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Numbers of men do not win mechanized battles. But even mechanically, the best units of the Russian Army are heavier than Germany's. The Russians have a childlike, Oriental faith in the unanswerable power of machinery, and they have equipped their divisions to the ears. Each infantry division has an unusually high percentage of tanks—one battalion. Estimates of Red tank totals run from 6,000 to 20,000 (compared with perhaps 15,000 German tanks). The Russians have a few vast 100-ton "land battleships" which look better in the Red Square than in action, but they also have about 1,500 medium tanks (20-30 tons) with the heaviest armament of any tanks their size—three cannon, four machine guns. The total number of planes in an air force is meaningless, but it is possible that Russia has the edge in numbers, although Russian planes are slow.
On the record, the German Army looks good; not one of its missions has gone sour. The Russian Army, which has fought only Finland and the Japanese on a minor scale, looks bad. It is not, however, quite as bad as it looks.
In Finland, Russia's best divisions fought hard and courageously on the hardest testing ground they could possibly have chosen. In the beginning they managed very badly, but towards the end much better. They were resilient. They improvised—used armored sleighs, field guns on skis, three-storied dugouts, dummy encampments to decoy bombers.
The Russian Army—and especially its Commander in Chief Marshal Semion Timoshenko—observed well the lessons of Finland. The biggest lesson was that no army can function when officers advise rather than command, beg rather than order. Marshal Timoshenko applied that lesson by banishing political commissars from the Army, restoring the rank of General, empowering officers to force obedience even if the pistol was the only way, obliging common soldiers to swallow their comradely pride and salute their superiors.
Another important lesson of Finland was that quantity is not enough. The pitiful 44th Division which lay on a road before Suomussalmi, equipped as thoroughly as any mechanized division in the world, heavy as steel could make it, was shot to pieces because, like a supine knight in armor, it was too ponderous to get up and go. Accordingly, when the vast military maneuvers began last year, Semion Timoshenko addressed his officers (see cut, p. 23) with these words:
"We intend to check up on the fitness of our small units. ... If each such particle attains real efficiency and imbues genuine military culture in all of our larger units, our troops, should they be called upon to fight, will carry on their operations without sustaining heavy losses."
A beginning of Russian improvement, therefore, had been made. Maneuvers are not as good training as wars. It is doubtful whether determination could give Russians as keen military instincts as Prussians. Experience and innate skill were probably also on the side of the Germans.
Up to the Marshal. If all these military factors favored the Germans, there was only one thing left which might save the Russians—genius of generalship. The Germans have some pretty seasoned generals. To beat them was the staggering task of Marshal Timoshenko.