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Subject: Barbarrossa - the not-so-surprising attack From: "Bill Howell. Hussar. Alberta. Canada" <> Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2018 07:01:01 -0700 To: "Gordon Ball. PEng Aircraft Landing Nav Systems. Ottawa" Cc: It's seems clear that the "Barbarossa" attack by Germany against Russia was anything but a surprise. The Russians had excellent information starting almost a year before hand, from top level spies, from monitoring of activity in the border regions, and from a variety of other sources, probably including Enigma and other decoding. To me, the real question is why didn't Russia attack first, as they had been preparing for an offensive for some time. The advantages of not attacking were enormous and long-lasting (even until today!), as the ally of [Germany,Japan] and great enemy of the [UK,USA] suddenly became their close comrades. Huge material shipments and payments into Russia greatly helped their efforts. Their newly-established position as victims and Allies, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt's puppet-like following of Stalin's orders, were critical to the giant post-war expansion of the USSR and of Communism throughout the world. Unfortunately for Russia, the ineffectiveness of the [UK,USA] did not result in a continental European presence of the Allies until after the Italy campaigns, when June 1944 D-Day was launched. The cost in equipment and lives was enormous - entire armies were destroyed during Barbarossa. But Russia's traditional defense-in-depth (3 North-South major fronts?) and scorched earth tactics won again, as they had often in history. Still, I am sure that I am unaware of key factors that tipped this decision, even beyond he ghost of Tamerlane (Timur Lenk, and other spellings). Bill |