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The Soviet Union's actual army size varied throughout the war due to the nature of the conflict she waged with Nazi Germany.

To begin with, in 1941, the Soviet Army numbered approximately 250 Rifle Divisions, 17 Mountain Rifle Divisions, 16 Parachute Brigades, 2 Naval Infantry Brigades, 6 Rifle Brigades, 11 Cavalry Divisions, 2 Mountain Cavalry Divisions, 20 Motorized Rifle Brigades, 5 Motorized Rifle Divisions, 1 NKVD Motorized Division, 2 Tank Brigades, 73 Tank Divisions, and 36 Mechanized Divisions. Additionally there were dozens of NKVD Border Regiments, NKVD internal Security regiments and even a couple of NKVD Rifle Divisions scattered around the country.

The Germans basically destroyed this army, in its entirety, by the end of the first summer. In the meantime, the Soviets had raised enough new troops to completely replace the destroyed army and then some.

This "second" army was also basically completely destroyed by the Germans (and by poorly planned and executed Soviet attacks on the Germans) by the time the summer of 1942 rolled around.

Over the course of the war in the east, the German Army identified some 500 Rifle Divisions raised by the Red Army, over 100 Tank Brigades, over 100 Motorized and Mechanized Brigades, over 50 Cavalry Divisions and so on. All told, some 20 Million Soviets cycled through the Soviet Army during the war, and the Germans captured or killed close to 10 million of them.

The numbers are still in debate since the Soviet Union concealed the enormous extent of her losses and fudged many of the other numbers in order to make the heroic Soviet Army even more heroic looking after the fact. Bottom line: The war in the east was the greatest land war in history and the numbers of combatants, organized military units and casualties on both sides testify to this fact.

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14y ago

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