Last time we spoke about the Red Army on the Run. In the second week of Operation Barbarossa, the progress of the German forces was marked by swift victories and severe challenges. The Luftwaffe's dominance in the skies led to significant destruction of Soviet aircraft, with Germany claiming thousands downed. However, the Soviet Air Force, with hidden reserves, began to regroup under General Timoshenko, setting the stage for resilience. Amid these chaotic battlefields, disorganization plagued the Red Army, which struggled to adapt its tactics against the more cohesive German forces. Despite losing heavily, Soviet commanders sought to turn the tide, but logistical issues and fierce German assaults exacerbated their plight. As the Germans captured crucial territories like Riga, their strategic goal conflicted with rising concerns from within their command. While Hitler believed victory was within reach, generals like Halder worried about underestimating Soviet strength. The relentless advances led to fierce fighting at the edges of Smolensk, where both armies braced for an inevitable and consequential clash. 

This episode is the beginning of the Battle for Smolensk 

Well hello there, welcome to the Eastern Front week by week podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about world war two? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on world war two and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel you can find a few videos all the way from the Opium Wars of the 1800’s until the end of the Pacific War in 1945. 

Well hello there, we are back and its week three of Operation Barbarossa. On July 8, Army Group Centre officially proclaimed that it had captured 287,704 prisoners, destroyed or seized 2,585 tanks, and taken 1,449 guns. While these numbers do reflect considerable gains, they do not necessarily indicate that the Soviet Union was on the brink of collapse, in fact, the opposite was true. As the German offensive strength began to wane, the Soviet Union was implementing one of the most remarkable mobilization programs in military history. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the Red Army had developed a cadre system, maintaining a small number of active-duty soldiers in peacetime that could be rapidly expanded by reservists during wartime. This system received a boost with the 1938 Universal Military Service Law, which extended the age of enlistment for army reserves to 50 and established numerous military schools to accommodate the influx of recruits. By the time of the German invasion, the Red Army boasted a mobilization base of 14 million men. By the end of June 1941, 5.3 million reservists had been called up, with subsequent mobilizations continuing to swell the ranks. This cadre system allowed for an unprecedented rate of force generation, catching German intelligence completely off guard and concealing the true strength of the Soviet military. In July 1941, an astounding 13 new field armies emerged, followed by another 14 in August. While these reserve armies were not as well-equipped or trained as their professional counterparts, as the German mobile forces weakened, many of the frontlines began to settle into positional warfare. This shift granted the new armies the time they needed to improve.

While it would be unreasonable to downplay the magnitude of the Western Front’s military disaster in Belorussia, it is important to recognize that the Soviet Union’s system for generating forces allowed it to quickly replace losses and expand the size of the Red Army. On June 22, 1941, the Red Army counted 5,373,000 men. By August 31, despite heavy losses, this number had surged to 6,889,000, and by December 31, 1941, it reached an estimated 8 million. After the war, German military officer Blumentritt acknowledged the fundamental issue of latent Soviet military strength. He recalled the German offensive plans aimed at encircling and destroying the Red Army before reaching the Dnieper and Dvina Rivers, ultimately asking, “But what if armies, millions strong, had not yet even been mobilized, and only parts of the Red Army were in western Russia?”

The loss of tanks weighed heavily on the Soviets, as these assets were much harder to replace. However, historians have often overstated the extent of German victories, particularly regarding the Soviet tank fleet. At the war's outset, the Soviets had an astonishing total of 23,767 tanks, but this figure included many that were already obsolete. Around 15,000 of those were older T-26 and BT models, most of which were in need of repair. Compounding the issue, untrained crews faced a severe shortage of ammunition, fuel, spare parts, and critical support such as air cover. It’s little wonder that Soviet tanks often sat abandoned on the battlefield if they even made it that far. Thus, the seemingly impressive numbers of Soviet tanks destroyed can be better understood as a disaster waiting to happen. Ineffective Soviet planning and direction significantly contributed to what became the Germans' first major triumph, inflating the narrative of an overwhelming victory through the sheer volume of outdated equipment. However, what proved vital for the future of the war was the production of new tanks. In this regard, Soviet leadership demonstrated impressive resolve. 

As the powerful German war machine charged eastward, another kind of battle raged behind Soviet lines, a battle not fought with tanks or rifles, but with wrenches, train cars, and sheer determination. Entire factories were uprooted and transported east, beyond the towering Ural Mountains, in a frantic race against the relentless advance of the enemy. As the Wehrmacht relentlessly pushes toward Smolensk and Leningrad, the Soviets are embarking on an extraordinary industrial mobilization, one of the most staggering efforts in military history.  What was unfolding was nothing short of remarkable: the relocation of hundreds of Soviet factories from the devastated western front to the safer haven east of the Urals. It all began on June 24, when a dedicated committee sprang into action, tasked with the monumental challenge of evacuation. By the first week of July, the effort was in full swing and rapidly gained momentum as the month progressed. This evacuation would stretch on until December 1941, and its importance cannot be overstated, the survival of the Red Army depended on it. As the field forces suffered staggering losses of equipment, the situation grew even graver. Much of the stockpile was outdated, a relic of a bygone era. Modern war machines were rolling off assembly lines, but they were being deployed to the front lines faster than they could be replenished. Just last week, we witnessed KV-1 tanks being dispatched directly from factories to participate in fierce assaults. The emergency deployment of arms and ammunition to frontline units would continue throughout the war, but to sustain this momentum, the factories had to be relocated. And while the Lend-Lease equipment would only begin arriving in significant numbers in 1942, the Soviets were determined not to lose ground. Their resolve, ingenuity, and relentless spirit would be tested like never before in this pivotal moment of history.

It was decided that entire factories would be dismantled, sometimes down to the wiring carefully packed, and transported eastward. This monumental task was anything but easy. Surprisingly, the Germans appeared largely unaware of what was unfolding, showing little effort to disrupt the evacuation. Yet, even without German interference, the process of dismantling, moving, and reassembling the industrial base presented staggering challenges. The invasion itself turned this effort into a Herculean task, fraught with difficulties. Many factories arrived at their new locations incomplete, delayed, misplaced, and in some cases, all three. Throughout most of 1941, the fighting was carried out with weapons that had already been produced. However, one must wonder: how much would the Red Army’s rebuilding efforts for the 1942 campaigns hinge on the output from these relocated factories in 1941? Not everything necessary for the war effort could be evacuated. Crucial infrastructure, like mines, roads, and dams had to be abandoned. In many cases, Soviet forces resorted to sabotage, deliberately undermining these assets to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. Perhaps most famous of these acts of sabotage by the retreating Soviets was the destruction of the dam at Zaporozhye in August 1941. The resultant flood may have killed upwards of 100,000 people. This was no trivial matter; sabotage often came at a steep cost, claiming lives and destroying years of hard work by countless men and women who had toiled during the five-year plans. Yet, despite the risks, Stalin and his inner circle understood that this grim decision was essential for the survival of their war effort.

Between July and November, 1,523 industrial enterprises moved to the Volga region, Siberia, or Central Asia, totaling about 1.5 million railway wagon loads. Even more astonishingly, production of essential war materials actually increased during the latter half of 1941, with some official production quotas, particularly for tanks being exceeded. In fact, the Soviet Union produced more tanks in 1941 than Germany did, with 66 percent of these being the newer T-34 and KV-1 models. The Soviets also manufactured more aircraft and