Essentially, with a production run in the 55,000 range, it's no wonder it has able to overwhelm the enemy. Not unlike when Russian generals sent barely armed men against the enemy to face automatic weapons. They had the numbers.
Distilling the whole thing to a number isn't insightful, or a good description of how it progressed. I think you need to look at timelines.
The Germans obviously had the upper hand in the beginning as Russia was unprepared and Stalin having purged Russia's (USSR's) most able commanders (due to paranoia) before the war didn't help things. Had they been prepared Germany would not have been within 20 miles of Moscow. Germany grew overconfident and was unprepared for a war in freezing climate, whereas the Russians at least didn't have supply line issues to contend with.
Well every ally's entry to the war was botched. France was overwhelmed in a couple of weeks. U.S. lost much of it's Pacific fleet in matter of hours. Britain had its Dunkirk moment.
Unlike the Brits and Americans though, USSR didn't have have an advantage of natural geographic isolation. It's a bit unfair to pretend Russian case was somehow fundamentally different than the others.
> It's a bit unfair to pretend Russian case was somehow fundamentally different…
Can you elaborate on that? I'm not sure I follow.
Never the less, I would say the Russian front was different in that the Winters imparted severe contraints and challenges on the invading army. Another thing is Russia had the population numbers. They could afford to "throw" a generation at the Germans.
Anyhow, not sure the veracity of the following link, but it provides some different opinion: http://operationbarbarossa.net/Myth-Busters/MythBusters2.htm...
Essentially, with a production run in the 55,000 range, it's no wonder it has able to overwhelm the enemy. Not unlike when Russian generals sent barely armed men against the enemy to face automatic weapons. They had the numbers.