Chinese often say that heroes are born in a chaotic world, and in World War II, there were many heroes and famous generals. We are familiar with MacArthur, Mountbatten, Guderian, Montgomery, etc., all of which are internationally recognized as famous conductors. There was also a controversial general, Zhukov, who on the one hand was known as the soviet god of war, and won almost every battle, and the victories he fought directly affected the entire course of World War II.
But on the other hand, he has been criticized for saying that many more soldiers have died in each battle than the enemy. Although he won many battles in the Soviet-German War, the Loss of the Soviet Army was more than double that of the German Army. In the eyes of Chinese, this is obviously not a real victory.
Some people think that Zhukov is not worthy of the title of Soviet military god at all, nor is he worthy of the honorary title of Hero of the Soviet Union four times.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="2" >, most campaign data can not be on the table, too many casualties</h1>
First of all, to explain, Zhukov is not a hundred victories, but he has won a lot of battles, enough to offset his losing battles. After all, no general in history has really lost a single war, unless he has fought only one battle.
Let's first look at Zhukov's landmark battles in the Soviet-German War.
In the Battle of Moscow, the Soviet Union participated in the battle with 1.25 million soldiers, and the German army was worth a million troops, which means that the Soviet Union was able to stabilize the German army in numbers. But the end result of the battle was that the Soviets suffered more than 850,000 casualties and the German army suffered only 500,000 casualties.
In the 6th Army, which claimed to have annihilated the invincible German Army commanded by Paulus, Zhukov used millions of troops to kill and wound 400,000 soldiers at a moment when the 6th Army was already at the end of its crossbow. Throughout the Battle of Stalingrad, the Soviet Union lost nearly a million troops, while germany suffered only about 800,000 casualties.
In the Already Steady Battle of Berlin, the Soviet Union had more than 2.6 million soldiers, and Zhukov had directly lost 350,000 Soviet soldiers before the Soviet flag was planted on the top floor of the German Reichstag. And if we look at the German army, there are only 800,000 soldiers, and the number of casualties does not exceed 400,000.
This led Eisenhower to speak bluntly, believing that it was because the Allies did not capture Berlin that the lives of hundreds of thousands of soldiers were not lost. The implication was obvious: he was accusing the Soviet army under Zhukov of heavy losses and not the right choice a good general should make.
In the Battle of Kursk, the Soviet Army also had 1.9 million troops, which can be described as a huge million troops, but the number of casualties at that time also exceeded 800,000. The German army was less than half of the Soviet army involved in the war, and the number of casualties was only 500,000 soldiers.
Not only was this situation faced in confrontation with the German army, but the Soviet army under Zhukov's command was also faced with this situation in which the casualty rate was far greater than that of the enemy army when confronting the Japanese army. At the Battle of Nomonkan, the Soviet army far exceeded the Japanese army, almost three times the size of the Japanese army.
Moreover, in the case that the weapons and equipment far exceeded that of the Japanese army, it still caused a large number of casualties and injuries. The number of Japanese casualties, including wounded and missing, in this battle was 17,000. The Soviet army alone killed nearly 10,000 and wounded more than 16,000.
Comparing these data, it can be seen that the battle commanded by Zhukov is really not on the table. Therefore, many people will feel that his title of "Soviet God of War" is really unworthy of its name.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="4" > Second, the tactics of the sea of people have no martial arts to speak of, but the number of people is really powerful</h1>
There are many reasons for this situation, but in the eyes of Chinese, only the battle of winning more with less and defeating the strong with the weak is worthy of praise. The general who commands this kind of battle is the truly well-deserved god of war.
Chinese fighting wars is about the art of war, to put it bluntly, victory lies in wisdom. Therefore, in the history of war in ancient China, there are countless examples of winning more with less, and there are also many well-deserved gods of war. When Zhukov encountered a man who would only use man-sea tactics to win the war, naturally many people would have an opinion.
But Zhukov obviously did not think so, or that his command ability was not up to this level. In the eyes of foreigners, the ultimate goal of war is to achieve victory, and any reason needs to open the way for victory.
In particular, the Soviet Union, which was caught off guard by Germany's blitzkrieg and almost suffered the humiliation of national subjugation, could not see anything in its eyes, and only the word victory could wash away their great shame and humiliation. Therefore, at that time, Zhukov would desperately adopt the tactics of the sea of people in order to win the war.
However, Zhukov's tactical command is indeed very inflexible, and it can even be said that it has reached the level of rigidity. We can compare the German general Manstein, who is also known as a general, he is a tactical genius, even if there are only a very few troops and a very narrow combat space, he can use various tactics to the extreme, so as to win the war.
Compared with Manstein, a genius general who was flexible and flexible on the battlefield, Zhukov's style of play was much the same, that is, to use more troops and better equipment to fight the enemy's smaller and weaker troops.
In most battles, he would concentrate all his strength and directly hit the opponent with an overwhelming advantage. To put it bluntly, it is still a set of people with great strength.
This has also been known as Zhukov's style of warfare, never considering the casualties of soldiers, and winning the war at all costs.
This approach, while stupid, has proven to be really useful. After all, the population of the Soviet Union at that time was nearly 160 million, and the population of Germany during World War II was 80 million.
Being able to win the war, keep the Soviet Union from being invaded, and make no huge mistakes in command, Zhukov can be regarded as a qualified commander. After all, Zhukov was a success compared to many generals who had an overwhelming advantage in the army and still did not achieve victory.
Only the Soviet generals would occasionally complain about Zhukov, as long as there was no large army he did not dare to go to war, could not fight, could not win.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="6" > third, the lack of excellent commanders, Soviet soldiers far less effective than German soldiers</h1>
In addition to dismissing Zhukov's own command style and the love of people and strength, the Soviet army killed more soldiers than the enemy in each battle, which was also related to the lack of talented commanders in the Soviet Union.
The death rate of commanders in the early days of World War II was too high, and at the beginning, everyone did not have much experience, and the probability of tragic death on the battlefield was very high. Therefore, it is only possible to promote the commander of the combatants from the new recruits who have not experienced the battlefield several times, and the generals can be promoted from the short, and the effect can be imagined.
Many of the Soviet Union's commanding and combatants were promoted on ad hoc basis, which was naturally inferior to the excellent German generals who had already experienced hundreds of battles and were prepared. Therefore, when the commanders of the Soviet Union encountered large-scale corps operations, they also had no bottom in their hearts.
This was the situation faced by the Soviet Union as a whole, with many more soldiers killed than the enemy as a whole, and it was not only the battles commanded by Zhukov that faced such a situation.
Since the outbreak of World War II, the Soviet Union has produced more than 130,000 fighter jets, more than 100,000 tanks, and 820,000 artillery and mortars.
Such staggering data led to the Soviet Union's lack of soldier training, after all, there was always a steady stream of fighters and tanks transported to the battlefield, who would pay attention to the training of soldiers? After sacrificing a soldier, there were thousands of Soviet people behind him, so such a sea tactic lasted the entire Soviet-German war.
Manstein in Germany used only two army groups at that time, and fought with the Soviet Union's million-strong army for more than a year. This is because Germany attaches importance to the training of the fighting quality of soldiers, and the Soviets are very lacking in this regard, and if it were not for the fact that the combat effectiveness of Soviet soldiers was far inferior to that of the German army, it would not have caused such a large number of deaths and injuries.
According to statistics, more than 22 million soldiers died in the Soviet army, and nearly 10 million Soviet civilians died in the war.
Especially in the late stages of World War II, everyone fought to the point of exhaustion, and the Soviet Union began to recruit new recruits and eggs, which was not a rare case of one death. At that time, the German army relied not only on blitzkrieg and sophisticated equipment, but also on the basic fighting qualities of soldiers.
When Germany blitzed France, France, as an established military power, was also defeated, losing two million soldiers in a month.
Naturally, the battles under Zhukov's command naturally had to face this situation, so each battle killed many more soldiers than the enemy, and Zhukov could not be blamed for all. After all, Zhukov's fighting style was like this, and in the end he also won the victory. Moreover, the lack of command personnel in the Soviet Union and the combat effectiveness of soldiers were far lower than those of the German army, which eventually led to this situation.
Text/Lamb
Reference: "Only "change" can win, and defending "stiff" is defeated", Zeng Xing, Zhang Lingyue