduced.

But already in November 1941, an acute shortage of shells was recorded in the troops. Part of the warehouses in the western border districts with mobilization stocks of shells were captured by the enemy or destroyed by our retreating troops. For example, the Western Front lost from June 22 to June 29, 1941 more than 23% of ammunition, the South-Western Front from June 22 to July 12 - about 20%.

An even more important reason was the thoughtless, uncontrolled overexpenditure of ammunition by the troops and the poor organization of supplies. The German military noted in their memoirs that the Russians often fire massively with a large amount of ammunition. Naturally, the soldiers called such a fire "hellish." But there was also a downside to this process. So, on August 5, 1941, in his directive to the Reserve Front, General of the Army Zhukov noted that the artillery was spending a lot of shells both through its own fault and the infantry commanders who ordered to shoot "for noise and to satisfy far-fetched" requests "from below." The Soviet commander considered the commanders guilty of this, who condoned the huge consumption of shells and mines "without any benefit to the cause."

Marshal Timoshenko also noted the fact of the incredibly high consumption of ammunition on the Western and Southwestern fronts. Reconnaissance and fire adjustment were poorly established. Artillery fired haphazardly, on squares or on secondary targets. Ammunition consumption was not limited. According to inflated requests, stocks were accumulated, which, during the retreat, could not be taken out and were abandoned or destroyed.

Shipment, delivery, accounting for the produced shells and their storage in warehouses also left much to be desired. Echelons with ammunition stood idle, were late, came to the wrong address. There was an "unacceptable laxity and irresponsible attitude to the assigned work" of a number of employees of the departments of the Main Art Directorate (GAU). Not surprisingly, the reserves accumulated before the war quickly ran out, the command had to impose restrictions. And the Soviet government should take emergency measures to correct the situation in the field of production, supply and use of ammunition. The work of the industry was adjusted, responsibility was increased in the delivery and storage of ammunition, the Soviet "god of war" improved reconnaissance, adjustment and began to treat shells more prudently.

Thus, the shell hunger in the initial period of the Great Patriotic War was caused by a number of important reasons. Pre-war mistakes in the field of ammunition production led to the lack of the required amount of productive capacity, the insecurity of their raw material base. The careless and inept use of available stocks of shells by the troops of the Red Army also had an effect.

Commander of the ZIS-3 gun of the 28th Artillery Regiment of the 9th Guards Rifle Division of the Kalinin Front, Senior Sergeant Vladimir Kuts. 1943

Comments

[FoBoss_VM]

80 years have passed. And exactly the same problem is now at the front of our troops. Who is guilty ? What to do and how to deal with these?

[Vladimir_2U]

Quote from: FoBoss_VM

80 years have passed. And exactly the same problem is now at the front of our troops. Who is guilty ? What to do and how to deal with these?

How is it exactly the same? Now competent managers are a dime a dozen. After all, this is the same as an effective manager. (sarcasm) And also the USSR received a near-zero chemical industry and vocational education, and the Russian Federation at least adequate to modernity and retained them! (bitter sarcasm)
How to fight? Yes, not with the help of the phrases "Now is not the 37th year"!

[your1970]

Quote: Vladimir_2U

How to fight? Yes, not with the help of the phrases "Now is not the 37th year"!

Well, if it were now in the case of gunpowder or hexogen
"К For example, the development of a new powerful blasting explosive - hexogen. The technological process for its manufacture was developed from 1929 to 1941, but by the beginning of the war it had not been fully finalized. Also, the development of new types of raw materials for gunpowder and gunpowder itself was slowly carried out. In particular, the employees of NII-6 for 12 years (1926–1938) delayed the process of developing formulations of nitroglycerin gunpowder. " - then the VO would howl "Cursed managers and aligarhs !!! They ruined everything !!! They drank the budget and that's it !!" and demanded death
А then they just didn’t do it, they “shifted the deadlines to the right” and that’s it ..
They were not shot by the "kgovy Stalin" ..
There is no such thing as their "whole squad to the Donbass, to the trenches, to Wagner to Prigozhin", yeah ...

[Old electrician]

On January 29, 1942, Beria sent Stalin a list of 46 arrested people who were registered with the NKVD of the USSR. Among them were 17 generals and a number of prominent workers in the defense industry, who were arrested in May-July 1941. All of them were accused of sabotage and conspiracy against the state. The leader imposed a laconic resolution: “Shoot all those named on the list. I. Stalin. As a result, in February 1942, a number of senior officials of the defense people's commissariats from this list, headed by the people's commissar of ammunition I.P. Sergeev were shot. Subsequently, they were all declared innocent victims of political repression. In addition to what was listed in the article, it should be added to the achievements of these innocent victims that in the summer of 1941 the T-34 and KV went on the attack without a single armor-piercing projectile in their ammunition load. The plan for the production of 76 mm armor-piercing shells was completely thwarted. Therefore, as in a civil war, shrapnel was fired at German tanks, setting the tube to strike. Due to non-observance of the technology for the production of armor-piercing shells in the summer of 1941, the main Soviet 45 mm anti-tank gun with a muzzle velocity of 760 m / s of a 1,43 kg projectile was inferior in armor penetration to the German 37 mm gun with its 0,685 kg projectile and the same muzzle velocity. Those. the forty-five had less armor penetration, more than twice the German "mallet" in terms of muzzle energy. An outstanding achievement of innocent victims! A special contribution to the disruption of the production of armor-piercing shells was made by the People's Commissar of Ammunition I.P. Sergeev. He and his comrades-in-arms had to be given reinforced rations, but for some reason Stalin was not imbued.

[Old electrician]

After. The problem with 45 mm shells was that the heat treatment of shells was carried out with a terrible violation of technology. Therefore, when hitting the armor, a large percentage of the shells simply simply split without breaking through it. I do not believe that this was caused by the low qualification of the workers. I'll give you an example. In the early 90s, I had a chance to drink vodka in the company of proletarians of retirement age who had worked all their lives at a defense plant (now this plant no longer exists). As always, while drunk, the conversation turned to politics and the innocently repressed. And then I heard something that made my jaw drop. We are talking about an employee of this plant, let's call him Vaska. More in first person:

Even before the war, Vaska was a thermist from God! Skillful fingers! When the Germans arrived, he was taken to Deutschland, and until the end of the war he worked as a thermist at a German factory. He is a simple hard worker, so the Germans were simply proud of him. And then the Germans were defeated and Vaska was soldered for 20 years. For what!!!?

Both Vaska and these workers were born under Soviet rule, graduated from a Soviet school, and received a Soviet vocational education. Judging by how Vaska was valued by the Germans, his training was excellent. Throughout the war, the thermist Vaska successfully hardened German bullets and shells, overfulfilling the plan. With the same success, Vaska could, imperceptibly for the OTK, drive a marriage at a Soviet plant.
According to Trotsky, the USSR had to get involved in any wars for the sake of the World Revolution and constantly provoke social conflicts in the country for the sake of the emergence of counter and subsequent struggle against it. It's called the Permanent Revolution. The main goal of the Permanent Revolution was the destruction of the USSR, either by intervention or by retaliation. Because, according to Trotsky, the USSR is the main obstacle on the way to the World Revolution. In 1941, the Trotskyists preached that the millions of ordinary German workers who were forcibly put on SS overcoats were our best friends. The war will begin with fraternization along the entire front, followed by the long-awaited socialist revolution in Germany. Then the revolution will spread to England and the United States, and become World. The disgraced Stalin, the traitor of the World Revolution, will either leave on his own or be overthrown by the jubilant people. In order not to interfere with the fraternization of the Red Army with the SS, in no case did we need to start a fratricidal war. It is impossible to kill fraternal German proletarians - there must be no blood between us! It was thanks to this ideological installation that we received defective shells, and many other absurdities of the summer of 1941.
The Trotskyists were part of the party, so they crawled everywhere and spoiled the country as best they could. The list of 1941 of the 46 arrested was the only one, although in fact there were much more specialists in fraternization with the SS. After Stalin's death, Nikita the Wonderworker turned them all into innocent victims of political repression in one fell swoop. Since then, the legend has been cultivated that Stalin, having risen in the morning, only thought of who else to shoot.
PS. Starting from school, everyone in the USSR was stuffed with Khrushchev-style Marxism-Leninism. Pay attention to how carefully the ideological essence of Trotskyism was hidden in the USSR of the 50s - 80s. Trotsky's works became available only thanks to the Internet.

[Alexey RA]

Quote: Old electrician

After. The problem with 45 mm shells was that the heat treatment of shells was carried out with a terrible violation of technology. Therefore, when hitting the armor, a large percentage of the shells simply simply split without breaking through it.

In substandard - yes. Moreover, the army team knew about this problem - and formidable orders were issued to confiscate defective shells. But, as it turned out, even in 1940, overheated 45-mm BBS remained in the army.
And the worst thing is that the conditioned shells also had the problem of insufficient penetration. 40 mm of KC armor at an angle of 30 degrees from the normal from only 150 m is a sentence for anti-tankers. Which, according to pre-war instructions, were supposed to hit German tanks from a direct shot in the forehead. And they began to reduce the distance of opening fire only in 1943.

[Alexander Salenko]

After. The problem with 45 mm shells was that the heat treatment of shells was carried out with a terrible violation of technology. Therefore, when hitting the armor, a large percentage of the shells simply simply split without breaking through it. I do not believe that this was caused by the low qualification of the workers. I'll give you an example.

With faith - this is in the church. Let's start with the fact that one woman said this from the series, you heard, then you understood somehow, I'm telling you as a historian and as an eyewitness to the events in Kiev, I immediately heard such interesting stories when I returned to Crimea. Secondly, maybe this is how it is, Grabin recalls his youth, there the hard worker made such cuts that he never saw such masters again. 16 million peasants left for the cities, where do they get their working qualifications? The presence of defective armor-piercing is a fact. But for example, the Germans, with their production culture, at one time massively their submariners chronically used defective torpedoes. If this happened to the Germans, then why speak for us?
Remember the trucks of Colchis, that's what happens when there is no production culture. But they also helped with personnel and engineers too. Even the T-34 was produced from factory to factory of different quality, for example, it was not very quoted at the STZ. In addition, with the war, the quality fell due to conscription.

[Eule]

Quote: Alexander Salenko

Grabin recalls his youth, where the hard worker made such cuts that he never saw such masters again

As far as I remember, Grabin admired the fact that that worker put a small cut on the passage, which made the shavings look like steel wool, and as a result a high-quality trunk was obtained, while other hurried "Stakanovites" set up a larger cut, stuck trunks and spoiled the tool. According to Khudyakov, Grabin wrote a denunciation of the worker who works with a small removal and cuts the trunk twice as long as others. But when they figured out what exactly this worker does not give marriage ...

[skifs]

The reason for the non-penetration of the armor was eliminated by increasing the length of the 45mm caliber barrel, thereby increasing the speed of the projectile. And that's it. The projectile did not break. Armor penetration is related to the armor resistance threshold and is an encounter with fast projectiles.

[Sergej1972]

And there is nothing that you attribute to Trotsky in these works.

[Alexander Salenko]

Well, what targets to hit with an armor-piercing 76-mm projectile? They didn’t develop it, because they didn’t see the targets and for the same reasons the 57-mm ZiS-2 was considered excessively powerful and stopped production. Melnikov in the book "Fire of Regimental Batteries" writes how they fired at tanks with shrapnel, and nothing remarkable, of course, but it turned out to break through and who did it? Bychkov and not the F-22 with its barrel.
This is how would-be experts are read and then spread all sorts of nonsense. The same KV-1, so that you know, was designed as a two-gun, smaller gun, 45 mm and was supposed to be anti-tank. And since the industry was young, it was not always possible to quickly rebuild. Which by the way, despite my attack on the author, he noted.

[Zug]

You reviewed the Zvezda channel about the "wonderful" ZIS-2. It was not produced due to a 50 percent marriage in the production of barrels, as well as the inability to develop a sane shell for it. 3000 thousand barrels were mothballed and atu ... Even in the spring of 42, when The T-4 and T-3 with enhanced armor protection ZIS-2 never appeared. It did not appear in commercial quantities and to Kursk, although the Tigers and the modernized T-4 have long been known. And only with the receipt of high-precision machine tools from the USA according to Lend-Lease finally established its gross production. But this was already in the second half of 43 years

[Cartalon]

There is only one way to fight, to learn and change those who are not trained, but since our boss is always right, moreover, he considers himself always right, I don’t know what to do.

[Ross xnumx]

Quote: Cartalon

but since our boss is always right, moreover ...

... the broad profile of his education inspires doubts, and indecision and confusion - annoyance and bewilderment (to put it mildly) ...

Quote: Cartalon

then I don't know what to do.

[Monster_Fat]

In Soviet times, negligent directors and managers could simply be removed and new ones appointed. And now it won't work. In the constructed kleptocratic state system with a family-clan economy, such a solution to increase efficiency is impossible: at a private enterprise - the main owner and his children and relatives usually sit in management, at state enterprises people who have attracted their entire clan and "trusted" people are also in management. persons" - try their tricks, especially since they manage to create tricky "gaskets" even within enterprises to pump resources and profits to their advantage - these intricacies, both organizational and legal, are not easy to figure out. Cleaning out these "Augean stables" is not so easy, and most importantly, there is no one: a psychotype has already been formed and strengthened in the governing circles, sharpened by "squeezing juice" from the lower link and hard workers, whom they don't even consider to be people, and stuffing their pockets by any means. Of these, you will have to choose, but there are no others and never will be.

[alovrov]

Are you familiar with the word party nomenclature? If not, dig into the topic before writing about the USSR, how they filmed, appointed, put forward.

[Monster_Fat]

Stop dragging this bullshit about the "party nomenklatura" here, where the management of specific enterprises is discussed. Unlike many here, I found work in the management of Soviet enterprises and can judge the shortcomings and advantages of that time. Few people now know, but the primary party organizations at enterprises played a huge role in regulating both the production process and production relations in the team: provided that the party organizer was a principled and honest communist. In those days, the party organization included communists without division into positions: both ordinary workers and leaders, etc., and at party meetings, a simple worker - a communist could stand up and ask uncomfortable questions to the director of a plant or enterprise, and the meeting could endure distrust of the leader, which meant the end of his career. The voice of a simple worker-communist played an important role then, and the most important thing was the dependence of managers on the opinion of the lower echelon. This is not a modern kleptocracy with owners - where the boss appointed by the owner or the owner himself is the king and god for the team, and all the rest, in terms of rights, are nonentities who must meekly follow instructions and "grovel" in the dirt and without rights, somewhere there below...

[Mikhail Krivopalov]

In the movie "Premium" it is perfectly filmed how a team of pests closes up a construction site, and where these future "effective managers" are already beginning to raise their heads and behave like owners, but also with caution. But in the films of the 30s, it is shown how workers can actively control their management.

[Mikhail3]

Quote: Mikhail Krivopalov

shows how workers can actively control their management.

What led to the total collapse of Soviet industry, see my comment below)

[Alexander Salenko]

I advise you to do the same, read, for example, Yakovlev, how he almost had a heart attack when the next batch of Jacobs turned out to be defective. He writes about it in his memoirs. Read the ace of the Korean War Pepelyaev, as he heard the story that the head of some base was removed for saying a toast, he said at the end that we would also drink to Stalin and my wife. Naturally, he was raked in for such a monstrous comparison, though it later turned out that the thief was creepy.

[Mikhail3]

Quote: Alexander Salenko

read, for example, Yakovlev, how he almost had a heart attack when the next batch of Jacobs turned out to be defective

Personally, I read. And Yakovlev, and about Yakovlev, how he consistently, industriously and inventively destroyed specialists around him so that competition would not arise. So yes, the Yaks were defective, and all the time. And the poor thing almost had a heart attack when he thought that now they would finally take him for an aphedron for all the good things. Unfortunately, people like Yakovlev are immortal until they do all possible harm to the cause.

[Alexey RA]

Quote: Monster_Fat

In Soviet times, negligent directors and managers could simply be removed and new ones appointed.

Uh-huh... from a neighboring industry plant. And in his place - failed director. As it was in the pre-war aviation industry.

Quote: Monster_Fat

at state enterprises, there are also persons in control who have attracted their entire clan and "trusted persons" there - try to pick them up

You have just described Soviet industry. With its honored workers, whom it was often impossible to knock off either on the economic or on the party line.
Comrade Saltsman, whose plant for a year and a half before the war handed over tanks to the army that were obviously unusable and forged documents on the implementation of the plan, even survived the visit of the Mehlis Commission (which fully confirmed these facts) without consequences. And he went on promotion - to the post of deputy commissar and people's commissar of the tank industry.

[Alexander Salenko]

Zaltsman also had his merits, but let's remember Tupolev, or Korolev, who allegedly sat down for nothing. It was impossible to overwhelm everyone, there was a shortage of personnel.

[Mikhail Krivopalov]

You do not compare the situation when part of the country is occupied by the enemy, some of the factories are destroyed and some of the factories are evacuated and the production has not yet begun and the initiative is on the side of the enemy. And before the war, factories were created from scratch ... What does this have to do with now? If we compare, then with the "shell hunger" of 1915, when stocks were stupidly over, and there were not many production capacities, besides, brilliant mobilization took highly qualified craftsmen to the front and there was no one to work.

[Jager]

Several qualified engineers left our research institutes for mobilization. This reminds me of something...

[Mikhail3]

Quote from: FoBoss_VM

80 years have passed. And exactly the same problem is now at the front of our troops. Who is guilty ? What to do and how to deal with these?

Radically improve the quality of industrial management. Simply put - to plant thieves and expel from leadership positions mediocre, but boundlessly greedy for power. I do not see how the current leadership could cope with this task. Alas.

[Bingo]

Zhukov noted that the artillery consumes a lot of shells, both through its own fault and the infantry commanders who ordered to fire "to make noise and satisfy far-fetched" requests "from below."

Well, just think, why the hell do we have such a fire control system ... After all, everyone is howling, they say WE have no horizontal opportunity to request from the front line that they immediately get a TOS or the flyers shaved off that house over there - it is necessary that every company commander could call, bypassing headquarters! And it's where the ears grow from.
I fucking know, I can’t even imagine how such issues are resolved, not my level so much that I can’t even imagine. But I know for sure that if I HAVE the opportunity to “probe” that suspicious mound on arrival, I’ll yell without options - feel it ... It’s bad for health to crawl there to find out if there is anyone there

[your1970]

Quote from Bingo

But I know for sure that if I HAVE the opportunity to “probe” that suspicious mound on arrival, I’ll yell without options - feel it ... Crawling there yourself to find out if there is anyone there is bad for health

On the island of Kyska ("Cottage"), the entire landing force had a desire to probe the "suspicious mound" ...
The result is known to all.
There is no easy solution here...
Behind the "suspicious mound" there may be our DRG or our tanks that have broken through - information about which the lower level will certainly not have (at least due to secrecy or the time factor)

[stankow]

In no army in the world, a company commander can just take and call in aviation. Unless he performs an archi-important task, which is assigned once a year. Aviation is not even a resource for a division, but even for an army. Give it to your mouth? Which ? There are hundreds of companies in the army...

[Foul skeptic]

In no army in the world, a company commander can just take and call in aviation. Unless he performs an archi-important task, which is assigned once a year. Aviation is not even a resource for a division, but even for an army. Give it to your mouth? Which one There are hundreds of companies in the army...

The one that requests air support.
The duty group 1 is always kept in the air, at the airfield the duty group 2 is in a state of readiness for departure.
Each platoon has a fighter who has passed the courses of an aircraft controller.
Forgot to write the country. USA,

[your1970]

Quote: Nefarious skeptic

The duty group 1 is always kept in the air, at the airfield the duty group 2 is in a state of readiness for departure.
Each platoon has a fighter who has passed the courses of an aircraft controller.
Forgot to write the country. USA,

You forgot to write the main thing - and with whom WAR from the USA?
Exactly WAR - and not shooters with broads ....
That's when they will wage a war, then we'll see if they have an aircraft controller in their platoons and whether they will be able to extend the resource in a timely manner to "duty groups hanging in the air"

[Foul skeptic]

No, I didn’t forget anything, I wrote everything that I was going to write. But thanks for your concern.

PS Complacency about "post-shooting with broads" in the current realities looks pathetic.

[your1970]

Quote: A vile skeptic

No, I didn’t forget anything, I wrote everything that I was going to write. But thanks for your concern.

PS Complacency about "post-shooting with broads" in the current realities looks pathetic.

Take a calculator and count - a common resource for example F-16 - 8000 hours.
In 300 US troops - and less, as you understand, in nreal war without nuclear weapons the United States will not work in principle - rude 10 000 platoons.
Already at this number10 air controllers - feel free to stop
God bless him - we will cut the number to 1000 aircraft controllers. Let be..
This means that at least 1000 aircraft must be in the air all the time - since you need to fly to the point, complete the task and fly back. Because you can’t build a concrete airfield 30 km from the front line
And this, in turn, means that the resource of the sides will fly out into the pipe at the speed of jet thrust.
And in six months - there will be no boards. And releasing current aircraft is a little more difficult than riveting Airacobras.
And this WITHOUT taking into account the work of the enemy ..
Hanging in the air 1-2 duty aircraft in Syria - easy,
50 is already unlikely
100 is nonsense
1000 aircraft at the same time in the air - America is too poor a country to maintain such an air fleet now (it was already very expensive in WWII).

so I repeat, in Syria or Afghanistan easily, but when

Quote: your1970

It is WAR - and not shooting with broads ....
That's when they will wage a war, then we'll see if they have an aircraft controller in their platoons and whether they will be able to extend the resource in a timely manner to "duty groups hanging in the air"

.
And I am 200% sure that the aircraft controller will immediately go to the level of the regiment - at least

[Foul skeptic]

This means that at least 1000 aircraft must be in the air at all times.

Your competence in the matter is disclosed.

[stankow]

your1970 Couldn't say it better! And even with numbers!
.........................

[Mikhail3]

You forgot to write the main thing - and with whom is the US WAR?!

Are you talking about the Great Patriotic War, which from 41 to 45, at least know something? At least a little? Maybe heard through third parties? Then you would understand a little why the US Army has such orders ....

[antivirus]

An article about the "failure of uncontrollability" of Soviet industry.
And everything is simpler - the teacher is the basis of everything and everyone.
Literacy was such - that's the chemical industry + research institutes + commanders + roads + butter in the package and grease + 100500 more factors.
Is the teacher respected now?

[Richard]

My own grandfather took part in 1943 in the battles in the Donbass in
Barvenkovo-Pavlograd operation as part of the 105th
howitzer artillery brigade of Great Power RGK
(105th Gabr BM RGK), namely in the calculation of the 8 inch "Stalin's sledgehammer" - 203mm howitzer B-4

[Gomunkul]

The article is interesting, but it does not mention the person who solved this problem. I will add, I think many will be interested to know who this person is

At the beginning of the war, "shell hunger" was discovered. It was necessary to increase the production of shells by simplifying production, replacing special steels while maintaining the safety of the shot, and Ilyushin A.A. had to deal with this problem.
In November 1941 he began to investigate the development of deformation approaches in the theory of plasticity. In two months, it was possible to create the foundation of the theory of small deformations and prove that the simplest deformation theory of plasticity is physically reliable for simple loadings. The so-called "method of elastic solutions of specific problems" was created.
Ilyushin A. A. in his scientific research made a turn from the theory of plastic flow to the creation of a theory of small elastic-plastic deformations, more precisely, to a physically reliable theory of plasticity. The new theory gave reliable numerical values ​​of the main parameters of products in strength calculations, which made it possible to significantly simplify the technology for manufacturing artillery shells. In 1942, new methods of calculation, design, production and acceptance technologies became law. They canceled heat treatment, switched to elementary stamping of shells, canceled grinding, etc., which solved the problem of providing the front with shells. These works are summarized in A. A. Ilyushin’s monograph “Plasticity”, which was subsequently translated abroad. In 1943 he was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, in 1947 - a full member of the Academy of Artillery Sciences.

[stankow]

Yeah, they made all the possible mistakes, but of course the USA helped out, where without them!?

[Kostadinov]

At the beginning of the war, there was a shortage of both special types of shells and ammunition in general. This became one of the prerequisites for the heavy losses and defeats of the Red Army in the initial period of the war.

The situation was just the opposite. The fast retreat led to significant losses of ammunition stocks. And the preparations for the supply of ammunition at the beginning of the war were quite enough for a year or more of intense fighting.
Of course, something was always lacking and lacking, and something was too much, but no comparison with the First World War and the chronic lack of ammunition in the Russian army can be beaten.

[Alexander Salenko]

A large ammunition depot that caught the eye of Halder was captured on the 6th day of the war, given that Minsk fell on the 4th. A natural problem was in the first half of 1942, when two German shots were answered with one, and when ready-made artillerymen were put in armored vehicles, in 2013 an article on this topic was published, an interview with a participant in the Battle of Stalingrad.

[Alexey RA]

In the USSR, sub-caliber ammunition was created for aircraft guns, but not for tank and field ones. The problem of creating sub-caliber shells as effective anti-tank ammunition was not dealt with. Insufficient attention was also paid to the development of cumulative munitions. For comparison: in Nazi Germany, such ammunition was created in 1936-1939. using facts that were published in the Soviet press.

Oh ho ho ... insufficient attention to the development of cumulative ammunition - these are three years of work (since 1939) of the Leningrad Chemical-Technological Institute, the Artillery Academy of the Spacecraft, Research Institute No. 6 and the Ostekhbyuro.
The 1942 reference "On the issue of armor-burning shells" has been online since 2011. And there it is written in black and white that it was simply not possible to reproduce the armor-burning projectile according to fragmentary data and the German patent. And the captured 75-mm cumulative German projectile was found among the trophies only on March 31, 1942.

About sub-caliber shells also amused. A document has been posted for a long time, in which the main problem of the USSR with subcalibers is described in black and white. And this is not a theory, not a design - the USSR had all this at the end of 1941. Even captured NII-24 subcalibers received in August 1941.
There was no main thing - tungsten. And all the work on the sub-caliber projectile before receiving tungsten from Chiang Kai-shek regime were reduced to attempts to replace this material with something. Because:

we do not have tungsten reserves and therefore, even if favorable results are obtained, such shells will not have further practical introduction into production

To produce just one core for a 76 mm projectile requires such an amount of alloy that will deprive at the same time 30 aircraft industry machines it will be victorious for the entire service life of these cutters!

But the result was the same every time:

the core must be made from a special alloy, similar to that used by the Germans (about 75% tungsten, 2% cobalt and 4% carbon), otherwise it, being made even from high-carbon tool steel with a vanadium additive, crumbles into tiny pieces when it hits the armor.

© Director of NII-24 Averchenko. Chief Designer of NII-24 Matyushkin

[tralflot1832]

Alexander, you rather harshly assessed the leading and guiding role of the CPSU in the pre-war period. To be honest, I didn’t know about such a mess before the war, in the production of ammunition. It turns out that the factories were divided into the face of communist society and the factories located away from the face. The war came and equalized everyone.

[Alexey RA]

Quote: tralflot1832

To be honest, I didn’t know about such a mess before the war, in the production of ammunition.

Regarding the situation with the release of armor-piercing shells, there is a pre-war letter from Kulik to Voroshilov, revealing the full depth of the gaping heights of our industry and the National Design Bureau:

The order of NGOs for 76-mm armor-piercing shots in 1940 was disrupted by the People’s Commissariat of Ammunition. Of the ordered 150, 000 were completed. The situation with the fulfillment of the order in 28 did not improve.
So far, 100 shell shells manufactured in 000–1939 have not been equipped, and up to 1940% of them require re-sending to mechanical plants to replace ballistic caps due to clogging of the latter at the shell factories.
The equipment of 60 suitable buildings is extremely slow, and in the course of work, a complete lack of attention of the NKB to this shot is revealed.
Ammunition Plant No. 55 lacks a sufficient number of lead rings, and Mechanical Plant No. 73 does not have ballistic caps, and their production has not been established.
At the Pavlograd range there is no equipped shooting range for testing armor-piercing shells, the test is carried out only for the quality of equipment, and all other firing stops, as fragments fly across the entire territory of the range.
The distribution of the order for the manufacture of shells of the NKB was obviously incorrect.
The whole task was given to only one factory No. 73 of Stalino, which, later than all the factories (at the end of 1939), began to manufacture 76-mm armor-piercing shells. Having not mastered the technology of heat treatment, having a high percentage of defective heats that did not pass the tests on armor plates, having not mastered the manufacture of ballistic caps, in April 1940 he completely curtailed the production of these shells.
(...)
At the same time, plants No. 70 - Moscow and No. 77 - Leningrad, which had mastered the technology much better, had a fully equipped fleet of mechanical equipment for the production of 40-000 cases per month - the task for 45 for the manufacture these shells have been removed.

Moreover, this situation with the production of BBS has been dragging on since 1936.

192 BBS caliber 700 mm. Petersburg to Vladivostok. Taking into account those lying in the district and central warehouses.

[Illanatol]

Pre-war mistakes in the field of ammunition production led to the lack of the required amount of productive capacity, the insecurity of their raw material base.

Don't put the cart before the horse, don't confuse cause and effect.
It was not errors in the field of production that led to a shortage of raw materials, but, on the contrary, an objective shortage of raw materials did not allow the development of production at an accelerated pace. In particular, there was not enough copper or zinc ... what are shell cases made of? Where to get brass, for example?

Many deposits of non-ferrous metals have not yet been explored ... geologists simply did not have time, although they tried. But how many geologists we had then. Production capacity? And from what starting conditions did they begin to develop them? In tsarist Russia, this was also not very dense, frankly.

We should not talk about errors in the field of production, given the severe resource and time constraints. It wasn't a mistake at all...
"Who can, let him do better."
So far, no one has been able to better develop the industrial and technological base in such harsh conditions (both internal and external).

[Alexey RA]

Quote: Illanatol

In particular, there was not enough copper or zinc ... what are shell cases made of? Where to get brass, for example?

Duc ... all pre-war proposals to switch to a more powerful shot or to a larger caliber for divisional guns stumbled precisely on the problem of copper.

Sleeve 76mm guns arr. 1902/1930 (as well as subsequent divisions of this caliber) weighed 830-850 grams.
But the anti-aircraft gun sleeve of the 1931 3-K model weighed 2 kg 760 grams already.
Those. 3,1 times more copper.
The 85mm anti-aircraft gun barrel weighed 2,85-2,92kg and was slightly thicker, but in geometric terms it was almost identical to the 1931 3-K gun barrel.

During the war, the transition of tankers to the 85-mm caliber was covered with Lend-Lease copper.
About tungsten and torment with sub-caliber shells, when the designers faced the task make a subcaliber with penetration like a German, but without tungsten, because the USSR does not have it - I already wrote.

Plus, huge problems in the 30s with the introduction of new types of shots into a series. By 85/01.06.1941/416, only 000 pieces of the same 1-mm rounds for anti-aircraft guns were fired. Or XNUMX BC per barrel for available guns (not regular quantity, namely available ones). Or 10% of the need.

[Mikhail3]

Quote: Illanatol

It was not errors in the field of production that led to a shortage of raw materials, but, on the contrary, an objective shortage of raw materials did not allow the development of production at an accelerated pace.

This, to put it mildly, is nonsense) The main reason for the lack of raw materials is by no means a lack of raw materials) Suddenly. Raw materials were flooded. The situation was the following. One of the indicators of production efficiency was calculated from the mass of the processed workpiece. None of the production managers, which is typical, did not object with a word. They simply took a casting weighing 50 kg, and laboriously cut it to a shell body weighing 500 g. Receiving awards and promotions for this. Some even managed to make 100 kg of casting for a part weighing 1 kg. Factories were drowning in shavings.
It was almost impossible to melt the shavings - if you throw it into a cauldron with liquid metal, it does not melt, but burns out. Like firewood. Almost the same thing happens if you fill it with a charge. And grinding chips was extremely difficult and expensive. In general, raw materials were simply destroyed, instead of getting shells and other things from it. These were not mistakes. It was a betrayal of the leadership in selfish interests. An extremely familiar situation...

[stankow]

From 50 kg cast 500 grams of projectile Have you read a lot of Ogonyok in the 80s?

[Mikhail3]

Alas. I didn’t read Ogonyok even in the 90s, I never stooped so low) But what I write is true. Alas. The shells, of course, didn’t do that; military acceptance was already in place then, but everything else was almost entirely the same. And the casting for the projectile body could have weighed ten times less, if not for this wonderful standard...

[Lewww]

Enterprises often produced those products that were financially profitable, which led to the sabotage of government orders.

author, do you confuse the 30s of the last century with the post-perestroika years for an hour?
Can you give examples of which factories of the USSR in the 30s sabotaged the state order?

I looked who the author was and saw that Samsonov.
Well then, another matter - my question is removed

[your1970]

Quote: Lewww

Can you give examples of which factories of the USSR in the 30s sabotaged the state order?

This is in general

Quote: Alexey RA

The order of NGOs for 76-mm armor-piercing shots in 1940 was disrupted by the People’s Commissariat of Ammunition. Of the ordered 150, 000 were completed. The situation with the fulfillment of the order in 28 did not improve.
So far, 100 shell shells manufactured in 000–1939 have not been equipped, and up to 1940% of them require re-sending to mechanical plants to replace ballistic caps due to clogging of the latter at the shell factories.

And this is for a specific plant

Quote: Alexey RA

The whole task was given to only one factory No. 73 of Stalino, which, later than all the factories (at the end of 1939), began to manufacture 76-mm armor-piercing shells. Having not mastered the technology of heat treatment, having a high percentage of defective swimming trunks that did not pass the test on armor plates, having not mastered the manufacture of ballistic caps, in April 1940, completely curtailed the production of these shells.

Quote: Alexey RA

Kulik's pre-war letter to Voroshilov, revealing the full depth of the gaping heights of our industry and NKB:

Not written by Samsonov - wrote Kulik ....

[Lewww]

Kulik wrote...

And in what part of the report does Kulik write that the NPO order was thwarted by enterprises due to the fact that THEY sabotaged and produced products that were financially beneficial to them, neglecting the orders of NGOs?

Do you know how to distinguish soft from warm?

[Alexey RA]

Quote: Lewww

Can you give examples of which factories of the USSR in the 30s sabotaged the state order?

ChTZ - spare parts for KV.

The contract was sent to the plant on January 23.1.41, 17.5.41, but before the release of the Decree on the order plan, the plant refused to sign the contract. The contract was sent for the second time on XNUMX and has not been returned from the factory to date.

STZ - tracks for the T-34.

The plant postpones the delivery of T-34 trucks to the end of the year, citing the lack of capacity.

Plant No. 75 - spare parts for diesel engines.

Plant No. 75 refuses to define monthly and quarterly deliveries in the contract, which makes it completely impossible to plan tank repairs. On the part of the People's Commissariat, no corresponding instructions were given to plant No. 75 ...

"Glavtraktordetal" in general:

The contracts concluded by "Glavtotraktorodetal" as of 1.6.41 were fulfilled only by 0,3% ...

Spare parts for BTT are generally one continuous sabotage. Tank and engine factories were beaten to death, because they are first of all asked for a plan for the main products. And the tractor factories skilfully evade contracts or also score on the plan for spare parts, closing the plan with the supply of no less needed tractors.
And the GABTU can only state with bitterness:

The supply of auto parts from the industry (based on one car) is decreasing from year to year: for tank vehicles it remains almost without an increase, despite the fact that cars are aging and wear out ...
In 1941, factories No. 26, No. 48 and Kirovsky, due to the transition to the production of new products, stopped the production of spare parts for T-28 tanks and M-5 and M-17 engines.
Plants No. 37, 174 and 183 are reducing the production of spare parts for the BT, T-26, T-37-38 tanks and the Komintern tractor.
The situation is especially bad with the supply of NPOs with acute shortage of tank and auto-tractor parts. Parts of the engine group (pistons, connecting rods, piston rings, etc.) and a number of others are not supplied by the industry from year to year

[Lewww]

Spare parts for BTT are generally one continuous sabotage. Tank and engine factories were beaten to death, because they are first of all asked for a plan for the main products.

And where did you get the idea that it was SABOTAGE, that is, the officials of the enterprises actually did not want to fulfill the orders of NPOs because they produced products that were financially beneficial to them?
In what documents is this recorded?

Sabotage it "the deliberate failure by someone to perform certain duties or their deliberately negligent performance with the express purpose of weakening the power of the government and the activities of the state apparatus."

What grounds do you have to conclude that it was sabotage, and not just inability to fulfill NPO orders for objective reasons?
Or are you, as the author of the article, arguing? Like, since the company did not fulfill the NPO order, does it mean 100% sabotage or, in extreme cases, sabotage?
You still justify your conclusion with statistics: they say in the 30s. hundreds of thousands of people were condemned for sabotage, and this convincingly proves that there really was sabotage and sabotage (as well as mass espionage in favor of all the intelligence services of the world)

sometimes people with the ability to think through logic are completely seams

[Lewww]

To the mistakes that the pre-war leadership of the ammunition industry made, were added the mistakes of the military themselves. So, by the beginning of the war, in relation to the real average annual consumption in the war, for artillery ammunition of various positions, more than 100%.

- We, the management of the house, - Shvonder spoke with hatred, - came to you after a general meeting of the residents of our house, at which the question of compacting the apartments of the house was raised ...
- Who stood on whom? shouted Philipp Philippovich, “take the trouble to express your thoughts more clearly.

[Kostadinov]

There was no main thing - tungsten. And all the work on the sub-caliber projectile before receiving tungsten from the Chiang Kai-shek regime was reduced to attempts to replace this material with something.

1. The regime of Chiang Kai-shek was then beaten by an ally of the USSR and Chiang himself named Stalin as his teacher. Tungsten could be obtained before and without lend-lease. But there was no need for sub-caliber ammunition until the advent of German heavy tanks in 1943. 76 mm guns did very well at destroying German tanks.
2. Same for copper for 85mm guns. Until 1943 there was no need to replace 76 with 85 mm guns.
Then they received honey under lend-lease, but if it didn’t hit, they could switch to ferrous metal shells or buy honey from neutral states like Chile, Turkey or the same China. So there is no need to attach some fateful significance to lend-lease.

[Alexey RA]

Quote: Kostadinov

But there was no need for sub-caliber ammunition until the advent of German heavy tanks in 1943.

In 1942, "fours" with an 80 mm forehead already appeared. Plus the first "tigers". Plus, "things" that are extremely difficult to break through from the very beginning.

Quote: Kostadinov

76 mm guns coped very well with the extermination of German tanks.

Yeah ... in the presence of armor-piercing shells. Which were desperately lacking even in 1942.

Due to the current lack of the required number of chamber armor-piercing shells in artillery units, shooting at German tanks from 76,2-mm divisional guns with shells of other types is common.

© From the report “Defeat of the armor of German tanks”. July 1942 NII-48.
Moreover, even the presence of the BBS did not guarantee anything. Because the BR-350A with its "fungus" was structurally prone to destruction on the armor without penetration.

Quote: Kostadinov

The same goes for copper for 85mm guns. Until 1943 there was no need to replace 76 with 85 mm guns.

Seriously? The question of the insufficiency of the 76-mm caliber for divisional guns has been raised since the second half of the 30s. And in tank armament, this caliber was considered from the end of the 30s. And work on 85-mm guns continued in 1941-1942 despite the war.

[Alexey RA]

Quote: Kostadinov

Then they received honey under lend-lease, but if it didn’t hit, they could switch to ferrous metal shells or buy honey from neutral states like Chile, Turkey or the same China. So there is no need to attach some fateful significance to lend-lease.

Oh-ho-ho ... you can buy all this. In theory. If all this has not already been bought out by other countries or export restrictions have not been introduced.
The problem is that everything purchased must be delivered. And in the case of copper - in fairly significant volumes and regularly. And in our yard we have a World War, in which even neutrals are drowned by both sides under a hot hand - just remember the same TR "Angarstroy" and "Kola", sunk by American submarines. Yes, and the transport capacity of the USSR has declined sharply - some of the ships are locked in inland seas, and the rest are plowing with all their might, but they are desperately lacking. The northern route is provided almost entirely by Allied ships guarded by Allied ships. Southern route - 100%. The Far East, for which almost the entire ocean merchant fleet of the USSR was assembled, draws no more than 1/3 of the deliveries on its own and is waiting for Lend-Lease transport.

The main advantage of lend-lease is that the supplier himself organized the delivery of goods and guarded them himself. On the southern route, the supplier had to build a transport infrastructure almost from scratch across the whole of Iran - from south to north.

[Alexander Salenko]

As I understand it, there is a hidden message: if it were not for Lend-Lease, but let's see when its deliveries went in bulk? And about shell hunger, a small example, Sevastopol, 1942, rare 155-mm howitzers, so Mekhlis found shells for them, and if it were not for Petrov’s initiatives to improve positions, then significant stocks of them would have remained for the assault. Such that they shot a lot and stupidly, of course, it was even in 1943, when the same Petrov was demoted by two ranks. And, returning to Sevastopol, I don’t remember that until the summer of 1942 the garrison had a shortage of ammunition, or did the Americans help?
As for the shortage of shells for 76-mm guns. I don’t know the numbers, but I know for sure that the Germans put the F-22 USV divisional gun on their self-propelled guns, they probably had an impressive trophy supply of ammunition before taking such actions as creating a self-propelled gun and putting it into service. And it’s interesting with gunpowder, I’m not a chemist, but it was we who actively used rocket artillery in large quantities, the Germans have a slightly different use.
Somehow, the author, from the fact that I know something, somewhere with the text there is a discrepancy. Maybe our gunpowder was worse than American? Well, this is exactly what needs to be said.

[Lewww]

Samsonov, starting from the consequences, incorrectly identified their main causes.
The problem was that the Red Army before the war was a multi-million mass of yesterday's illiterate collective farmers, many of whom did not even know the Russian language.

And this mass was led by hastily prepared semi-literate commanders. The higher command staff of the Red Army understood this very well, therefore, attempts were made to compensate for the weakness of the army with an excess of various types of weapons, almost with a triple supply.

To put it simply, the activists from NPOs had hypertrophied Wishlist, and the industry simply did not have time to fully satisfy all their fantasies. And the production of products was disrupted not because the directors of enterprises were engaged in sabotage, but because they could not fulfill the order for objective reasons, including due to a lack of industrial equipment, raw materials, engineering staff (planted in 36-38 camps) and qualified workers.

And the outbreak of the war clearly showed the utopianism of the views of the General Staff such as "yes, we will crush them with tanks and planes." Hundreds of thousands of weapons were lost in the first months of the war without even having time to reach the front line. Yes, and those that arrived were often used ineptly, because they were in the hands of people poorly trained in military affairs.
This is what it was necessary to start the article with, since the author decided to temporarily move away from the copy-paste method and try himself as a military analyst

[Konnick]

The Red Army before the war was a multi-million mass of yesterday's illiterate collective farmers

By 1939, 90% of people between the ages of 15 and 50 were literate. The conscripts before the war were all literate.

And this mass was led by hastily prepared semi-literate commanders.

My grandfather had a seven-year education, he did military service, in the 42nd being a foreman, he commanded a detachment of the 46th motorcycle regiment. Almost all departments in this regiment were commanded by foremen.
And the collective farmers before the war were already literate.
Today is the anniversary of Stanislav Lyubshin, he talked about his childhood in the village, there was even amateur performances and his mother, a milkmaid, participated in the production of Ostrovsky's play "Thunderstorm". And my uncle told me how they staged performances in the village.
Here is a collective farm family from my grandfather's village, information must be obtained from their sources, and not from the Ogonyok magazine and others ..

[Alexey RA]

Quote: Konnick

By 1939, 90% of people between the ages of 15 and 50 were literate. The conscripts before the war were all literate.

Competent ... in the volume of three classes of the school. And that's not all.
Take my favorite BTV. For example, the 4th MK is the old one, the first wave.
Information on the personnel of the 4th mechanized corps by education:

Here we should pay attention to two points. Firstly, most of the personnel of tank divisions - the "technical" type of troops - do not even have an incomplete secondary education, falling into the group "3-6 classes", and the total number of holders of higher and secondary education is very noticeably lower than the total number of command personnel. That is, among the command staff, there are quite enough of those who have behind their backs, at best, 7-9 classes, or even 3-6. Secondly, in the "old" (formation in the summer of 1940) 8th Panzer Division, the number of semi-literate and illiterate people is quite comparable with the number of those with a complete secondary education.

© Ulanov, Shein. The first T-34s. Combat use.
But maybe this is just a special case, and it was better in other connections? Well, here is a cross-section of the BTV of the whole district - the border KOVO.

A quarter of the command staff and 40% of the junior command staff have 1-3 grades of education.

... junior command personnel with a predominant primary education, in the absence of teaching aids, must train an equally "educated" rank and file. The depth and quality of such training is not difficult to predict.

Let me remind you - this is BTV. Elite of the ground forces. Specially selected (including from the infantry ) frames. What was going on in the rifle formations then ...

[Lewww]

By 1939, 90% of people between the ages of 15 and 50 were literate. The conscripts before the war were all literate.

Colleague, you live in a world of illusions.

In 1984, I was called up to the SA and taken to Belarus to study at the Strategic Missile Forces. About 20 Azerbaijanis went to serve with me on the train to the same training camp, of which 5 people spoke Russian fluently. The rest communicated with them.

Let me remind you: it was the USSR in the mid-80s.
And now we are discussing the state of the Red Army in the early 40s, when the army was recruited from the outskirts, including from the Far East or from the same Western Ukraine. And I personally saw the documents of those years, where the inspectors of the formed military units noted the ignorance of the language by the Red Army rifle regiments, which necessitated control through translators.
Therefore, there is no need to draw naive conclusions like "here my grandfather was literate, and this convincingly proves that 100% of the Red Army soldiers were also literate and understood the Russian language."

The mechanized corps you brought is generally an elite - they took the most literate people there (as in the Air Force and artillery).
And the most illiterate and weak fell into the infantry

[Konnick]

And the outbreak of the war clearly showed the utopianism of the views of the General Staff such as "yes, we will crush them with tanks and planes."

Yes, there were such types of General Pavlov, not in vain shot. Tanks wanted to crush another "genius", Tukhachevsky. Stalin, on the other hand, paid more attention to aviation, recalling the war with the White Poles, when Polish aviation on the latest French aircraft literally tormented the First Cavalry near Lvov.

It became clear to Stalin that the General Staff allowed a biased assessment of both its own troops and a potential enemy. D. G. Pavlov was also biased when, at a meeting on December 28, 1940, he argued that we have the right and obligation to entrust the tank corps with the task of destroying one or two tank or four or five enemy infantry divisions. At the same meeting, on January 13, 1941, the speech of the commander of the Belarusian Special Military District Pavlov, who began with an assessment of the meeting and the games held, was stopped by Stalin, who asked: "What are the reasons for the unsuccessful actions of the troops led by you?" D. G. Pavlov tried to get away with a joke, saying that this happens in military games. The Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party did not like this joke, and he remarked:

"The commander of the district troops must master the art of war, be able to find the right decisions in any conditions, which you did not succeed in the game."

[Lewww]

Yes, there were such types of General Pavlov, not in vain shot. Tanks wanted to crush another "genius", Tukhachevsky.

Not alone, they forgot to mention Zhukov

[Illanatol]

Quote: Lewww

The problem was that the Red Army before the war was a multi-million mass of yesterday's illiterate collective farmers, many of whom did not even know the Russian language.

And this mass was led by hastily prepared semi-literate commanders. The higher command staff of the Red Army understood this very well, therefore, attempts were made to compensate for the weakness of the army with an excess of various types of weapons, almost with a triple supply.

To put it simply, the activists from NPOs had hypertrophied Wishlist, and the industry simply did not have time to fully satisfy all their fantasies. And the production of products was disrupted not because the directors of enterprises were engaged in sabotage, but because they could not fulfill the order for objective reasons, including due to a lack of industrial equipment, raw materials, engineering staff (planted in 36-38 camps) and qualified workers.

And the outbreak of the war clearly showed the utopianism of the views of the General Staff such as "yes, we will crush them with tanks and planes." Hundreds of thousands of weapons were lost in the first months of the war without even having time to reach the front line. Yes, and those that arrived were often used ineptly, because they were in the hands of people poorly trained in military affairs.

It must be assumed that the armies of our opponents consisted of soldiers with a higher technical education.
Compared to the army of tsarist Russia, Soviet soldiers were much more literate and educated. "Hay-straw" was no longer required.

The level of training of the command staff was at a satisfactory level, although the rapid growth in the number of the Red Army after the adoption of the law on universal military duty could not but leave a negative imprint. It is not difficult to increase the number of private l / s, but the full training of even junior commanders takes years.

The density of saturation (by state) of the Red Army with armored vehicles and aircraft was exceptionally high, but this was necessary to compensate for the possible numerical superiority of the enemy in manpower in the coming war. It was considered quite probable that a coalition of imperialist powers would oppose the USSR (this, in general, happened).

It was not a matter of poor education. The army was not mobilized and staffed according to the states of wartime. Tanks and planes did not always have trained crews, on the contrary, in some parts of the BT there was a shortage due to ongoing rearmament.

It should be noted that the French, on the whole not inferior to the Wehrmacht in terms of the main types of weapons and having a mobilized army, also did not show much talent in 1940. Although no one repressed their generals and officers and they did not have to create their own “defense industry” literally from scratch, like the USSR.

[Alexey RA]

Quote: Illanatol

It must be assumed that the armies of our opponents consisted of soldiers with a higher technical education.

Our main adversary simply understood earlier that education is the key to military victories.

When the First World War and general mobilization began, it turned out that in Russia 61% of conscripts were illiterate, while in Germany - 0,04%

Therefore, he did not have to tear his veins, trying to stretch an illiterate country in a limited time to a modern level of education. The Reich did not need educational program.

Quote: Illanatol

The level of training of command personnel was at a satisfactory level

Yeah... in pivot tables. And if you go down a level, then suddenly it turned out that:

First of all, this table demonstrates an acute problem at the “grassroots” level of management - more than half of the platoon commanders in the tank troops graduated from “other educational institutions”, in this case, “courses for junior lieutenants and their equals” (1591 people out of 1642), that is did not receive a full course of special military education; however, it was these people who had to directly organize the process of combat training in units, manage this process and control the depth and quality of training.

Further, comparing the lines “Company commanders” and “Platoon commanders” with each other allows us to notice the hidden, still “dormant” on January 1, 1941, the problem of army growth: the lines from the level of company commanders up the hierarchy demonstrate a normal personnel structure - at first, graduates predominate among the commanders military schools, then, as the position grows, the proportion of graduates of advanced training courses for command personnel increases, then, if necessary, positions are occupied by graduates of military academies (the table shows that even among company commanders there were two graduates of military academies: one graduate of the academy of mechanization and motorization and one graduate of the artillery academy). However, a graduate of junior lieutenant courses will not be sent to a military school as he advances in positions - it is believed that junior lieutenant courses have already provided him with the minimum necessary amount of knowledge and skills. Respectively, in the course of career growth, graduates of the "courses of junior lieutenants and their equals", without receiving additional education, have a chance to become company commanders... And such an opportunity presented itself in the spring of 1941 during the formation of the "spring" wave of mechanized corps.

© Ulanov, Shein. The first T-34s. Combat use.

[Lewww]

It must be assumed that the armies of our opponents consisted of soldiers with a higher technical education.
Compared to the army of tsarist Russia, Soviet soldiers were much more literate and educated.

You still compare the soldiers of the Red Army with the soldiers of Peter the Great

I won’t say about all the armies, but for example, a soldier of the German army before getting to the front studied for 9 weeks, where the infantrymen were taught to handle all the small arms of the Wehrmacht and the Red Army, and were also taught to drive a truck.
Upon arrival at the front, they were sometimes taught for another month and even taught to drive light tanks.
Their level of training is incomparable with the level of the Red Army shooter, who did not even know how to cope with a self-loading rifle.
Including incomparable in terms of the level of their basic school education - heaven and earth.
The Red Army soldiers of the Red Army were utterly superior to the Germans in only one thing: the ability to courageously endure the hardships of war (dirt, hunger, cold, lice, and other delights). Yesterday's collective farmers were much rougher than the civilized Europeans, so the hardships of the war were much easier to endure and their psyche was stronger.
That's probably why they won in the end.

[Illanatol]

Quote: Kostadinov

1. The regime of Chiang Kai-shek was then beaten by an ally of the USSR and Chiang himself named Stalin as his teacher. Tungsten could be obtained before and without lend-lease. But there was no need for sub-caliber ammunition until the advent of German heavy tanks in 1943. 76 mm guns did very well at destroying German tanks.

There was such a need, the Germans did not stand still and modernized their armored vehicles.
The 76 mm cannon could continue to do a good job if it could be lengthened (increasing the muzzle velocity) and provided with adequate sub-caliber shells in abundance.
Tungsten was very expensive and difficult to process. Perhaps he would have found an alternative, but this should have been taken care of earlier.

[Alexey RA]

Quote: Illanatol

The 76 mm cannon could continue to do a good job if it could be lengthened (increasing the muzzle velocity) and provided with adequate sub-caliber shells in abundance.

And get an 85-mm cannon as a result - like in anti-aircraft artillery.
It makes no sense to lengthen the barrel without amplifying the shot - the gain in armor penetration will be 5-7 mm. For the old charge is already optimized for the ballistics of a short barrel.
So - you need to increase the charge. At the same time, remembering that the industry will develop a fundamentally new shot for a long time and hard. That is, it is better to take an existing shot - for example, from anti-aircraft guns.
Great, we increased the initial speed of the BBS. But in the same way, the initial speed of OS and OFS increased. And this requires increasing the strength of the projectile body - either by thickening the walls, or by using high-quality steels. Guess which way the USSR will go with its steel cast iron?
And you can’t refuse OS / OFS - for anti-tankers, their consumption is comparable to BBS. Especially among ours, whom their own infantry regularly leaves with the enemy one on one, and who are also regularly involved in artillery preparation. This means that it is necessary to somehow preserve the power of the OS with thicker projectile walls. There is only one way out - we increase the caliber. What do we have there more than 76 mm? Yes, it is he - an 85-mm projectile and 52-K ballistics.
So we went the same way as the tankers in 41-43. They also needed to increase armor penetration while maintaining the power of the OS / OFS. That is why the 76 mm S-54 lost to the 85 mm D-5 and S-53.

[Negro]

Quote: Alexey RA

And get an 85-mm cannon as a result - like in anti-aircraft artillery

Pak 36(r) listens to you attentively.

In general, you don’t need to take an old 3 "anti-aircraft gun and shoot tanks with it - the Americans will confirm it. Another thing is that this is not a cheap pleasure.

However, the specialized 3" PT, 17 lbs. had an even larger cartridge case than the anti-aircraft guns.

[Alexey RA]

Quote: Negro

Pak 36(r) listens to you attentively.

But hearing the words BR-350A or SP и steel cast ironwalks away disappointed. For its performance characteristics come with 7,62 cm PzGr 39 and steel OFS.

The funny thing is that the USSR had a 75 mm cannon that could penetrate 117 mm of armor (normally) at a distance of 915 meters. She was still with the Empire.

[Negro]

Quote: Alexey RA

But, having heard the words BR-350A or SP and steel cast iron, he leaves in disappointment.

Samurai offered pole mines.

Quote: Alexey RA

She was still with the Empire.

Kane, right? Well, to the naval ballistics of the USSR, and finally came.

[Kostadinov]

In 1942, "fours" with an 80 mm forehead already appeared. Plus the first "tigers". Plus, "things" that are extremely difficult to break through from the very beginning.

The first tigers were several vehicles in 1942 or no more than two or three dozen in January 1943. On the Eastern Front, they were used in noticeable quantities (2-3 hundreds) only on the Kursk Bulge in July 1943. Field artillery and infantry will be enough for such a number.
About other tanks and self-propelled guns with an 80 mm forehead, all the more, nothing special is needed. Only a thick forehead slightly improves the position only against 45 mm pt guns, but no more. The enemy quickly focuses on other projections. For field artillery and infantry there is no change.

Yeah ... in the presence of armor-piercing shells. Which were desperately lacking even in 1942.

From the report "The defeat of the armor of German tanks." July 1942 NII-48.
Moreover, even the presence of the BBS did not guarantee anything. Because the BR-350A with its "fungus" was structurally prone to destruction on the armor without penetration.

Read well that very report from 1942. 76 mm HE broke through all other projections, except for the frontal, of the best German tanks in 1941, and 76 mm shrapnel broke through the frontal projections.

[Alexey RA]

Quote: Kostadinov

The first tigers are several cars in 1942 or no more than two or three dozen

That is, the enemy is conducting military tests of new equipment. And in the near future it may appear in linear parts. Fortunately, the possibilities of the industry of the Reich were highly appreciated by us.
And on the other hand, we knew very well how long it takes to put a new projectile into a series. And there were no illusions about this either. The only way out is to work for the future.

Quote: Kostadinov

About other tanks and self-propelled guns with an 80 mm forehead, all the more, nothing special is needed.

So there is nothing.
The BR-350A is too complicated to manufacture, it is pricked on the armor and is available in extremely small quantities in the troops. There is BR-350SP - solid, which does not prick. But they are also few. So an additional BBS with high armor penetration, which is also produced in parallel with the chambers, was urgently needed by the Red Army.
One more thing. Don't trust armor penetration tables. For the most part, they are solid Jacob de Mar - an ideal projectile against armor of incomprehensible hardness.

Quote: Kostadinov

Read well that very report from 1942. 76 mm HE broke through all other projections, except for the frontal, of the best German tanks in 1941

Have you read this report carefully? What are the OFS and OS hulls made of, which work well on armor, remember?

2. High-explosive fragmentation steel grenade.
5. High explosive steel grenade

So, these are peacetime shells. During the war, steel cast iron went to the OFS and OS hulls.
And it is also in the report:

6. Frag Grenade cast iron can only be used when firing at the tank turret "for blinding".

Quote: Kostadinov

and 76 mm shrapnel broke through and frontal projection

You didn't read the report carefully.

3. Shrapnel is still one of the main armor-piercing projectiles, since at a firing distance up to 300 meters is capable of penetrating up to 35 mm of armor, which allows it to be successfully used against light tanks, and at close range (up to 200 m) and against the side armor of medium tanks.

35 mm at 300 m is less than the forehead of the "three" and "four" after the French campaign. For all STs after it were screened. And the new ones got a 50 mm forehead.

[Kostadinov]

There was such a need, the Germans did not stand still and modernized their armored vehicles.
The 76 mm cannon could continue to do a good job if it could be lengthened (increasing the muzzle velocity) and provided with adequate sub-caliber shells in abundance.

We found another and cheaper solution than using tungsten. On each modernization and improvement, the protection of German tanks found the most effective answer.
Improving armor-piercing shells, improving the ballistics of the 45 mm gun, resuming the production of 57 mm guns, HEAT shells, 100 mm field and tank guns, and so on, you don’t have to list everything.

[Illanatol]

Quote: Kostadinov

We found another and cheaper solution than using tungsten. On each modernization and improvement, the protection of German tanks found the most effective answer.
Improving armor-piercing shells, improving the ballistics of the 45 mm gun, resuming the production of 57 mm guns, HEAT shells, 100 mm field and tank guns, and so on, you don’t have to list everything.

Unfortunately, the statistics of the losses of Soviet armored vehicles in the Battle of Kursk show that not everything went so smoothly.
And it was not necessary to quickly look for answers, but to work ahead of the curve. T-34, let me remind you, we received thanks, in many respects, to the personal initiative of Koshkin. If the design of this tank had been developed under more optimal conditions, then the tank could have become more advanced even before the war: acquire a torsion bar suspension, more rational transverse engine placement, better centering and upgrade options (increased frontal armor and a longer gun), which would increase fighting qualities.

45 mm cannon and 57 mm - anti-tank weapons, we are still talking about tanks. Cumulative shells appeared with us much later than the Germans, alas. Although in the initial period of the war we needed them more.

[Illanatol]

Quote: Alexey RA

Our main adversary simply understood earlier that education is the key to military victories.

Is this also Stalin's fault? Or maybe forward the reproaches to the Romanovs?

Quote: Alexey RA

Yeah... in pivot tables. And if you go down a level, then suddenly it turned out that:

Well? Did each commander or battalion commander have to graduate from the Academy of the General Staff?

And among the Poles and French - did all the officers and non-commissioned officers of the "academies" finish or what?
Did it help them or not?

I have to disappoint you: there is no clear correlation between the amount of knowledge gained and the abilities of a military leader. Especially if the knowledge is outdated and not very correct, taking into account changes in the nature of the database.

Sometimes learning from scratch is easier than relearning. Look how eminent French generals flashed in 1940, trying to rely on their experience in the battles of the First World War ...

[Alexey RA]

Quote: Illanatol

Is this also Stalin's fault? Or maybe forward the reproaches to the Romanovs?

And I don't blame anyone. I only show that the low level of education of conscripts and commanders of the Red Army is not an evil slander, but a reality given to us in the sensations of documents.
It was not in vain that I mentioned the commanders - 90% of the cadets of the early 30s had only a primary education or did not have it at all. But this is the future middle commander of the late 30s.

Quote: Illanatol

Well? Did each commander or battalion commander have to graduate from the Academy of the General Staff?

So in the Red Army, after the explosive growth of 1939-1940. a former platoon commander, who became a commander, might not have had any special education at all, except for junior lieutenant courses. Do you think this is normal?

[Negro]

Quote: Illanatol

Or maybe forward the reproaches to the Romanovs?

Gustav Karlovich Mannerheim answers the question.

[Lewww]

Quote: Illanatol

Quote: Alexey RA
Our main adversary simply understood earlier that education is the key to military victories.


Is this also Stalin's fault? Or maybe forward the reproaches to the Romanovs?

In tsarist Russia, with a military education, the situation was just not bad.
From the 10s of the 20th century, the cadet schools switched to a three-year training, and mostly young men from the cadet corps, who had a good basic education and initial military training, got there.
So the junior officers were prepared quite well, and it’s not even worth talking about those who graduated from the “tsarist” Academy of the General Staff.
Ordinary soldiers were illiterate, but they did not need special literacy to wage wars of those years.
But many were able to read and write, as can be seen from the example of a non-commissioned officer Zhora Zhukov who came from a peasant environment.

[Viktor Sergeev]

Shell hunger was especially strongly felt just in 1942-1943, precisely because of the impossibility of making gunpowder, we were forced to stamp a bunch of Katyushas to replace the guns. Only in 1943, they began to supply us with imported components, plus gunpowder itself, which made it possible to provide the army with shells, but ... Germany produced 2 times more gunpowder than the USSR throughout the war, and they fought with constant shell hunger.

[Bogalex]

In fact, it directly follows from the article that there was not a trace of any "shell hunger" in the Red Army.
The author himself writes that there were so many shells that the commanders did not take into account their consumption rates at all, and in the presence of a 100% excess of accumulated stocks, even the loss of 20-25% of them by the troops of the Western and Southwestern fronts did not radically change the situation.
Limits on the expenditure of ammunition, as again directly follows from the text of the article, were introduced primarily not because of their shortage, but in order to increase the rationality of the organization of fire damage and increase its effectiveness. An understandable desire, especially if we recall such concepts as barrel wear and excessive expenditure of motor resources of supply units to replenish ammunition stocks.
In general, it seemed to me that the topic was poorly disclosed by the author.

[Illanatol]

Quote: Lewww

In tsarist Russia, with a military education, the situation was just not bad.
From the 10s of the 20th century, the cadet schools switched to a three-year training, and mostly young men from the cadet corps, who had a good basic education and initial military training, got there.
So the junior officers were prepared quite well, and it’s not even worth talking about those who graduated from the “tsarist” Academy of the General Staff.
Ordinary soldiers were illiterate, but they did not need special literacy to wage wars of those years.
But many were able to read and write, as can be seen from the example of a non-commissioned officer Zhora Zhukov who came from a peasant environment.

So bad. The quality level was not bad, but quantity also matters. In peacetime, specialized educational institutions, at the very least, provided the army, but after the start of WWI and the mobilization of the problems, there were many problems. The quality of the staff has plummeted.
For the conduct of those wars, the literacy of an ordinary l / s was ALREADY needed. This was fully shown by the experience of the Russo-Japanese war. The Japanese had superiority, among other things, because their rank and file were literate without exception. In the navy, this was especially important.

Did you drink beer with Zhukov to call him "Zhora"? Or do you think that this decorates your person?

[Alexey RA]

Quote: Illanatol

So bad. The quality level was not bad, but quantity also matters. In peacetime, specialized educational institutions, at the very least, provided the army, but after the start of WWI and the mobilization of the problems, there were many problems.

If we take Bloodless, then a lot of problems - It's still put it mildly.
Before WWI, cadet corps produced 1200-1500 graduates a year. Junker schools - about 1000 people a year.
Military schools - 2000-2800 officers per year.

After the start of the war, the needs of the army grew on order.
Wartime ensign schools (three-month) - 30000 (thirty thousand!) People in 1915 and 50000 (fifty thousand) in 1916
Wartime military schools - 19000 in 1915 and 35000 in 1916.
Accordingly, the quality dropped sharply - reduced terms, accelerated releases, etc.

Plus, the class composition of the officers has changed dramatically. The beginning, however, was laid by the RYAV. Before her, the officer corps was almost completely white bone - the children of nobles and officials:

in 1902, in all schools, except Moscow and Kiev, children of the nobility - 57,81%, officers and officials - 38,83, clergy - 0,20, Cossacks - 2,97 and foreign nationals - 0,59%. In the Moscow and Kiev schools, nobles - 25,91%, officers and officials - 21,30, clergy - 3,11%, etc.

After the RYAV, due to a shortage of officers, the schools were divided into two groups, and for the second, indulgences were introduced in terms of social composition.

In the first group of schools in 1906, there were children of nobles, officers and officials - 95,39%, clergy - 0,53, Cossacks - 1,51, other classes - 1,78 and foreigners - 0,79.
In the second group of schools, children of nobles and officials - 59,81, clergy - 2,10, Cossacks - 5,61, other classes - 32,24 (of which merchants and honorary citizens - 13,78, philistines - 12,27 and peasants - 6,19) and foreigners 0,24.
The officer corps ceased to be noble in its composition. But this process was slow and difficult. The nobles' resistance to the democratization of the officer corps cost dearly during the World War. Already at the beginning of the war, the active army found itself without trained company commanders. I had to urgently switch to short-term courses (from 3 to 6 months). Since 1914, any class restrictions on admission to wartime schools have been abolished. Accelerated issues in 1914 exceeded normal by more than 3 times, in 1915 - 9 times, in 1916 - 12 times.

And yes, the discrepancy between the number of officers being trained and the needs of the warring army was discovered back in 1905.

[Illanatol]

Quote: Alexey RA

I only show that the low level of education of conscripts and commanders of the Red Army is not an evil slander, but a reality given to us in the sensations of documents.
It was not in vain that I mentioned the commanders - 90% of the cadets of the early 30s had only a primary education or did not have it at all. But this is the future middle commander of the late 30s.

Cadets are students. In the process of learning, they eliminated the gaps in their education.
Or were there no general education curricula in military schools?
In general, this problem was not so unique and inherent only in the USSR.
Explosive growth was experienced by all the armies of the great powers of that time, which could not but have negative consequences, albeit to varying degrees.

"Shaft" almost always leads to some decrease in the quality level.

[Alexey RA]

Quote: Illanatol

Cadets are students. In the process of learning, they eliminated the gaps in their education.
Or were there no general education curricula in military schools?

There is no general education curricula were needed, and a full course of four years of school - for the paint committees to reach at least secondary education. And even more, taking into account the illiterate.

in 1929, 81,6 per cent (and in the infantry schools 90,8 per cent) of the army enrolled in military schools had only a primary education or none at all! In January 1932, 79,1 percent of the cadets of military schools had primary education, in January 1936 - 68,5 percent (but in armored ones - 85 percent)

on February 15, 1936, in the 24th division, 68,6 percent of the middle commanders, that is, lieutenants and senior lieutenants (they basically commanded platoons and companies), and in the 96th - 71 percent did not have a secondary education. Among senior commanders (including captains, who made up the bulk of battalion commanders), there were 64,6 and 59 percent, respectively.
As for military education, 37 percent of the middle command personnel of the 24th KVO division and 39 percent of the 96th did not finish military school!

© Andrey Smirnov. Big maneuvers.

Quote: Illanatol

In general, this problem was not so unique and inherent only in the USSR.

How was it in the Reich with the general educational level of future officers?

Quote: Illanatol

Explosive growth was experienced by all the armies of the great powers of that time, which could not but have negative consequences, albeit to varying degrees.
"Shaft" almost always leads to some decrease in the quality level.

Explosive growth has nothing to do with this problem. The low level of education of conscripts and commanders of the Red Army was noted even before the reforms of the late 30s began - in the blessed years of the "Great Maneuvers", when the entire personnel of the Red Army consisted of 25-30 rifle divisions.

[Mikhail3]

1. Direct shell hunger for 41 years.
It happened due to the fact that "some warehouses", from 70 to 80% of the TOTAL shell stock were captured by the Germans. This happened due to the fact that the USSR produced and had a very small number of trucks relative to the needs of the war. Fuel for these trucks was also completely insufficient.
Under these conditions, the rear services could afford a supply arm slightly exceeding 100 km. Otherwise, the troops began to experience this same shell hunger already on the first day of the fighting. The quartermasters asked the generals how they see the fighting. The brave generals, for some reason constantly looking back at the commissars and officers of the NKVD, bravely answered - we will stand for two days, and then with a mighty blow we will drive the enemy to the west! Appointed!
The quartermasters located warehouses even closer than 100 km from the border, and without having the physical ability to quickly take them out, and filled these warehouses with a colossal amount of shells and other ammunition. All this good immediately went to the Germans. In addition, the Germans also got thousands of artillery pieces and armored vehicles, since there was nothing to take out all this, and the USSR’s own tank life was ridiculous - 35 hours of engine life for the T 34.
2. Grief with personnel.
There were two main reasons for this situation. Firstly, the USSR turned out to be a hostage to the ideas of the PROLETARIAN revolution. Any lazy proletarian with a tinned throat could easily "out-argue" a miserable representative of the "stratum", in the person of some kind of engineer or an egg-headed scientist. There was simply no discipline in Soviet factories. Rallies and political work can motivate ideological workers. Alas, as you know, only 5-10% of any social movement is ideological. the rest should be encouraged and forced to do quality work. the USSR has not coped with this throughout the history of its existence.
The second problem, harmoniously following from the first, was the so-called. "specialism". Most of the management of the industry was the so-called. "promoters". Dexterous and cunning little people who crawled into the leadership of luck and timely committed meanness (how familiar, right?)). Since Stalin and his allies unfairly cared about saturating industry with qualified personnel, the nominees sensed their imminent transformation from "captains of production" into pensioners and drivers of mares, in line with their real educational level.
So the mass destruction of young engineers and scientists began in a clear pattern. The nominee incites the noisy and lazy flyer to roll up a denunciation of the engineer, who demands quality and output. Then this denunciation is passed on to an NKVD worker who has no idea about the problems of production, but needs an increase in the gross search rates for enemies, due to which the plant drives up to 90% of the rejects (the usual situation in the factories of the USSR before the war). Often an NKVD officer is a relative of the nominee or his good friend (usually associated with the nominee with criminal interest).
Tens of thousands of young engineers could not help the USSR in industry, as they felled timber in the camps. We managed to cope with this problem ... by the end of 41 years, not earlier.

Well, etc. So so article

[Alexey RA]

Quote: Mikhail3

The quartermasters located warehouses even closer than 100 km from the border, and without having the physical ability to quickly take them out, and filled these warehouses with a colossal amount of shells and other ammunition. All this good immediately went to the Germans.

Oh, ho, ho ... the distribution of warehouses along the borders has been in the network for 15 years.

The first line of warehouses, remote 50-75 km from the state border, were advanced warehouses, usually low-capacity (4th category). On the second line, 300-400 km away from the state border, there were warehouses of the 3rd and partially of the 2nd category, and on the third (rear) line - the most powerful warehouses (of the 1st and 2nd categories). The total depth of separation of warehouses reached 500-600 km.

For example, the warehouse of the first category ZOVO was located in Zakopytya - near Gomel, in the deep rear of the district, right on the border with the RSFSR.
And the supply of trucks is warehouses of the 4th and, in part, the 3rd category. The rest of the main transport was railway.
Moreover:

Of the total number of district warehouses, 10 were built in the pre-Soviet period, 20 were organized in 1941 in the Baltic republics, Western Belarus and Ukraine on the basis of military warehouses already existing there, 13 were equipped in the open air, and the remaining 68 warehouses were created during the Soviet era in mainly in 1930-1940

That is, most of the warehouses were located beyond the line of the old border - because the USSR could not build warehouses in Poland in the 30s.
One more thing:

In the military districts, by the beginning of the war, there were 111 stationary artillery bases and warehouses, including 3 bases and 5 armament and ammunition depots and 92 ammunition depots, which stored mob reserves and stocks of the current allowances of the districts. Total 50% of all resources of the Red Army accumulated by the beginning of 1941 were stored in the district ammunition depots. (43,6 million shells and mines).

© "Artillery Supply in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45.", Moscow-Tula, GAU publishing house, 1977.
That is, the district warehouses stored only 50% of the ammunition. The rest were in warehouses of central subordination, the closest of which were located at the Toropets-Nezhin line, no closer than 600 km from the border, and the farthest ones were located along the Sverdlovsk-Chelyabinsk line.

The problem was not the removal of warehouses to the border. The problem was that the speed of the advance of the enemy exceeded all pre-war calculations. No one could have imagined that in July the Germans would be near Luga, and in August they would take Gomel. With such a pace of progress, the evacuation was constantly late.

[Mekey Iptyshev]

What amuses me in all articles or videos about the USSR of the 30s. That was not enough, there were no personnel.
Hello, the Bolsheviks got a country where more than half of the population could neither write nor read. And the Soviet government did a miracle in 20 years, starting almost from scratch, creating heavy industry. Naturally, one cannot do without a huge pile of mistakes and failures.
It is even scary to imagine what would have awaited Russia in 1941 if the Provisional Government-Constituent Assembly remained in power. In the 20 years between the world wars, they would probably have created a bunch of "no analogues" and that's it.
It is not even worth comparing with the problems of modern Russia, which inherited a rich inheritance.

[Viktor Sergeev]

The famine was caused by one reason: the inability to make gunpowder, since without imports there were no separate chemical components, as a result, Katyushas went in huge quantities.

[Guran33 Sergey]

During the Smolensk defense, the amount of ammunition used by both sides equaled in the suburbs, the Red Army already spent one third more ammunition than the Nazis, during the Battle of Kursk and the "Bagration" the Soviet side spent 2-2,5 times more ammunition than the Wehrmacht (the detailed monthly consumption of ammunition was published in the magazine "Communist" for 1985) There was no global "shell hunger" in the Red Army. In the summer of 1941 there was a terrible mess and because of this local stories appeared with a lack of ammunition