Myths of the Great Patriotic. The Tale of Lost Communication

The Soviet historiography of the postwar period itself pushed itself into the trap that generated cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, people heard “Soviet means excellent” about the wonderful Soviet T-34 and KV. On the other hand, the failures of the initial period of the war, when the Red Army was rapidly rolling back, handing over one city after another, were well known. It is not surprising that people found it difficult to combine these two facts: a miracleweaponbringing up to hundreds of holes from shells from the battle, and the front rolling back to Moscow and Leningrad. Later, branchy cranberries of the “everyone broke” version were grown on this soil. That is a miracleTanks were dishonestly defeated by their own commanders in marches.

Strictly speaking, the Soviet historical science on the pages of the works of respected authors provided enough information to get an adequate picture of the events of 1941. However, the correct phrases about the lead in deployment drowned in a stream of simpler and more understandable theses: “Soviet means excellent”, “Sorge warned” and “repression among the highest command composition ”. The most transparent explanation was, of course, “surprise attack”. It was also interpreted at the most primitive level - sleepy soldiers and commanders awakened by artillery preparation in the morning of June 22 and sleeping in their underwear. Perplexed and not understanding what was happening, people could be taken "warm". It is clear that the explanation for the subsequent defeats of the summer and fall of 1941, such as the failure of the mechanized corps counterattacks, the breakthrough of the "Stalin line" and the encirclement near Kiev and Vyazma, was not explained by running around in underpants.

In addition, data on the total number of troops of the Red Army without taking into account its spatial location was most often cited. Since, from the point of view of these general figures, the Germans did not have a numerical superiority, they began to look for the causes of the catastrophe in problems that lie outside the plane of the operational and strategic situation. Moreover, the figures of the size of the Soviet tank and aviation fleet that became well-known forced us to look for something great and terrible. Something terrible and unusual had to happen so that in the collision of two equal (from the point of view of rather abstract figures) one of them began to rapidly roll back. It was as if some small but important detail had broken down in a large mechanism called the army of a large country.

Generally speaking, the motive for finding a small part, due to which everything collapsed, was a weak hope for a simple change in history. If the part was small, then it could be fixed. The Red Army would have survived under enemy attacks and the war would not have swept across the entire European part of the country, mutilating and killing people and entire families. An accompanying product of detecting this small detail would be the appointment of a switchman responsible for its absence or malfunction. In a word, the driving force of research was a ray of hope. Understanding the inevitability and inevitability of the disaster was too heavy a burden.

The search for the details, because of which everything happened, has not ceased for six decades. In modern times, there appeared the swirling theories about the "strike" of the army, whose personnel was dissatisfied with the Soviet government. Accordingly, the political system became a factor that allowed at one stroke all the beatings. It is assumed that the king-father on the throne instead of the ungodly general secretary would be a reliable defense against all ills. Previously, people were more creative. As a recipe for happiness, it was proposed to bring the troops into combat readiness. The thesis was advanced that if the few divisions of the covering armies were alerted a day or two earlier, the situation would have changed fundamentally. This memoir was fueled by the memoirs of some of our commanders, sustained in the spirit of "well, we would give them if they caught up with us." But in the technocratic society of the late USSR, a version about a flaw in technical quality became very popular. The role of the terrible flaw of the Red Army was given to communication. Indeed, even at the household level, it was clear that the troops, scattered and unmanaged, had little to do.

Famous Soviet historian V.A. Anfilov described the state of communication in the early days of the war with blue-black paint: “The position of the units of the 3 Army was aggravated by the difficulties of organizing troop control, since the wired communication was broken in the first hour of the war. There was no radio. Troop control was carried out only through delegates of communication. The army headquarters had no connection with the front for two days ”(V.A. Anfilov.The beginning of the Great Patriotic War (June 22 - mid-July 1941). Military history essay. - M .: Voenizdat, 1962. C. 107). This is not even a modest painting with a brush, it is an energetic painting of the area with a roller with black paint. After reading this, people interested in war had to be terrified and understand everything at once about the causes of 1941 disasters. It only remained sympathetically to pokokok language and an expression to repeat: "Within two days!"

In 1962, when the quoted book by Anfilov was published, few had the opportunity to examine the situation from different angles through documents. Now there are very different times. The notorious "two days" is quite possible to try to touch and feel. In the Western Front combat log we find the following lines: “At about 13 – 14 hours, beginning. 3 A headquarters opert. and Colonel Peshkov reported: “The 8.00 units of Major General Sakhno (56 sd) fought in the area of ​​Lipsk - Sopotskin” (TsAMO RF, f. 208, op. 2511, d. 29, l. 22). The following is a detail of the situation in the 3 Army's band, which occupies almost a typewritten page. What two days of lack of communication does Anfilov tell us?

Further more. V.A. Anfilov writes: "With the headquarters of the 10 Army, the front lost contact with the very beginning of the German attack" (V.A. Anfilov.The beginning of the Great Patriotic War (June 22 - 1941 mid July). Military history essay. - Moscow: Voenizdat, 1962. C. 107). However, the Chief of Staff of the 10 Army, Major General Lyapin, after leaving the encirclement, said something quite different. Returning from the Belostok “boiler”, he wrote to the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Western Front, Malandin: “Communication with the 22.6 front staff was satisfactory not only by radio, but also by Morse telegraph and even occasionally appeared by HF. The corps headquarters finally lost 28.6 communication around 22.00 – 23.00 while Starm was preparing to move from Volkovysk to Derechin ”(TsAMO RF, 208, op. 2511, xNUMX, l. 29). That is, the headquarters of the 22 Army had a fairly stable relationship with the front headquarters and subordinate troops. Chaos came, already when it was all over (June 10) and the encirclement ring closed.

Former commander of the Western Front D.G. During interrogation at the NKVD, Pavlov also assessed the state of communication in the early days of the war, which was far less dramatic than the post-war historian. Being a stone's throw from the execution, he said: “The RF test showed that this connection with all the armies was interrupted. At about 5.00 by long-distance telephone, bypass lines reported to Kuznetsov on the situation. He said that the enemy’s forces were holding them back, but that Sapotskin was on fire, since an especially strong artillery firing had been fired at him, and that the enemy in this sector had gone on the offensive while we were repulsing the attacks. At about 7, the clock sent a radiogram to Golubev [the commander of the 10 army] that a gun-firing was going on all the front and all the enemy’s attempts to penetrate our territory were repulsed by him. ”Thus, the front headquarters did not have RF communications, which itself on its own is not a problem. HF, i.e., closed telephone communication using high frequencies, was not the most common form of communication. Such communication is carried out by connecting a group of low-power long-wave transmitters tuned to different waves with gaps between them in 3 – 4 kHz, to ordinary telephone wires. The high frequency currents created by these transmitters propagate along the wires, exerting a very weak effect on radio receivers not connected to these wires, while at the same time providing a good, free from many interference reception at special receivers connected to these wires. Such luxury in the war could not afford to always. Radio and telegraph, the so-called direct printing apparatus BODO, were used more often in the troops. Accordingly, contrary to Anfilov’s allegations, two independent sources claim that there was a connection with the 3 and 10 armies at the front headquarters. Reports were received and orders were sent.

The main problem of the Western Front was not the link, but the “window” in the North-Western Front line, through which the HNOMX 3 Panzer Group broke through to Minsk. The Germans were concentrated against the weakest Soviet special military district by far superior forces, including two tank groups. Without difficulty, having crushed the parts of the 8 and 11 armies defending the border, the German tank groups penetrated deep into the building of the Soviet troops in the Baltic States. The 4-I tank group moved north towards Leningrad, and the 3-I tank group turned east and southeast and from the North-Western Front invaded the rear of the Western Front D.G. Pavlova. Even if the connection between the headquarters of the Western Front and its subordinate armies was ideal, Pavlov could no longer prevent the breakthrough of the 3 tank group.

The Western Front is no exception to the rule. The failures of the Southwestern Front troops in June 1941 were also attributed to communication problems. Anfilov writes: “For example, the 36 th rifle, 8 th and 19 th mechanized corps did not have radio communication during the offensive in the Dubno region” (V.A. Anfilov, World War II (22 June - mid-July 1941 g .). Military history essay. - M .: Military Publishing. 1962. C. 170). It is not clear how the radio communication between the mechanized corps could help in the battle of Dubno. Even the presence of modern satellite "Inmarsat" could hardly help the commanders of the 8 and 19 of the mechanized corps. By the time the offensive mission was received in the direction of Dubno by the 8-m mechanized corps D.I. Ryabyshev 19 Corps N.V. Fecklenko has already been dropped to the outskirts of Rivne. The 19 Corps was attacked by the III Motorized Corps, bypassing Lutsk. Under the threat of encirclement at the outskirts of Dubno, the 43 I tank division of the corps N.V. Fecklenko was forced to retreat to the east. So, according to the unexpectedly received “Inmarsat” from the advisers from the future, Feklenko could only cheerfully inform Ryabyshev about his departure.

I would not like the reader to get the impression that my task is to expose the Soviet historian Anfilov. For its time, his books were a real breakthrough in the field of research into the initial period of the war. Now we can even say more - the books of Anfilov were based on collections of documents published in 1950's. The claim regarding the interaction between 36-m small, 8-m and 19-m mechanized corps is pure tracing from the directive of the Military Council of the South-Western Front No. 00207 from 29 June 1941. It pointed out the deficiencies in the actions of the troops in the first days of the war . In the original, the thesis about the connection between the buildings is as follows: “No one organizes connections with a neighbor. The 14-I cavalry and 141-rifle divisions were between themselves in 12 km, did not know about the location of each other; the flanks and the joints are not provided and are not covered by intelligence, which the adversary uses to penetrate. Radio is used poorly. There was no radio communication between the 36 rifle corps and the 8 rifle mechanized corpus, the 19 rifle mechanized corpus due to the lack of waves and call signs. ” Note that we are talking about organizational issues, and not about the technical impossibility of communicating by radio as such. It should also be said that this claim is not even the first one by its number. The first point of the directive was the command of the front that pointed out shortcomings in the conduct of intelligence.

V.A. Anfilov situation dramatically dramatized. The connections of the South-Western Front received all the necessary orders, and communication problems in no way can explain their failure. In some cases, it would be better if they did not receive these orders. I will try to illustrate this thesis with a concrete example.

After a lot of winding on the roads of the Lvov ledge, the command of the South-Western Front managed to bring the 26 of June into the battle of the 8 th mechanized corps. However, the headquarters of the front did not develop the results achieved on that day. Instead of orders to continue the offensive, the mechanized corps received an order to ... withdrawal from the line of rifle corps. This is how the content and circumstances of the receipt of this order are described by the commander of the 8 Mechanized Corps, D.I. Ryabyshev, in a report on the corps, hot on the heels of the events, in July 1941 was: “In 2.30 27.6.41, Major General Panyukhov arrived at the commander of the 8 th mechanized corps and handed him the following oral order from the commander of the Southwestern Front: “The 37 th rifle corps defends itself at the front of Pochayuv Nova, Podkamen, Zolochiv. The 8 motorized corps will withdraw beyond the infantry line of the 37 rifle corps and reinforce their battle formation with their fire weapons. Exit start immediately. "

A similar order was received by the 15 th mechanized corps that had launched a counter-attack: “Based on the order of the South-Western Front No. 0019 from 28.6.41. [An error in the document, more correctly than the 27 th. “A.I.] by the morning of 29.6.41, it was ordered to retreat to the line of the Zolochov Heights beyond the defensive line of the 37 Infantry Corps in order to clean up themselves.”

What happened? In the memoirs of I.Kh. Bagramyan (more precisely, in the memoirs of Ivan Khristoforovich, subjected to “literary refinement” with the addition of dialogues that no one can remember after a few years) this serves as a rejection of the strategy of counterattacks by mech-corps in favor of building a “stubborn defense” rifle corps. However, this thesis is not documented. In the operational report for June 26, a derogatory assessment was given to the 36 Infantry Corps: "Due to lack of organization, poor agglomeration and insufficient availability of artillery shells in combat with the enemy in the Dubno area, they showed low combat capability." It would be strange to assume that with the help of these "low combat capability" units, the front head of staff, Maxim Alekseevich Purkaev, a man of the old school, was going to hold German armored divisions. The reason for the withdrawal of mechanized corps from the battle is completely different. The main mistake of the front command was the incorrect assessment of the direction of the development of the German offensive. Accordingly, the front command decided to withdraw the mechanic units beyond the line of building the rifle corps for the application of counterstrikes. And, despite all the problems with communication, which frightened us in the post-war research, the relevant orders were taken to the mechanized corps. Began their withdrawal from the battlefield and retraction.

However, Moscow did not support the decision of the front command. THEIR. Bagramyan recalls:

“- Comrade Colonel! Comrade Colonel! - I hear the voice of the duty officer. - Moscow on the wire!

I run to the meeting room. Seeing me, the bodist woman tapped out to Moscow: “Colonel Baghramyan is with the staff.” I pick up the tape, read: “General Malandin is at the office. Hello. Immediately report to the commander that the Stake has forbidden withdrawal and demands to continue the counterstrike. Not a day to rest the aggressor. Everything ”(Bagramyan I. X. So the war began. - M .: Voenizdat, 1971, S. 141).

Mn Kirponos tried to explain his decisions to the High Command, but could not defend them. Further developments showed that the Headquarters was right in its assessments - the tip of the German tank wedge turned south much later, only after overcoming the “Stalin line”. After receiving the dressing out of Moscow, the headquarters of the South-Western Front began to prepare orders for the return of the mechanized corps to battle.

The order to return to the battle of the 15 of the mechanized corps went to the 10.00 compound headquarters in the morning of June 27. The 37 Corps Panzer Division managed to retreat and spent the day on the march with a turn of 180 degrees. In the battle 27 June, her tanks, of course, did not participate. The throwing of the 15 divisions of the mechanized corps on the roads was explained not by the fact that there was no connection, but by the fact that the connection with it did work. Accordingly, orders were given to withdraw the mechanized corps from the battlefield based on the analysis of the situation, Kirponos headquarters tried to predict the next move of the enemy.

The situation in the 8-m mechanized corps at the time of receiving the order to return to battle was similar. His 12 Panzer Division was extended in a convoy from Brody to Podkamnya (a town in 20 km southeast of Brody). On the other hand, the 7-i motorized rifle and 34-I tank divisions did not have time to get a stop order and remained in the areas occupied by the 26 in the afternoon of June. Early in the morning of June 27, the corps command received an order from the South-Western Front Commander 2121 No. from 27.6.41 to attack the 8 th mechanized corps with 9.00 27.6.41 in the direction of Brody, m. Verba, Dubno. Already in 7.00 27 June Ryabyshev ordered an offensive in a new direction. The offensive was scheduled for 9.00 27.6.41 g. Usually, this episode is narrated by memoirs as the return of the 8 Mechanism Corps into battle in parts by the hysterical order of Commissioner Vashugin, who arrived at the location of the 8 Mechanism Corps at ten o'clock in the morning 27 in June with a squad. Since it was foolish to complain about communication in the conditions of receiving all orders, another popular character, the “party hand”, was used to explain the reasons. The fact that all orders for putting the corps into battle in parts had already been given to the arrival of the hysterical Rottweiler of Marxism-Leninism, tactfully kept silent. In the conditions of the closed archives in 1960, no one had any idea about such inconsistencies. HH Vashugin also shot himself, and it was possible to lay down on the dead man with a calm heart.

However, even according to the recollections, no problems with the transfer of orders to the mechanized corps can be traced. If the order to withdraw to the mechanized corps simply did not reach, there would simply have been no chaos caused by the withdrawal. The connection between the front command and the mechanized corps worked so steadily that the mechanized corps vibrated energetically along with the general line of the defensive operation, with the headquarters of M.P. Kirponos accurate to several hours.

In official documents written by professionals, assessments of the state of communication are much more cautious and balanced. In the brief report of the head of the South-Western Front Communications Department from 27 July 1941, it was said:

“2. Work communication during the operation.

a) Wired communications were systematically destroyed, especially nodes and lines in the 5 and 6 armies. The headquarters of the 5 th and 6 th armies - Lviv, Lutsk did not manage to come up with wires through any of the lines.

With the southern group (12-I and 26-I army) communication worked steadily.

b) The communications centers of the People’s Commissariat of Communications after the first bombardments were unable to quickly restore communications; the absence of linear columns and linear parts led to a prolonged breaking of the bond in separate directions.

c) With the mobilization of the first four halves, 28.6.41 was able to ensure the direction of the army along one incomplete company, which ensured the restoration of the destroyed lines and the establishment of wire communications.

d) Radio communication in front-line radio networks was the main means of communication in the directions of the 5 and 6 armies during the period in the absence of wired communication.

e) In the army, corps radio networks, radio communication in the first period, with the paralysis of wire communications, was the only means of communication and ensured the command and control of the troops. ” .

As we can see, contrary to popular belief, radio communications were used to control the 5 and 6 armies operating in the direction of the main attack of the German troops. It was at the junction between these armies that the E.N. VX Kleist's 1 tank group broke through to the east. Moreover, radio communications were the primary means of controlling the 5 and 6 armies. Army headquarters also made extensive use of radio communications. In the 5 Army's operational reports in June 1941, the refrain sounds: "Communication by delegates and by radio". In mid-July, 1941, when the front of the 5 Army stabilized, the range of communications equipment used was expanded. In one of the reports of the 5 Army, it is stated: “Communication: with the front headquarters — Bodo; with the 15 rifle corps - by radio, delegates and ST-35; with 31 rifle, 9 and 22 mechanized corps - by radio and delegates; with the 19-m mechanized corps and army reserve - delegates. "

You also need to pay attention (paragraph “c” of the document) to the fact that parts of the connection were affected by a common problem for the entire Red Army - lack of mobilization. Mobilization was announced only on the first day of the war and, as we see from the document, 28 Jun was able to maintain the operability of communication lines in wartime mode.

In addition, we sometimes approach 1941 from the perspective of today. When satellites transmit information in real-time on a movie screen, it is difficult to imagine how they fought during the times of pigeon mail and foot messengers. 1940 radio communication should not idealize. Troop radioing was only tactical. For quite objective reasons, the basis of the control system was wire communication. The aforementioned report of the head of communications of the South-Western Front states:

“1. Wired communications under all conditions of destruction can be restored and are for front-line communications a powerful means of providing control.

2. Radio communications in the absence of a wired connection can provide control in a limited size (insufficient capacity) ”(Collection of combat documents of the Second World War. Issue No. 36. - M .: Voenizdat, 1958. S. 108).

In other words, with the help of wired communication devices it was possible to “push through” a larger amount of information. This fact we find numerous evidence in the documents of the war. In the operational report from 24 June 1941, the chief of staff of the Western Front Klimovsky complained: “Radio communication does not ensure the transmission of all documents, since the encryption is checked several times”. Therefore, for effective management needed a workable wired connection.

In many respects, we find similar theses in the report of the North-Western Front Communications Administration on July 26 1941.

The work of radio communication in it is characterized by the following words:

“Radio communication from the first day of the war works almost without interruption, but the headquarters reluctantly and ineptly at the beginning of the war used this means of communication.

The break of wire communication was qualified by all as loss of communication.

Radiograms were sent to 1000 and more groups. From abroad Zap. The Dvina was a gradual improvement in the use of radio communications and its recognition as the main type of communication from the staffs ”(Military Documents Collection of the Second World War. Issue No. 34. - M .: Voenizdat, 1957. C. 189)

Why reluctant to use, it is clear from the above - on the radio it was difficult to transmit large amounts of information.

It must be said that the Soviet pre-war charters rather carefully assess the possibilities and scope of application of radio communications. Field Charter 1929, determined the mode of operation of radio:

“Radio communication is allowed to use only if it is completely impossible to use other means and only during the battle or when the enemy is completely surrounded. Operational orders and reports on decisions taken by troop formations from a division and above are broadcast by radio, except in the case of complete encirclement, ”(History of Military Communications. T. 2. - M .: Voenizdat, 1984. C. 271).

As we can see, rather stringent restrictions are imposed on the use of radio communications. Moreover, these restrictions are not recommendatory, but prohibitive in nature (“strongly forbidden”). Of course, the provisions of the charter 1929 g. Can be attributed to obscurantism and outdated views on the place of radio communications in combat conditions. However, Soviet military experts monitored progress, and the corresponding theoretical base was put under their positions on radio communications.

For the purity of the experiment, I will quote a statement relating to the period before 1937. It is considered to be largely unreasonable that after cleaning the 1937 – 1938. in the Red Army came the dark ages. Accordingly, an opinion after 1937 may be considered a manifestation of obscurantism. However, even before the purges of great enthusiasm regarding the transfer of troops to the radio control was not observed. The head of the Red Army communications department, R. Longwa, reviewing the prospects for the development and use of radio and wired tools for command and control, wrote in 1935:

“Recent years are years of rapid development of military radio technology. Quantitative and qualitative growth aviation, mechanization and motorization of the armed forces, control on the battlefield and in operations by means of combat, with significant, moreover, various speeds, spurring on and making new and more complex requirements for technical means of control and communications technology.

Superficial observation could lead to the erroneous view that radio displaces wired communications and that under military conditions it will completely and completely replace wire.

Of course, to solve the issue of control of aviation, mechanical parts and to ensure the interaction of the armed forces at this stage of development of technology is only possible with the help of radio. However, in infantry units in the vast network of rear and military roads, in the air defense alert system, only wire assets can provide continuous, steady communication with all points at a time. Wired tools, moreover, do not unmask the location of controls and much easier ensure the secrecy of transmission ”(History of Military Communications. T. 2. M .: Voenizdat, 1984. C. 271).

Before us, we note, is not the opinion of a theorist, a cabinet scientist, but the practice is the head of the communications department. This man knew from his own experience what the organization of management was through various means of communication. Moreover, the practical experience of the communications troops for 1935 was already quite extensive. Since the adoption of the statute of 1929, the Red Army has already managed to get the first samples of domestic radio stations of the new generation and used them in exercises and maneuvers.

A common thread through various pre-war documents on the use of radio communications is the thought: “it is possible and necessary to use, but carefully.” In the draft Field Regulations 1939 (PU-39), the role and place of radio communication in the control system was defined as follows:

“Radio communication is a valuable communication tool that provides control in the most difficult combat conditions.

However, in view of the possibility of the enemy intercepting radio broadcasts and establishing, by direction finding, the location of the headquarters and the grouping of troops, it is used mainly only with the start of the battle and in the process of its development.

Permits or prohibits (in whole or in part) the use of the appropriate chief of staff by radio equipment.

During the period of concentration of troops, regrouping, preparation of a breakthrough and in defense before the start of an enemy attack, the use of radio equipment is prohibited.

If radio communication cannot be replaced by other means of communication, for example, for communication with aircraft in the air, with reconnaissance, for air defense, etc., special receiving and transmitting radio stations are allocated for this purpose in the formations and units.

Radio transmission is always done using codes, coded signaling and a cipher. Open radio broadcasts are not allowed, with the exception of the transfer of combat teams in artillery, tank units and aircraft in the air.

Negotiations during the battle on the radio should be made on the pre-compiled headquarters radio communication tables, coded card, code commander's tablet and negotiation tables.

Transmission by radio of operational orders and reports on decisions taken from the division (brigade) and above is allowed only if it is completely impossible to use other means of communication and only with a cipher ”.

Before us is the same set of prohibitive measures: “the use of radio equipment is prohibited,” “if it is completely impossible to use other means of communication and only a cipher”. But it's not even that interesting. In the charter, all those things that were regarded as irrational phobias and strange eccentricities of the red commanders are spelled out in plain text. For example, in the description of the commissioner 8 th mechanized corps N.K. Popel Dubna battles have this episode:

“But then, at night, approaching the KP, I did not know anything about the actions of the division. There was no connection.

“Our chief of staff, Lieutenant Colonel Kurepin, turned out to be an extremely cautious comrade,” explained Vasilyev, smiling, “forbade the use of a staff radio station. How would the enemy not traded. Now we are considering whether it is possible to silently shoot out howitzers and attack tanks with engines turned off so that the fascists would not guess about our intentions.

Kurepin stood nearby. In the dark I did not see his face.

- Ivan Vasilyevich, why so. Well, he blundered ... "(Popel N.KV hard time. - M .; SPb .: Terra Fantastica, 2001. C. 118).

I must say that the memoirs of ND. Popili generally contains a lot of inaccuracies, so it is impossible to say exactly whether this conversation took place in reality or is a product of memory aberration. Significantly another, Kurepin's argumentation in the form in which it is retold by Popel, quite closely overlaps with the draft Field Statute 1939 of the city (PU-39). Firstly, it was the chief of staff who decided to use the radio station, and secondly, he pointed out the possibility of its direction finding by the enemy. However, for some reason, the PU-39 itself was not subjected to condemnation and ridicule.

After mentioning in popular memoirs, the idea of ​​a radio phobia as an irrational phobia went to the masses. Pikul reproduced the episode described by Popel almost word for word and added vivid details and generalizations.

“The troops too hoped for the line of the People’s Commissariat of Communications — for the wire between the pillars. They didn’t take into account at all that the war would be maneuverable, and the communication lines were stretched, as a rule, along railways or important highways. A little troops will move away from the roads away - neither pillars nor wires. In addition, the connection was not underground-cable, but air-wire, and the enemy boldly connected to it, listening to our negotiations, and sometimes the Germans gave false orders to our troops — retreat! Blind confidence in the phones sometimes ended in tragedies, the death of many people. At the same time, there was a “radio-fear”: they were treated as marching radio stations as an unnecessary burden for which they must be answered, at the first opportunity they were sent to the train. This came from distrust of complex equipment, from fear of headquarters to be swaddled by the enemy ”(Pikul BC Area of ​​Fallen Fighters. - M .: Golos, 1996. C. 179).

The fact that the words about direction finding were spelled out in PU-39 were somehow nicely forgotten. The reader was gently prompted to the conclusion: "The Germans have nothing more to do - look for Soviet radio stations." Mocking at the “radio fear” and the possibility of direction finding of working radio stations, for some reason they forget that the Germans had radio intelligence and sometimes achieved impressive results. Of course, it was not only and not so much about the primitive guidance on the Soviet aviation headquarters. One of the most famous examples is the Mius-Front in July 1943. Karl Hollidt’s German 6-Army defending the Donbass was forced to wait for the Soviet offensive and used all means of reconnaissance to guess the likely direction of the strike. Guessing the direction of the strike often turned into a “Russian roulette”, but it was radio intelligence that allowed the Germans to postpone the collapse of the German defense in the southern sector of the Soviet-German front. Until 9 July 1943, no movement of troops or concentration of artillery was noted by German intelligence. But July 10 was a turning point that caused Hollidt’s headquarters to feverishly prepare to repel the enemy’s offensive in the 6 Army’s area of ​​responsibility. In the afternoon of July 10, infantry and tank movements in the XXIX and XVII army corps were marked. Two days later, the movement was seen at the junction of the IV and XVII army corps - in the direction of the Soviet auxiliary strike. The sharpness of the operational situation was added by the fact that due to the weather conditions from 11 to 14 in July, the effective operation of aerial reconnaissance was impossible, and all hope was on ground reconnaissance and radio interceptions. I was doing this in the 6 Army 623-I separate company of radio intelligence. Particular attention from the German scouts caused the movement of reserves. The position of the 2 Guards Army as a strategic reserve of the Soviet command in the depth of building troops on the southern sector of the front was known to the Germans, and its movements were tracked. According to the Hollidt headquarters, 2-i Guards. the army could be brought into battle within three to five days. Analysis of the July 14 radio traffic allowed the Germans to conclude that the headquarters of the 2 th guards. The army has moved and is now behind the positions of the 5 st shock army. When 15 July improved the weather and aerial reconnaissance began, the concentration of Soviet troops was confirmed from the air. 15 July Hollidt visited the headquarters of the 294 Infantry Division and the XVII Army Corps and reported that all intelligence data indicate the imminent start of the offensive precisely on their front. Two days later, on a hot morning on July 17 1943, the thunder of artillery preparation confirmed his words.

Naturally, the Germans took the necessary countermeasures and tightened the reserves to the probable direction of the blow of the Soviet troops. Moreover, decisions were made at the command level of the entire Army Group South. The 2nd SS tank corps of Paul Hausser was removed from the southern face of the Kursk Bulge. The corps was withdrawn from the battlefield and immersed in echelons departing for the Donbass. The timely arrival of SS units played a key role in repelling the Soviet offensive on Mius, which ended at the beginning of August 1943 by driving the Southern Front to its original positions.

Mius-front in this case is a negative example, but one should not think that in the same period there were no directly opposite cases. Those, oddly enough, is a counter-strike 5-th Guards. tank army under Prokhorovka. Due to the strictest radio silence (the radio stations were even sealed), until the very last moment the Germans did not know that the Voronezh Front would launch a counterattack with large masses of tanks. The concentration of tanks was partially dissected by radio intelligence, but there was no specific list of arrivals from the Germans on the evening of July 11. 1943 was not. Therefore, the defensive actions of “Leibstandart” 12 July were largely improvisation, which was favored by a dense battle formations and terrain conditions. In any case, the German radio intelligence did not reveal the appearance of the PA army. Rotmistrov, and its appearance was largely unexpected. Another issue is that this initial advantage was not properly used.

The aforementioned 8 th mechanized body was in the same position as the 5 th guards. tank army under Prokhorovka. He also advanced to deliver a counterattack. Therefore, the radio silence mode was one of the main requirements. German radio intelligence in the summer of 1941 worked, and the intensive use of radio communications would clarify the situation for the enemy. It would be easier for German intelligence to find out who is opposed to them at the moment and the approach of which formations or formations from the depth is expected in the near future. Radio communication, like any other tool, had its advantages and disadvantages.

Sending officers to the troops with orders was not an extraordinary measure caused by circumstances. Recommendations on the organization of control with the help of delegates went to PU-39 after the section on radio communications furnished with prohibitive measures. Red commanders recommended the following:

“In order to ensure reliable control, in addition to technical means, it is necessary to make wide use of all other types of communication, primarily mobile means (aircraft, automobile, motorcycle, tank, horse).

The headquarters of military units and units should take care of the availability and readiness for action of a sufficient number of mobile means for transmitting orders. ”

Communications delegates were not a companion of unsuccessful operations only. They were widely used to transfer orders in battles and operations that were undoubtedly successful for the Red Army. As an example, we can give an episode relating to the period of the Soviet counter-offensive near Stalingrad. To the south of the city, the mechanized corps of the strike force of the Stalingrad Front were advancing on the steppe. On the night of November 22, the 4 Mechanic Corps received an order from the Deputy Commander of the Stalingrad Front, MM. Popov by the end of the day capture the Soviet and advance the forward detachment to Karpovka. The body at that moment was moving forward in the literal sense of the word blindly. There was no information about the enemy in the direction of the attack either from the headquarters of the 51 Army or from the headquarters of the Stalingrad Front. Applications for aerial reconnaissance were not executed - due to bad weather, aviation was virtually inactive. The corps could only shine its “low beam” - sending reconnaissance detachments on motorcycles and armored vehicles BA-64 in all directions. Communication was also established with the neighbor on the right, the 13 Mechanized Corps. The situation was cleared up to an insignificant degree: vague information was obtained about the front area to the right of the offensive line. On the left, there simply were no neighbors, one seemingly boundless steppe. In such an environment, a counterattack could follow from any direction. A thick "fog of war" hung over the battlefield. It remained to take all precautions and rely on his lucky star. Volsky advanced a strong side guard to the flanks and brought the 60 th mechanized brigade to the reserve.

Soon the already difficult situation was aggravated by lightning "from the stratosphere." At the approach of the corps headquarters to the Upper Tsaritsyn plane, an order was delivered by the commander of the Stalingrad front, A.I. Yeremenko with the task of capturing Old and New Rogachik, Karpovskaya, Karpovka. This significantly changed the original body task. Now he had to turn away from the rendezvous point with the South-Western Front near Kalach and advance to the rear of the troops of the 6 Army near Stalingrad. More precisely, the corps was deployed to crush the fast-built defense of the 6 Army with a front to the west.

Literally half an hour after the arrival of the aircraft from A.I. Yeremenko, the deputy commander of the 51 Army, Colonel Yudin arrived in the corps headquarters by car. The commander of the 4 th mechanized corps was handed the order of the commander 51 (in whose operational subordination was the corps), confirming the previously assigned task. Mehkorpus was supposed to seize the Soviet and reach the line of Karpovka, Marinovka, that is, about the line of the railway from Stalingrad to Kalach. Having appeared with two orders on his hands, Volsky made a compromise decision and turned the 59 mechanized brigade to Karpovka. The attack on Karpovka was ineffectual - the mobile units sent by Paulus occupied the old Soviet fortifications. The rest of the 4 th mechanized corps moved to the Soviet, performing the previous task.

As a result, the Soviet was captured by the 12.20 on November 22 by the 36 th mechanized brigade, together with the 20 th tank regiment of the 59 th mechanized brigade. Car repair shops were located in the city, and more than 1000 vehicles became trophies of the body of Volsky. Were also seized warehouses with food, ammunition and fuel. With the capture of the Soviet, the message of the 6 Army with rear was interrupted by rail.

It is interesting to note that the orders of the 4 th mechanized corps were received by the delegates of communications. Moreover, the orders of different instances contradicted each other. According to Russian historical tradition, it is customary to angrily condemn the use of delegates in the summer of 1941, and even present them as one of the causes of the catastrophe. However, this is an obvious staging of the cart before the horse. Communications delegates were safely used in successful operations of the Red Army. Corps without any problems sent to the command of the desired point without using ideologically seasoned radio.

In conclusion, I would like to say the following. It is impossible to deny the significant shortcomings in the work of communication in the 1941 Red Army. But declaring the connection to be one of the main reasons for the defeat is unwise. The collapse of the communication system was often the result, not the cause, of emerging crises. The headquarters lost contact with the troops when they were defeated in the defense and were forced to retreat. The defeats had a very definite explanation at the operational level, and the absence of any communication problems would hardly have significantly changed the situation.

Comments

[Monster_Fat]

Another "theoretician". And the fool is clear that one "reason" without others is not decisive. But in the complex, it leads to disaster. Back in Soviet times, the excellent book "The Lights went out in the sea" was published. By the way, it was written by a former political worker. And he noticed that others did not notice - war is an art, to die "for the Motherland is not difficult", but to survive and win - oh, how difficult it is. The book gives a very clear answer to the question of why we suffered defeats in the initial period of the war: yes, they simply did not know how to fight, in general. Before the war, everywhere, as by the way and now, pretense and pacification reigned. And only the "winter war" showed what our army, aviation and navy really are. The headquarters grabbed their heads, but no one really knew what to do, because it took years to correct all the shortcomings, and therefore all the directives and measures to improve the armed forces were either hysterical, obviously impossible, or partial purely "marketing" in nature. It is clear that nothing had been done before the war. But that's not all. In a war, the psychological factor is no less important than the availability of modern weapons and equipment. It was necessary to change the thinking of all links from a peaceful to a military way, it was necessary to teach, to force people to fight, that is, to kill, to win, to complete the task, but to remain whole ourselves, which is very difficult. In the Soviet army, almost the entire war, a completely different mindset reigned - to complete the task at ANY COST. Here is the root cause of all troubles. If one reads Soviet and German military memoirs, one immediately "strikes" the difference in the approach to warfare. The Germans fought not only competently, but also rationally, taking into account logic and common sense, that is, they carried out reconnaissance during the offensive, were persistent, but not reckless during the attack, if they met fierce resistance, they looked for ways to bypass and changed plans taking into account the changed situation and etc. etc. In defense, the Germans, too, did not show any special "heroism" - if the situation became intolerable, then they retreated to other lines of defense, and so on. And how did our people fight? To complete the task at ANY COST, that is, without regard to the situation and losses. That's all. And only in the 44th year the situation changed somewhat, and even then not completely. To sort out the reasons for the defeat is a thankless task, and I want to come up with an excuse for myself, I don't want to admit cowardice, disorder, disorganization and stupidity, lack of knowledge and experience. I don't remember who, but someone from the famous said, approximately, the following: "The well-known misfortune of the Russian Russian army is that it is always preparing for the war that has already passed ..."

[Bigriver]

Quote: Monster_Fat

... The book very clearly answers the question why we suffered defeats in the initial period of the war: yes,just did not know how to fight, generally..;

In a word, one book - one answer to a complex multi-layer question?
Grace .., for some thread on a Twitter Facebook hamster
Oh what a quick and quick minus
Then I will ask one (for now) leading question.
How does this ingenious book evaluate the resource of our tank V-2 diesel engines at 50-100 hours? This resource did not matter for the combat effectiveness of mechanized corps?

[Monster_Fat]

And, for you, apparently news that it is better to listen to one SMART than a hundred fools? I just gave an example of ONE book, where the author named a GENERAL reason, which includes many PARTICULARS. "Inability to fight" implies: lack of experience and knowledge, and the necessary training, and the lack of necessary management and application skills, etc., etc. But you, obviously, do not understand this, it is too difficult for your level of perception.

[Bigriver]

Quote: Monster_Fat

And, for you, apparently the news is that better to listen to one SMART than a hundred FOOLS? I just gave an example of ONE book, where the author called a GENERAL reason, which includes many PARTS. But you obviously do not understand this, it is too difficult to perceive.

If you do NOT deeply, methodically and systematically deal with the topic, then you will not distinguish a fool from a smart one.

[Monster_Fat]

Modern "theoreticians", having read clever figures, which are simply "teeming" with modern military-technical literature, often delve too "deeply" into something, drown in numbers and details and lose the very truth that lies "on the surface".

[Monster_Fat]

Well, yes, and the "resource" of the windings in comparison with boots, and the time of winding the windings, and the time of filling tanks with buckets, and not with a pump, and the resource of the "cyclone" filter and the resource of the caterpillar without a rubber-metal hinge, the training time of our tank drivers radio stations on tanks and aircraft, and aircraft flying in units and not in pairs, and mining of their waters, and the lack of means of fighting magnetic and acoustic mines, and the arrangement of aircraft in one line, without camouflage at the border, and closed ammunition depots, etc. and etc. And so everywhere, particulars are put at the head of the overall picture. But these are just particulars. And the main thing is the inability to fight, that is, the inability to plan, lead and control, not the ability to take into account the peculiarities of both technology and the situation, the inability to competently, correctly use weapons and equipment, take into account one's own forces and the forces of the enemy, etc. If this is not clear, then what then to talk about.

[Normal]

Quote: Monster_Fat

. But this is just a particular one. And the main thing is the inability to fight, that is, the inability to plan, manage and manage, not the ability to take into account features, both of technology and the situation, the inability to correctly use weapons and equipment, to take into account your own forces and the forces of the enemy, etc. If this is not clear, then what to talk about then.

Here I agree with you.
But the inability to fight, as the cause of defeats, consists precisely of many particulars. One of these particularities was analyzed by the author in this article, since those who lead us away from the right conclusions try to explain the particularities pulled out from the general picture of the inability to fight in particular. Therefore, I do not understand your negative attitude to the article.
Of course, I fully admit that the book you indicated gives the absolutely correct answer. But. One or even several books cannot turn public opinion in the right direction at once, all the more so since disproportionately more materials have been published disguising the main reason.
So I consider the analysis of particulars necessary.

[Monster_Fat]

Yes. yes ... particular. You know, now there are so many “researchers” rummaging through the details and presenting their “discoveries” as some kind of “revelations” in the fate of certain events that ... it just becomes sick. For example, I am now reading a book by a well-known modern author, where he, in all seriousness, explains that it was DUST that was one of the reasons for the defeats of our army in the first period of the war. Allegedly, DUST due to an imperfect cleaning system clogged the engines of our tanks and they broke halfway or in battle, dust got into fuel and lubricant and broke the engines of our cars and jammed the guidance mechanisms of guns, weapons, just like these guns and weapons were on storage and covered with grease and the grease was not cleaned well, but it mixed with dust and this disabled weapons and weapons, etc. The same with aircraft - dust got into the motors, disabled them, clogged radiators and deprived the motors of traction, etc. And, as winter came, so the DUST disappeared and we immediately went on the offensive near Moscow. And, then, the DUST again appeared in the summer of 42 and we again began to suffer defeats, again until winter, when the DUST disappeared and allowed us to win at Stalingrad. And then the allies provided us with the technology to build the "correct" dust-cleaners and everything fell into place - we began to win constantly. Well, further in the same spirit, and it is written very "scientifically", you will not find fault. Now that's not even funny.

[Normal]

Quote: Monster_Fat

Yes. yes ... particular. You know, now there are so many "researchers" rummaging through the details and presenting their "discoveries" as some kind of "revelations" in the fate of certain events that ... it just becomes sickening.

Yes, "researchers" are like dirt, but the Author just explains that it was not about the connection, you know? He does not claim that one of the particulars (connection) is to blame, but on the contrary proves that everything was in order with the connection (as far as possible with us during the DB). So your outrage

Quote: Monster_Fat

Another "theoretician".

a bit off the mark.

Quote: Monster_Fat

Here, for example, I’m reading a book by a famous contemporary author, where in all seriousness, he explains what DUST is ...

Yes ... Dust is a terrible weapon But I read, in my opinion, in Biderman's "In mortal battle" that the Germans in the south of Ukraine suffered greatly in the summer of 41 from .... DUST!
I even kinda fasted on this subject

Normal RU January 21, 2014 22:50 | Wehrmacht fell into the mud

It’s clear! At first it seemed to the Germans that they were defeated by "General Moroz"
Now it turned out that there was also "Colonel Gryaz"
Then, at last, it will reach historians that at the very beginning of the war, on the southern flank, he acted against German troops "Lieutenant Colonel Dust" (complained repeatedly), and on the northern flank, the "majors Rain and Wind"
But the most vile thing is that "Captain Night" and "Lieutenant Dark" fought everywhere and constantly against the Germans. And on top of that, "Sergeant Major Vremya" always inexorably slipped away from the brave German generals, that's how the water slipped through his fingers.

[Monster_Fat]

The author just brings us to the idea that everything was fine with communication, everything corresponded to the statutes and recommendations, it was enough and it was used for its intended purpose and correctly, and that it was not the lack of communication that was one of the reasons for the catastrophe of 41. Here is the final phrase that fully characterizes the entire "meaning" of the article: The collapse of the communications system was often a consequence, not a cause of crises. The headquarters lost contact with the troops when they were defeated in defense and were forced to withdraw. The defeats had a very definite explanation at the operational level, and the absence of any communication problems would hardly have significantly changed the situation. Although everyone is well aware that it was precisely sabotage actions with the aim of breaking the connection between parts of the SA, was one of the priorities of the German army. The Germans understood the importance of communication and attached great importance to its destruction. Communication is not only management, but also timely information. Having no information, due to lack of communication, the leadership of the CA gave incorrect, previously impossible orders, which in many cases led to disasters - this is repeatedly described in the literature.

[pensioner]

Quote: Normal

But the most vile thing is that "Captain Night" and "Lieutenant Dark" fought against the Germans everywhere and constantly.

Corporal Gopher forgot. They were biting wires near German tanks near Stalingrad ...

[Normal]

Quote: retired

Corporal Gopher forgot

Guilty, saboteurs, in view of their special secrecy, I forgot

[Alekseev]

Quote: Normal

the inability to fight, as the cause of defeats, consists precisely of many particulars. One of these particulars was analyzed by the author in this article,

Absolutely accurate definition!
And the author disassembled this particularity. my subjective opinion is very competent.
And the enumeration of the components of "the inability to fight" can be carried on indefinitely.
It would be better to read the opinions of knowledgeable people, as all these inability to degenerate into the ability to enter the war.

[Bigriver]

Quote: Monster_Fat

... the main thing is the inability to fight, that is, the inability to plan, manage and manage, not the ability to take into account features, both of technology and the situation, the inability to correctly use weapons and equipment, to take into account your own forces and the forces of the enemy, etc. If this is not clear then what to talk about.

What comes first?
1. The presence of rationally organized military structures.
Или:
2. The ability of these structures to fight.
?

[Monster_Fat]

Read Sun Tzu "The Art of War" and A.V. Suvorov "The Science of Victory" - it says it all.

[Bigriver]

Quote: Monster_Fat

Read Sun Tzu "The Art of War" and A.V. Suvorov "The Science of Victory" - it says it all.

Did I understand you correctly?
You do not know the answer?

[Monster_Fat]

You want to argue. I don’t want to argue. To convince an adult who has already formed his opinion is a thankless task. Any my answer will cause you to be rejected and lead to an unnecessary dispute.

[Bigriver]

Quote: Monster_Fat

You want to argue. I don’t want to argue. Any my answer will cause you to be rejected and lead to an unnecessary dispute.

The argument is a stupid occupation. I am interested in the exchange of opinions. After all, you had a judgment in the first post. I do not agree with him and to facilitate your perception I am writing as concise questions as possible, for which you somehow spit out.
But it’s not difficult to answer. Another thing is that you do not want to acknowledge your obvious mistake as your answer.
Let's try it again! The simplest question: which comes first:
- the presence of a dog;
or
- the ability of this dog to run and bite.
I think I simplified the question as much as possible? Or is it not enough?

[Normal]

Quote: BigRiver

- the ability of this dog to run and bite.

If the dog is a pug, then she cannot run or bite, she has a different essence, and the presence of such a dog will not help you. Moreover, the presence of a useless dog is not just its absence as a functional, but also the meaningless costs of its maintenance.

In general, an analogy .... not an analogy

[Bigriver]

Quote: Normal

... If the dog is a pug, then she cannot run or bite, ..

Do not carp
Doggy, wolf, tiger, hyena, etc. - all this is a form, a body created for something.
There is no experience of any body in the absence of a body.
The Wehrmacht had the experience of the 1st World War in the confrontation with regular and very powerful packs of dogs :) They made conclusions based on this experience and developed a new doctrine of warfare. It was a revolution to which we could not react in any way. Since we even have the basic experience of waging war with regular troops and a continuous and long front line - it’s not bland.
And from where, one wonders, could those who looked, developed, creative and experienced, appear far and wide.

[Normal]

Quote: BigRiver

The Wehrmacht had the experience of the 1st World War in the confrontation with regular and very powerful packs of dogs:

You have to understand that we did not have the experience of the 1st MV?

Quote: BigRiver

They drew conclusions based on this experience and developed a new doctrine of warfare.

But we are not. The result - they knew how to fight, and we studied during the database Why didn’t we draw conclusions? Why did our doctrine of maintaining a database turn out to be unsuitable in the 41st?

Quote: BigRiver

Since we even have the basic experience of waging war with regular troops and a continuous and long front line - it’s not bland.

That is, we did not participate in the 1st MV?
But did the Germans have had the experience of war on a front as long as in the 41st?

[Setrac]

Quote: Monster_Fat

Read Sun Tzu "The Art of War" and A.V. Suvorov "The Science of Victory" - it says it all.

In a word, you have no opinion!

[Gamdlislyam]

Quote: BigRiver

What comes first:
1. The presence of rationally organized military structures.
2. Or the ability of these structures to fight?

Alas, colleague Vladimir, the second is just primary.
Whatever rational management structures are, if ignoramuses and mediocrity sit there, structures will not work !!!
But in the presence of trained, experienced leadership, proactive commanders, a positive result will be in any "structure".

[Monster_Fat]

That's it, an example is the Finnish army of those times, 75% armed with captured Soviet equipment.

[Bigriver]

Quote: Gamdlislyam

Quote: BigRiver

What comes first:
1. The presence of rationally organized military structures.
2. Or the ability of these structures to fight?

Alas, colleague Vladimir, the second is just primary.
Whatever rational management structures are, if ignoramuses and mediocrity sit there, structures will not work !!!
Rђ RІRѕS, with trained, experienced management, proactive commanders, a positive result will be in any "structure".

1. If you have trained and experienced management than what commanders?
2. Experience in managing unknown and absent structures with uncertain tasks where and how can be obtained?

[Normal]

Quote: BigRiver

In the presence of trained and experienced management than what commanders?

"The lieutenant colonel has been in situations.
And he knew how to disentangle himself By yourself.
But now he was in prostration.
Kicking back Morse code ... "

Trofim

2. Experience in managing unknown and absent structures with uncertain tasks where and how can be obtained?

Scholasticism.

In real life, there were structures, tasks, and even some experience. However, this experience in the changed conditions and when new tasks arose turned out to be useless, and the ability to react to a changed situation (i.e. the ability to fight) did not turn out to be.

[washi]

Quote: BigRiver

What comes first? 1. The presence of rationally organized military structures. Or: 2. The ability of these structures to fight.?

I believe that skill.
And there is self-esteem.
This is not normal when the commanders abandoned their troops, and the chairmen of the regional committees their regions. As a result, the troops surrendered without leadership.
When the IVS wanted to find out the reasons for the defeats in the initial period of the war, he was killed.

[washi]

Quote: Monster_Fat

the main thing is the inability to fight, that is, the inability to plan, manage and manage, the inability to take into account features- both technology and the situation, the inability to correctly use weapons and equipment, to take into account your own forces and the forces of the enemy, etc.

I agree.
It was, is and will be.
In peacetime, popcolises are higher. Literate are identified in wartime. (for example, G ... Zhukov. How the NGS killed everything (losses in the initial period of the war), as the commander of fronts, holding positions through executions, not taking into account the situation, as a representative of the headquarters - lack of participation in the coordination of armies and fronts (Kursk, Korsun-Shevchensk operation).
Communication article.
Loss of communication - loss of control. Why talk about the Second World War, if individual commanders can no longer speak on the ASW. During exercises, the entire encoding is replaced by obscenities. What is simplex duplex and propagation of radio waves is a minimal representation. And with the proliferation of cell phones, this has also worsened.
Infantry and tank schools taught radio communications (as I don’t know at institutes and universities now), but it killed me when I was sent to a tank regiment to check the radio communications between the tanks of the regiment before the exercises. They (tankers) could not set up the rst. !!!! .
They told us at the school: the most passionate enemies are not the enemy, but their tankers and foot soldiers. If the vole is not wound on the tracks, then it is expropriated.
In general, from the side of the signalman, it’s fun to listen to the negotiations of the combined arms (and even the naval). But during the WAR, these chuckles lead to disasters.
Once again: Loss of communication - loss of control.
Therefore: it is necessary to value the signalmen and listen to their opinion, to study the means of communication in subordinate units themselves.

[Normal]

Quote: Vasya

Therefore: it is necessary to appreciate the signalmen

Like at the end of a famous joke:

After the exercises, the actions of the troops are disassembled.

- Tankers? - well done - broke through ... developed ... - reward!
- Motorized gunners? - handsome - supported ... secured ... - note!
- Gunners? - clever - crushed ... provided ... - increase in ranks!
- Scouts? - eagles! - discovered ... opened ... - imagine!
- Comrade General ... and signalmen?
- What are the signalmen?
- Well, what about? Stable, reliable communications ... command and control ... ensuring interaction ...
- Yes? ... Well, okay ... So be it - today you can not punish the signalmen.

[ccsr]

Quote: Vasya

And again: Loss of communication - loss of control.
Therefore: it is necessary to value the signalmen and listen to their opinion, to study the means of communication in subordinate units themselves.

I fully agree with these conclusions. Even for modern communication professionals, Isaev’s article is quite interesting from the point of view of understanding what problems arose during the work of field facilities in the initial period of the war and how the problems were solved. The author points out that wired communications need large headquarters as air, but few people know that the first field hardware long-distance communications with us appeared only in 1942. This was a serious miscalculation in the pre-war construction of communications troops, when thanks to such as Tukhachevsky, a tremendous bias was made towards the development of means of destruction to the detriment of means of ensuring the combat activity of troops. This all influenced the instability of communication in the first months of the war. There are other reasons, but this requires a more detailed discussion.

[pensioner]

Quote: Monster_Fat

better to listen to one SMART than a hundred FOOLS?

A. Isaev is definitely not DU R AK. At least he is a candidate of historical sciences. And by his first education he is a physicist. MIPT, it seems, but they don’t hold fools there ... The main topic of his scientific research: The Great Patriotic War. From the archives - does not come out. The author of many (already) books. In the historical community - quite a respected person. And it is customary to listen to the opinions of such people.

[Gamdlislyam]

Quote: BigRiver

In a word, one book - one answer to a complex multi-layer question?
Grace .., for some thread on a Twitter Facebook hamster
Oh what a quick and quick minus

Dear colleague Vladimir, You can disagree with the opinion of a Monster_Fat colleague, but hanging labels is rudeness. I don’t know who put you a minus, but he’s out of business.
Even in childhood, on a subconscious level, my parents laid down a simple truth: If you want to be respected, respect others.

[Bigriver]

Quote: Gamdlislyam

Quote: BigRiver

In a word, one book - one answer to a complex multi-layer question?
Grace .., for some thread on a Twitter Facebook hamster
Oh what a quick and quick minus

Dear colleague Vladimir, You can disagree with the opinion of a Monster_Fat colleague, but hanging labels is rudeness. I don’t know who put you a minus, but he’s out of business.

I agree, in general. It could have been softer.
However, it’s not me to be rude, but comrade Monster_Fat started the author of the article. Yes, so condescending and immediately that I began to expect a detailed analysis of the entire book line of Alexei Isaev.

Another "theoretician"

Secondly, I can’t take seriously people who draw their knowledge of a question from one book. Especially if this book is a documentary story.

[YELLOWSTONE]

the fuel supply in the tank ran out much earlier, and the tankers knocked out the Luftwaffe, before knocking out the Soviet Air Force at peacetime airfields
in 100 hours without repair you can drive half of the USSR

[Setrac]

Quote: Monster_Fat

And the fool is clear that one "reason" without others is not decisive.

It depends on what reason. More than one and a half times the numerical superiority of the Wehrmacht with the satellites over the Red Army was crucial in the summer of the forty-first.

[vyatom]

Useless and one-sided little article. Monster_Fat comments are much more concise and competent. Well done. Competently and briefly commented.

[Setrac]

Quote: vyatom

Competently and briefly commented.

Where is he doing well? Breaking is not building, criticizing is easy.

[rubin6286]

In the wrong hands x ... always seems fatter

[Normal]

The defeats had a very definite explanation at the operational level, and the absence of any communication problems would hardly have significantly changed the situation.

Article plus.
With communication more or less sorted out.
I would like to read an analysis of another well-known reason for the defeats of the Red Army in the initial period of the war, namely the lack of topographic maps in the troops. Moreover, this affects the operational level the most.

[Gamdlislyam]

Quote: Normal

I would like to read an analysis of another well-known reason for the defeats of the Red Army in the initial period of the war, namely the lack of topographic maps in the troops.

But in this I support a colleague of Vladimir (Normal).
The lack of topographic maps will forgive the General Staff. Before the war, the topographic service was part of the structure of the NKVD and was quite a few, with a weak material base. After the start
The Great Patriotic War, faced with the problem of topographic maps, the decision of GKO reassigned this service to the People’s Commissariat of Defense and handed over to this service a number of printing houses, significantly increased the staff. Air units appeared in the service that were engaged in topographic photography. By the middle of 1942, the Red Army was provided with new maps of combat zones. By the end of 1943, most of the European territory of the USSR was mapped. Towards the end of the war, the cartographic service turned into a rather powerful structure. After the war, she was assigned from the Ministry of Defense to an independent department under the USSR Council of Ministers.

[Monster_Fat]

The author contradicts himself, especially the issue with the "delegates" of communication. Where is the help of the "delegates" in the same supposedly "successful" episode with two similar "delegates" near Stalingrad? It was the presence of two "delegates" that put the commander of the offensive operation, Volsky, in an idiotic position, and only his intelligence and foresight allowed him to "get out" of the difficult situation. Well, it sounds ridiculous that it was the lack of radio communications that supposedly made it possible to hide from the Germans our preparations for the counteroffensive at Prokhorovka. The author himself admits that the Germans knew about the approach of Rotmistrov's army, but did not know how many. If you know that some parts of the army have already approached, then it is quite logical to assume that the whole army is either already there, or will soon gather there. Yes, they, in fact, did not need to know this, because they already had neither the time nor the strength and the means to change something especially there, the operation was already practically lost, they had only one chance left and they tried to use it. And here is how the "sealed" radio stations affected the leadership of the operation and how many troubles it caused the author for some reason does not investigate. Rotmistrov himself admits that the ban on radio communications greatly complicated the leadership of the march and the operation itself. And in general the article looks stupid, especially when the author justifies the absence of "unreliable" radio communications in our country, especially when you know how and in what quantity the Germans used radio communications.

[Bigriver]

Quote: Monster_Fat

... it sounds ridiculous that it was the lack of radio communications that supposedly concealed from the Germans our preparations for a counterattack near Prokhorovka. The author himself admits that the Germans knew about the approach of Rotmistrov’s army, but did not know how much.
And in general the article looks stupid, especially when the author justifies the absence of "unreliable" radio communications in our country, especially when you know how and in what quantity the Germans used radio communications.

It was not a secret for the Germans at all to find reserves in that area. And the blow to defeat the reserves of the Red Army was planned even BEFORE the start of the Citadel.
It was possible to provide tactical surprise, hide the composition of the group and the direction of its main strike.
Regarding the comparison of radio usage ...
For our army (for headquarters of all levels from the army and below) it was just an unusual hemorrhoids. And to such an extent that the IVS had to issue a separate order after the start of the war, which forced them to master this means of communication in the troops. They didn’t know how, they didn’t love and it was too difficult (encryption). In addition, we did not expect such a fast maneuver war in which this connection would be of such importance.
The Germans did not have such problems. They fought for almost two years. And they ALL was subject to speed, maneuver, controllability, accuracy, maximum concentration in a narrow area, etc.

[Colonel]

With all due respect to the author, article "-". Wire communication channels were destroyed (conclusion from the materials of the article), and the inability or fear of the headquarters to use radio communications does not justify the loss of control. What does the charter of the 29th year, when it is necessary to withdraw the troops from the attack.
A story about treble

Such communication is carried out by connecting a group of low-power long-wave transmitters tuned to different waves with gaps between them of 3-4 kHz, to ordinary telephone wires. The high-frequency currents created by these transmitters propagate along the wires, having a very weak effect on radios not connected to these wires, while at the same time providing good, interference-free reception on special receivers attached to these wires

the author inserted it in vain into the article. It is painfully clumsy.

[werewolf]

No matter how sad it was, MARK SOLONIN in his book "JUNE 23:" M DAY "" is right for the campaign.

[Cpa]

I think, purely psychologically, the commanders did not want to get involved with radio communication. The commander needs a fast connection, he answered the phone, and in the radio, he had to either solve the puzzles with a table, or through a code clerk. And even now, many chiefs neglect radio discipline. Chechnya, the chief of staff went to meet the shift in Mozdok. In the air came out on the radio: "Comrade Colonel, a group of 24 people will arrive at the airfield by 20-00." I have eyes on my forehead, I run to the commander, they say, they went to meet with the guard while We didn’t make it. As we landed, it was worth it, although two months ago the "cow" was shot down right at the airfield. When we returned, I went to investigate. The chief of staff, a holder of the Order of Courage, once, under fire, pulled eight fighters out of a burning APC. When I explained to him, he did not understand that 8 saved, and 24 could have ruined. It almost came to a fight.

[Monster_Fat]

"Cow" (Mi-26) "Kornet" or "Arrow-Needle" shot down? I think almost everyone died there (more than a hundred), including the general? But it was like near Khankala?

[Cpa]

Quote: Monster_Fat

"Cow" (Mi-26) "Kornet" or "Arrow-Needle" shot down?

I didn’t guess to ask, and what does it change. They say there was an ambush, they shot down on take-off, I didn’t see it myself.

Quote: Monster_Fat

But was it like under Khankala?

So it is, and we met a turntable from Mozdok in Khankala.

[Monster_Fat]

My relative was supposed to fly that helicopter on vacation, but did not manage to hand over matters and was late for departure. He said that he was shot down from the surrounding mountains by ATGMs. And, what was strange, there were posts on the ridge specifically for tracking, but they were removed just a week before the tragedy, supposedly far from the airfield. And ATGM range up to 5500 meters. I do not understand, negligence was it or a malicious intent.

[Cpa]

Quote: Monster_Fat

My relative was supposed to fly that helicopter on vacation, but did not manage to hand over matters and was late for departure.

A year later, I had a similar story, I didn’t turn in the case, a day later I went, everyone went by the Grozny-Moscow train, which they let out for the first time, and they blew it up near Prokhladny. Thank God, there were two wounded without the dead.

Quote: Monster_Fat

And, what was strange, there were posts on the ridge specifically for tracking, but they were removed just a week before the tragedy, supposedly far from the airfield.

Yes, for sure, there was no security, all the time they were tying the cable until takeoff.

[Monster_Fat]

With the cable-like, everything is familiar-oh, and its hassle, then, burn-and smoke-unmasks and stinks a mile away, but what to do, we were "forgiven" the military, but somehow we had to live.

[Cpa]

Only, I’ve been tearing the cable.

[smersh70]

The author-frame: if even during the arrival of Stalin in the General Staff, the Chief of the General Staff reports that there is no connection with the headquarters of the DISTRICT, which is what we are talking about, not to mention the connection between the district headquarters and the headquarters of the troops ...

[igordok]

In the book "A Brief Guide to the Armed Forces of Germany" 1941 (pre-war) in the section "weapons" there is this photo. Many, before the war and during the war, were afraid to be tracked.

Rice, 25 Direction finder type 111 Wavelength range - 90-400 m. Receiver weight - 22,4 kg, power packaging - 13,5 kg.

[Bigriver]

Quote: Normal

... You need to understand that we did not have the experience of the 1st MV? The result - they knew how to fight, and we studied during the database Why didn’t we draw conclusions? Why did our doctrine of maintaining a database turn out to be unsuitable in the 41st?
That is, we did not participate in the 1st MV?
But did the Germans have had the experience of war on a front as long as in the 41st?

The Red Army - had no experience of the 1st World War. In addition, the General Staff of the Red Army is not a successor to the General Staff of the tsarist army.
You may not believe me, but you can check - we did not even have such an object as Strategy at the Academy of the General Staff. And do not remember the personnel army when it appeared?
There were separate systematic views on the nature of modern warfare that did not receive their development (Svechin, Triandafilov).
The Germans, on the other hand, had a continuous evolution of military thought from the end of the 19th to the middle of the 20th century, based on the rethinking of the regularly gained experience.
And there was an unconditional experience of confrontation with long-range fronts. They only with the strongest army in Europe - France fought twice in 25 years.
You just compare the background of the highest generals of the Wehrmacht and the Red Army in 1941. I’m not discovering anything new here.

[shurup]

In my youth, when I was in the regiment, it was my duty to familiarize myself in the morning with the signature of staff officers with incoming telephone messages in the journal.
If it was impossible to hide, they signed with visible displeasure on their faces, then muttered among themselves about the stupidity of their superiors. Most often I had to hunt down to the bushes for some reason for the automobile chief.
Was the order not to shoot the signalmen in the first period of the war caused by this?

[Bigriver]

Quote: Vasya

Quote: BigRiver

What comes first? 1. The presence of rationally organized military structures. Or: 2. The ability of these structures to fight.?

I believe that skill.

That is, do you think that you can become a skilled footballer just by watching football matches on TV regularly?
And you can become a skilled commander of a tank regiment in the field, as a brigade leader in the MTZ?
Original view: //

[Prutkov]

Quote: Vasya

Quote: Monster_Fat

the main thing is the inability to fight, that is, the inability to plan, manage and manage, the inability to take into account features- both technology and the situation, the inability to correctly use weapons and equipment, to take into account your own forces and the forces of the enemy, etc.

I agree.
It was, is and will be.
In peacetime, popcolises are higher. Literate are identified in wartime. (for example, G ... Zhukov. How the NGS killed everything (losses in the initial period of the war), as the commander of fronts, holding positions through executions, not taking into account the situation, as a representative of the headquarters - lack of participation in the coordination of armies and fronts (Kursk, Korsun-Shevchensk operation).
Communication article.
Loss of communication - loss of control. Why talk about the Second World War, if individual commanders can no longer speak on the ASW. During exercises, the entire encoding is replaced by obscenities. What is simplex duplex and propagation of radio waves is a minimal representation. And with the proliferation of cell phones, this has also worsened.
Infantry and tank schools taught radio communications (as I don’t know at institutes and universities now), but it killed me when I was sent to a tank regiment to check the radio communications between the tanks of the regiment before the exercises. They (tankers) could not set up the rst. !!!! .
They told us at the school: the most passionate enemies are not the enemy, but their tankers and foot soldiers. If the vole is not wound on the tracks, then it is expropriated.
In general, from the side of the signalman, it’s fun to listen to the negotiations of the combined arms (and even the naval). But during the WAR, these chuckles lead to disasters.
Once again: Loss of communication - loss of control.
Therefore: it is necessary to value the signalmen and listen to their opinion, to study the means of communication in subordinate units themselves.

I absolutely agree with you. I was always surprised that during the final checks everything was checked in all subjects, and the work on the means of communication was carried out as if "externally". Both infantry and tank crews have very little knowledge of the communications equipment that they have on their vehicles. Another problem that has remained, in my opinion, since the Second World War is the organization of interaction between different services and military branches. At one time, one of the veteran communications workers told me that more than 3 minutes. not a single radio operator was "on the air" - the area was immediately covered by artillery. Several times I had to attend exercises where electronic warfare equipment was used. In theory, the reconnaissance was supposed to take the direction finding of the radiation sources and give the coordinates to the gunners. Nothing like this! These are the problems of communications workers. Let them deal with electronic warfare themselves.

[andron352]

I don’t know how much I really read somewhere - during 08.08.08 our paratroopers perled on Tbilisi. And only the officer who caught up with the convoy was able to convey the order of Tbilisi not to seize.

[Normal]

Quote: andron352

I don’t know how much I really read somewhere - during 08.08.08 our paratroopers perled on Tbilisi. And only the officer who caught up with the convoy was able to convey the order of Tbilisi not to seize.

Well ... Again, the connection failed ...

[demotivator]

Quote: Monster_Fat

If one reads Soviet and German military memoirs, one immediately "strikes" the difference in the approach to warfare.

You can read not only memoirs, ours, or German military leaders. Good food for thought is also provided by reading the materials of the large Conference of the highest leadership of the Red Army, held by Stalin on December 23-31, 1940. To read the reports and speeches on it and much will become clear - what our army and navy thought about and prepared for.
For example, at this meeting, Army General Zhukov in his report The “nature of the modern offensive operation” reported that modern offensive operations are distinguished by the “bold and decisive use of tank divisions and mechanized corps in close cooperation with the air forces throughout the depth of the enemy’s operational defense” and claimed that “high rates of offensive operations prove this. Poland was defeated in 18 days (the average daily movement of Germans is 30 km), Holland, Belgium and Northern France, in 20 days, which is equal to (pace of attack) 20 km per day. The defeat of France - in 18 days, which is (at the rate of advance) 16 km per day, while the MMC reached 100-120 km “.”
But only later, after the war, the same Zhukov in his memoirs declares that no one expected massive attacks by the Germans ?! What does it mean? In 1940. he perfectly saw and understood how the Germans act in the offensive, and after a dozen years it turns out that "no one expected"?
As you know, immediately after the meeting Zhukov went on an increase - Stalin appointed him to the NKSh RKKA. The Military Historical Archive (No. 3, p. 264) reports that when the chief of the General Staff of the spacecraft G.K. Zhukov, the Main Intelligence Directorate of this headquarters brought a report "On the Franco-German War of 1939-1940," in which the actions of the operational strategic associations — the tank armies, first created by the Germans — were analyzed in detail, Zhukov wrote on the document: “I don’t need this.”
So, they say, we ourselves are the Hindenburgs, and the experience of others is not a decree for us!
Now about communication, or rather, only about one of its components - the communication of aircraft in the air with ground forces. At the said meeting, Air Force Inspector General Khryukin spoke. Khryukin appeared at the meeting arbitrarily and unexpectedly. He asked the bureau or Tymoshenko to give him the floor.
T. T. Khryukin spoke inconsistently, but said what he wanted - without radio communications in the air and on the ground, there will be no interaction between the air force and ground forces. And he said that those who are supposed to do this do not do this: “Communication is necessary, and as such it is even lacking in the state” That is, the point is not even that there are no radio stations or they are imperfect, but that they are not going to equip them with either land or air, since they ARE NOT STATE! And this is in 1940.
And yet - in those years, at the Academy. Frunze not a single academic hour was allotted to the study of communication ?? And it's not even the study of radio stations, direction finders and their work. After all, there are still huge questions of secrecy and secrecy of communication - encryption, coding. The Germans already had the Enigma automatic cryptographic machine in the division, they encoded topographic maps in a very original and reliable way and laughed throughout the war when they intercepted our “coded” messages, in which once and for all: a soldier is a “pencil”, a shell - “ cucumber ", etc." I have 30 pencils left, send me a car of cucumbers "- for what fool was such a code? By the way, because of the most complete flaw in the issues of secrecy of radio communications, our generals were afraid of it.

[demotivator]

The famous Soviet historian V.A. Anfilov described the state of communication in the early days of the war with blue-and-black paint:

Former commander of the Western Front D.G. During interrogation at the NKVD, Pavlov also assessed the state of communications in the early days of the war much less dramatically than the post-war historian.

Do not be surprised that there are different estimates of the same phenomenon. But it is worthwhile to figure out how it really was there. The Military Historical Journal, No. 4 in 1989, gave an article by V. A. Semetko, “Sources of defeat in Belarus,” where there are such words about the state of communications in the Belarusian PSB on June 22, 1941:
“The district’s troops were provided with standard means of communication as follows: radio stations (army and airfield — 26–27, corps and divisional — 7, regimental — 41, battalion — 58, and company — 70 percent); devices (telegraphic - by 56, telephone - up to 50 percent); cable (by telegraph - by 20, telephone - by 42 percent). ”
Company and battalion radio stations can only relate to the tank divisions where they were provided. The rifle units had no idea about them.
And what about the Germans? By June 22, 1941 in them, only in the infantry and artillery regiments, the anti-tank and reconnaissance battalions of the conventional infantry division, the number of radio stations should be estimated at no less than 70. Different types. But these are radio stations for communication with companies and platoons. And the division headquarters maintained contact with regiments and battalions with the help of a communications battalion.
In the German radio broadcast, not only a radio operator, but every soldier knew how to use the Enigma cryptographic machine, work at any radio station, transmit and receive at least 100 characters per minute with a key without errors.
And the Red Army, even in the best military academy, did not have an hour to study communications. The gap in the level of communication between us and the Germans was like between heaven and earth, and the chief of the General Staff of the Red Army, General MERETSKOV, six months before the war, in a report on the state of combat training of the Army generally does not mention a word about communication, even the task does not raise its improvement! Accidentally?
In the picture, German soldiers encrypt a radio message with an ENIGMA encryption machine.

[captain]

I somehow compared the service of our generals Pavlov and Kirponos with the German commanders. I think this is a considerable part of our defeats in 1941. We like to say that it’s not the gods who burn pots, that’s what they burned the whole war. When I studied at the Frunze Academy, I asked the teacher a question about the breakthrough of the enemy’s defense by the Germans and ours. The Germans tore the defense with tanks, and we were infantry. The teacher answered me that on the Zeelovsky Heights we tried to break through the armored armies and ditched them. I will express my opinion, I do not pretend to be correct. We never learned how to organize the interaction of the armed forces, units and subunits. And we did not learn to protect people, there was only one principle, women still give birth.

[Sergey TT]

In my opinion, the most competent historian of the Second World War.