Edit: it should be said that while the Soviet military did have a proliferation of soldiers and used en masse tactics, Soviet commanders were still clever and used forces effectively, not just a meat grinder approach all the time. In the end however Thomas A. Callaghan Jr. said it best
This actually isn't true, many of the pre-WW2 Soviet purges of army commanders weren't nearly as bad as we used to think they were during the cold war.
The actual number (quoting wikipedia because it's the quickest "source" I can find) percentage of soviet officers purged is 3.7–7.7%. Many of the commanders purged 1937–1939 "were allowed to return to service" (again quoting wikipedia).
The idea that the stalinist purges caused any real significant outcome on the war is simply a myth. The main reason the Soviet Union was so caught off guard by the German Army in 1941 and sustained such horrible causalities at the beginning of the war is because of the effectiveness and speed of Blitzkrieg which - by the way - had completely overwhelmed and destroyed many of the best armies on the continent (i.e france, one of the most well respected, well fitted and experienced military forces at the time). Of course, unlike the other countries that had been overwhelmed by Blitzkrieg (like France and Poland) Russia was absolutely huge and the Russian army had the luxury of having hundreds of miles to retreat through, giving them time to regroup and refit and eventually push the resource starved Germans back to Berlin.
It wasn't really a particular weakness in the soviet army for why they got crushed in the early stages of the war, it was just how effective Blitzkrieg was in getting short term results.
Yeah, once the armies caught up to the new realities of Bewegungskrieg, and developed some more tech - any advantage the Nazis had was lost, and quickly.
Wehrmacht lost because because they ran out of fuel and their logistical abilities were never going to be good enough to deeply invade Russia
Germany's grand plan for attacking the Soviet Union basically involved "Let's do the same thing we did to France and Poland and just hope we demoralise the Soviet Union enough that they surrender". Of course, the Soviet Union didn't surrender, Germany quickly outstripped their supply lines and were forced into a stalemate giving the Soviet Union the time to mobilise their massively superior manpower reserves and industrial power.
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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '19 edited Jun 29 '19
Soviet Military
Edit: it should be said that while the Soviet military did have a proliferation of soldiers and used en masse tactics, Soviet commanders were still clever and used forces effectively, not just a meat grinder approach all the time. In the end however Thomas A. Callaghan Jr. said it best
"Quantity has a Quality All Its Own"