The Armored Forces of the Red Army in Khasan’s and Khalkhin Gol’s armed conflicts. Reflections of the military elite

Abstract

In the article, based on documents from the collections of the Russian State Military Archive (RGVA), an attempt is made to analyze the process of understanding by representatives of the Red Army command the experience of  the  actions of  Armored  forces  during  local military conflicts  at  lake  Khasanand  Khalkhin Gol river in  1938–1939. The  conclusions  made by commander sat various levels, in general, accurately recorded the main shortcomings and errors in the use of tank units and formations, which completely repeated those during  the  Civil War in Spain.  It  is  concluded that  by the  time  the  conflicts began, that experience was unknown to tank and combined arms commanders. In addition, based on content analysis, the inability of specialists to assess the weak armoring  of  tanks is  revealed  as  the  main reason  for heavy losses.  Attention is drawn to the fact that while correctly recording the extremely low level of training  of  commanders and  personnel of  the  tank  forces,  the  final  conclusions of the reports to the higher command contained exceptionally high assessments of combat effectiveness and assurances of readiness to carry out any order. At the same time, the country’s top military-political leadership received a sufficient amount of truthful information from its representatives from the conflict zone, but preferred  to  broadcast to  the  public  a picture of  the  highest combat readiness of the armored forces, which was clearly and convincingly reflected in mass Soviet culture.