"Rostyslaw J. Lewyckyj" wrote in message ...
Stuart Wilkes wrote:

Hm. One wonders how this purged Soviet Army managed to inflict over 3
times as many German KIA in the first seven weeks of Barbarossa as the
combined Franco-Anglo-Belgian-Dutch armies managed in the six-week
campaign in the West.

What were the numbers of soldiers involved in the two campaigns that
you are comparing. i.e:

Suprisingly equal, Rostyk. I'm suprised you didn't know that.

Size of armies in the west and the casualties?

Well, the French Army alone suffered 1.9 million KIA and prisoners in
the campaign in the West, while the combined
Franco-Anglo-Belgian-Dutch armies inflicted ~27,000 KIA on the
Germans. In this case, the the Germans faced Anglo-French Armies
that were fully mobilized and alerted, their governments having
declared war on Nazi Germany nine months previous.

Size of the armies in Barbarossa and the casualties?

The Soviet Army suffered ~2 million KIA and prisoners at the hands of
the German-Italian-Finnish-Romanian-Hungarian Armies, during the first
9 weeks of Barbarossa, while inflicting ~83,000 KIA on the German Army
alone in the first 7 weeks of Barbarossa. In this case, the Germans
faced unprepared unalerted, peacetime-strength Rifle Divisions (~6000
men) far from their assigned battle positions, which is one of the
advantages you get when you do a sneak attack. Ask the Japanese (c.f.
Jap sneak attacks on Port Arthur, Pearl Harbor) about the general
tactical advantages of a sneak attack on unprepared enemies.

And the purges themselves had no impact on Western estimates of the
Soviet military. They derided it before the Purges, and the derided
it after the Purges.

The effect on the estimates is of course irrelevant.

Mr. Wilshaw brought them up to show that Western skepticism about
Soviet promises was warranted. My reply shows that they had little
actual effect on the West's perception of the Soviets.

What matters is the actual effect!

And by comparison to the performance of the advanced Western countries
the year before, it does not seem that the effect was particularly
great.

Tukhachevskii was discovered in the West to have
been a military genius only after he was safely dead.

How does the fact that Tukhachevskii was judged to have been a genius
matter?

It shows that the Purges had little effect on Western perceptions of
Soviet military effectiveness prior to WWII.

Moreover how does the timing of this recognition matter?
Just what does it matter whether he was safely dead or unsafely? alive?
Perhaps your phrasing sounds good, but what is it supposed to show?

That the Purges really had little actual effect on Western perceptions
of Soviet military effectiveness and reliability. The Soviets were
totally discounted as a factor, both before the Purges and after.

Stuart Wilkes