How did USSR manage to modernise its armed forces during WW2?

Question

esp. Stalin had purged his officers and men prior.

Answer 1

Who says they did?

They had two major things going for them. The lend-lease program which was started with England, it was a means of "loaning" material and equipment that they could not pay for. Still haven't.

The other thing was numbers. Anyone seen to retreat was shot, so they had great incentive.

Answer 2

In the begin since 1927 Germany and the USSR were sharing arms developments, tanks, planes, weapons. Reason was that the Treaty of Versailles had placed restrictions upon Germany, Germany was restricted to a 100,000 man army no tanks, or planes. Germany made a number of secret deals with the USSR to develop and manufacture tanks and planes. After all the USSR and Germany started the war off on the same side.
How did they re-train the Army leadership? Well do to the purges complete divisions and one entire USSR Army group surrender to the Germans with weapons. They had no love for Stalin. It was only after Hitler made the mistake of being worst than Stalin did the life come back into the Army. War is unforgiving and the one that survive no more than the one that did not. So experience matters greatly.
The USSR used brute force to mobilize the population and they stopped the Germans with brute force and the long proven Russian strategy of sacrificing land for time.
And the USSR had the people and land to sacrifice. Why do you think there lost 13% of there total population during the war.

Answer 3

From what I know, they didn't modernize their armed forces very well, which is why Germany attacked France first. If you want to see an accurate depiction of how poorly equipped Russian infantry were, watch the first part of Enemy at the Gates, where you see masses of soldiers without guns, running to their fallen comrades to pick them up! Not everyone went into battle armed, at least not until their fellow soldiers died. However, the Russian Tiger tanks proved to be superior to the German Panzers at the Battle of Kursk, which was the largest tank battle in human history and a severe blow to the German effort along the eastern front.

I believe I have been corrected, the Tiger was a German tank, the Russians had the T-34, as mentioned above.

Answer 4

They moved all their factories to the east side of the Ural Mountains, insuring they could not be bombed.
The younger officers rose up to become leaders, like Zhukov and Khrushchev.
They developed the T series tanks which were faster and more manouverable than the German Tiger and Panther tanks.
They developed massive artillery tactics and rockets, esp the Katousha which fired in banks of 20 or more.

Answer 5

Um, t34 tank (?not sure on name) was the most armored tank during the war. The red army though, did often use horses, maybe because they wouldnt have as big as of a problem with the snow as the tanks would, or maybe they just didnt have jeeps. Their rifles were slightly better than the German KAR, but nowhere near as good as the US Garand. Their SMG (Thompson, mp40 and such) was comparable to all at the time.

Answer 6

The economy was completely industrialized. Everything was focused on weapon industry. Both import and export were planned into detail. This lead to great poverty amongst the people, because when the money made from export was not the expected amount, people had to pay for it, to make up for the costs of the industrialization. Therefor, this developed quickly.

Answer 7

Jason,
though the USSR managed to "produce" machinery in terms of tanks, planes, guns, ammunition, etc. It was the tactics and methodology employed that they used against the Germans that would turn out to be by far their best weapon. Stalin did manage to kill off some of the most qualified officers (to the tune of 39,00 of his best by the way, not counting thousands of other enlisted "non-essentials"). The Russians had numbers - numbers of people that could build factories in a hurry. These same "numbers" provided the fodder for the Russian tactics. Because of the numbers of people in the form of male and female troops they were able to "throw" people at the Germans in such over whelming numbers that this action alone may have been the one saving mechanism in keeping Moscow from being overrun by the Germans.

The "modernization" as you ask in your question is more reflective of how factories and munitions are developed today. In 1941 as Operation Barbarrosa got under way the Russians had already foreseen what the Germans intentions were and by this time military production had already been on the rise in the USSR. With the attack underway they were able to build more, provide more, and subsequently received alot of supplies and materiel from the U.S.A. When writing or thinking of Russian production during WWII, think of numbers or amounts of available people and hands to do the jobs necessary for victory. By the time WWII was over, the Russians had lost 20,000,000+ of its citizens - it is to me no wonder why they never consider the U.S. to have won the war when considering these numbers of people. Stalin had asked for a Western Front for 2 1/2 years before we had landed at Normandy and we had already had that amount of time in actual ground, air, and sea fighting in the Pacific (again before the Normandy invasion began with Operation Overlord).

Hope this helps! "Numbers" should be a consideration for any paper, dissertation, or reflection in "arm chair analysis" when thinking of the Russians during this time frame. Life for them has never been easy, almost always tough, and hence "life" does not have the same meaning to those that experienced WWII to later generations. This is also reflected in how they treated the Germans as they would work their way to the Rhine. Both sides raped and pilaged their way through, though I have to admit I believe the Russians had a "right" to do so if any "right" could be fathomable.

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Answer 8

The American Lend-Lease program helped immensely. Trading material for land use. America sent over thousands and thousands of trucks and jeeps, equipment like that. That freed Stalins factory's to concentrate artillery and tanks.

Answer 9

They were not all dumb peasants as many believe. With the aid coming via convoys they were able to copy them and make their own versions of them and adapt their own Migs and Sukois
Their T38's were crudely made, but made on a large scale and used in massed attacks, particularly at the Battle of Kursk.
Kursk is the biggest tank battle the world has seen

Answer 10

i substitute into alive throughout the time of WW2,i substitute into born in 1928 yet i substitute into too youthful to enlist yet substitute into conscripted into the army in 1946,I served 2 years which substitute into the norm.each able bodied guy had to serve. I had no selection which branch I went to.