It isn't MY theory 17th...I just happen to agree with the logic of the recent historians who advanced it, after I saw their evidence...it IS tough to dispute, and DOES answer a lot of questions.
All she has mentioned in passing is the "2 million trained reserves Stalin committed at Stalingrad..." she doesn't say directly WHERE he got them, but then I haven't checked her sources yet. But then again, it's probably the same sources I read.
By the way, I've gotten spoiled reading SE Morison, at first I thought he was annoying with his extensive and detailed "footnotes," sometimes the FOOTNOTES in tiny print would take up more space on a page than his regular prose! But then there was no doubt you UNDERSTOOD his point he was making, right NOW...
She "footnotes" most of her facts, but the explanations are at the end in a separate section, so I end up skipping refering to them to keep reading...
Back to your point about losses, she hasn't been so detailed so far about INFANTRY losses, except to paint the picture of MASSIVE. But then again, how do you detail list MILLIONS???
It's mostly "estimates," because you didn't differentiate between deaths and POWs, nobody kept track of the "malingerers" that just took a Nagant bullet in the ear and they left in the dust, and NOBODY counted deaths in the "Penal Battalions..." But her estimates are that about 30 MILLION Soviets served in the Red Army, and 8 MILLION of them DIED. Thats more than all the REST of the allies lost counting troops, sailors, civilians, EVERYBODY.
For example, 152,000 troops received OFFICIAL execution sentences, that were carried out, not like "ours," but you can multiply that exponentially (your guess?) for the "unofficial" executions, of Soviets BY Soviets.
One statistic that DID floor me was that during the war the Soviets trained 403,272 men and women to serve in Tanks, officially. Of these OVER 310,000 would DIE. I don't care HOW you dis the M4, WE averaged ONE death per tank knocked out, our tank losses never came CLOSE.
She makes a good point that the Red Army was killed and rebuilt several times over the course of the war, and each reincarnation was different than the one before it, even if there was a FEW soldiers that fought the entire war, they did NOT really provide the 'cadre" like in the west for the new units.
The "generation" that disappeared were the Pre-War Red Army, the 6 million strong "political" army that invaded Poland, Finland, and took the brunt of Barbarossa...FEW survived 41, and those that did kind of "disappeared," (I guess nobody wanted to hear much of "veterans" who "lost.")and even the ones who stopped the Germans at Moscow were "new," and even the Germans before Stalingrad, started seeing tougher fights at the Don, those troops were "Red Army II," (my terms, her explanation
) less political, more military, and mostly volunteers. That Red Army won and died around Kursk, and "Red Army III" which was the professional military "machine" that drove them out, again, mostly volunteer with SOME experienced veterans (heros) of Stalingrad, and Kursk, and won the war, later had the help of "Red Army IV" which was turning back to forced untrained "conscripts" most from conquered or "liberated" areas in reserve, with more political officer control due to less than "stellar" devotion to Stalin....