hmmm kind of political ..
ok i will add some then,
ive spoken to several people who were in lenningrad at the time of the siege.
not stalingrad, but hey
.. similar time..
.
firstly the original troops protecting it were not sufficiant to keep the germans at bay.
stalin ordered the population to stay put and fight to the death,
he send interior ministy troops ther eto keep the people in and shot those who fled and shot fleeing soviet troops,
the basicaly forced the people to stay,
then the population was beset by the nazi germans,
who with all intentions would murder them or enslave them in labor sceams in europe if the took the city,
the communist party members and militaryin the city organised a defence , but as stalin had removed most guns ther ewas few to be had to be used to assist the russian troops,
mostly some thousand hunting guns and training toz .22s were had,
various homemade weapons were produced as bombs and spears and such,
the army its self had guns enougth,, although bearly,
later population began to produce submachine guns, bombs and other weaponry, i understand even tank parts and mortars and large guns,
later some of the population was allowed to leave but all men were kept to fight, and still many civilians were kept,
however the city was big and in the street there was gangs of bandits and cannibals roaming around to kill people to eat or rob them of thier food,
much of the civilian population died fleeing the city where german planes mowed them down,
the rest starved in the city,
later internal ministry restored order and many hundreds or thousands of cannibals were executed, i met a man who was nearly eaten in the seige when he was a boy, many were escaped convicts or other rouges...
as for knives , i think they used what they could, .
seems amoungst the russians form rural areas hunting knvies stuck in the boot were common with soliders fom rural villages in central siberia..
mostly look like guardless broad balded hidden tang knives, , with a slight clip point or slightly curved blade, like things use din the kitchen 3mm thick or so,
as the "mongolidic" troops the nazis encounteres later in 1943 and 1944 , mostly there is kazakhs, mongolians, tuvans and kyrgiz, (stalin was invading tuva while the men were on the front
cheeky guy
)
these 4 groups adoped the sovied secular system enmass in the 1920's and were mostly pro soviet and could be trusted, there was many kazakhs heros of ww2 and sereval very decorated kazakh female snipers and tank drivers,
the uzbeks, tajiks , turkmen and most south caucasus people were veiwed and for the most part anti soviet and pro nazi, as were most of the north caucascus folk other than the dagestanis, who also fought in very large numbers in ww2,,
much of these non russian peoples had been seminomadic farmers, .. or herdsmen or living in mountian villages before the war , and so many still retianed their traditional knives, .
russian solider was not normaly issued a knife and had just to make do with was he could make,
i saw in dagestan several laminated wood handled kindjals from ww2, one had some slogan on the blade, . death or facshists or such, they were mostly small daggers. looking in the kindjals basic shape , but not quite.
also in the norht the soviets captured many wild nomads to fight the nazis.
they too thier woman and childern ad herds and collateral and they were forced to fights the finns and the nazis, , the normal practice was to leav them with only thier traditional axes and knvies till the nazis were near, and then the comissars woudl issue out the rifles and ammo :S :O . i understand in the kirealian area on several occasions the native folk, saami, komi and other nomads took the finns and germans on with knives and rocks :S when their "controlers" fled or retreated wihtouth releasing thier firearms,
beucase of this the "native preservation" act of stalins were effected after the war as the nomads nere then greatly short of men and had for osme years encountered the soviet system, after the war they were collectivised in large areas, destroying thier culture..
mostly these guys all carried long knives like the finnish puko, some in a wooden or bone sheath,
the russians seemed to, as did the germans like the shovels, and also axes were common amoungst the russians,
as for the soviet war deaths, i woudl say that much was not caused by the fighting, but by the cruel reprisals form both the soviets and the nazis,
the nazis would kill in any area all communist party members, all jews, all gypsys and all suspect folks, then they woudl deport the rest to work as slaves , the soviets used brutial patizan techniques against their own poeple and the nazis, and the germans woudl kill randomly 50 or 100 civilians for every death of thier own,
or starve out areas that were suspect, the nazis also kill enmass the captured soviet troops, some milions, .. sometimes in most sadistic fashion,
mostly starved shot or poisoned, shot for sport, fed to dogs, cooked and force fed to their fellow soliders, birried alive frozen, injected with petrol or bleach, hunted for sport on the camp grounds.. and lots of other, bazaar stuff. ,
the russians , althoguh not kind made no attempt to kill the nazi prisoners they had, but just worked them till they were dead form cold,
..
the soviets deported large numbers of suspect peoples or punished them ,
chechens, who wer eplanning to side with the nazis, kalmyks, volga germans, some 4 milion, , cossaks, russians , lithuanians, ukranians, ect ect.
soliders considered suspect, lots of poeple ended up in labor settelments,, , the gulag.
so i guess lots of shill killed all the 20 odd milion soviet folk who died,
as for the quality of the kit.. i think the russians gear was very shoddy, and mostly provided by them selves,
but suted to the environment,
i talked to an old german once who had fourght in lenningrad, i asked whad did the soviet troops have that you looked for , and he said big felt boots and sunflower seeds .
seems in winter these two were very handy,
the russian tanks were better becuase of the casting in the bodys, making them much stronger than germen tanks , even when they were thinner in plate,
also the suspention system and the use of forgings and castings instead of machined parts and plate like the germans ,
the semiauto guns of the russians werwe all good, and i would say could easerly out shoot the garand and were better battle rifles, but mostly clumsy. and they had poorly made magazines, thin metal...
other than these and the tanks the russian equiptment was poor i woudl say, but the soliders were desperate and were between a rock and a hard place, they also had lived in a pepetual state of fear and oppressrion 100s of years,, and were much more willing to die or endure famine, illness and other hardships than the average german,,
,
now russian firms have been allowed to get loose of their soviet constriants and make a wide range of interesting and advanced products, however many are never sold , due to a lack of market, if they hade the same size of goverment contracts and the u.s. firms have you would , im shure have some very good machines,
one thing the russians have over most other nations is that they have skilled specialy trained weapons designers.
meaning a single individual can design a concept, tank, plain , gun , ect ect, not a commity, however they lack the$ to develop these thigns other than in small numbers and in reduced potential,
Uh... my dad had a bayonet.
