Overall, the soviets were actually very well equipped in 1941, with many of the war defining weapons already adopted and made in large numbers. Tanks such as the KV series, T-34, and thousands of inter-war period tankettes and scout tanks and armoured vehicles, a rather large number of semi-automatic rifles at a time when nearly all continental powers were entirely bolt-action based, a very large degree of motorization thanks in large part to licensed production with Ford through GAZ, effective and standardized artillery modules available in large numbers, and a large fairly modern airforce (for the time). Most of this equipment was well tested in the wars preceding Germanies invasion such as in Finland, the Spanish Civil War, and Khalkin Gol, and was already in the process of being modernized and replaced (such as the PPD-40 being decommisioned in '39, in favor of the simplified PPSH.) The Soviet economy was vertically planned from right after the end of the Russian civil war two decades before to beef up military capabilities and avoid the humiliating defeats Russia suffered in WW1 due to military backwardness. Not merely on paper, but materially the Soviet armed forces were at the time probably the most formidable in the world, and across the board plans were already in motion for further modernization in hand with the rapid military industrialization.

What they crucially lacked however was not even leadership, but the ability to exercise it. Despite losing huge numbers of experienced officers in the Purge, there were still a good number of officers with lifetimes of leadership experience or natural talent such as Zhukov, Rossokovsky, and others. However, because of the purge, and the overriding climate of fear which was instilled by Stalin during this period, most of these talented officers were unable to exert much control over their actual commands, and caution and textbook leadership decisions prevailed. Orders were given rigidly from above regardless of understanding on the ground, and although sometimes this was actually beneficial in the cases of inexperienced new officers, in most cases the catastrophic losses in the first months of Barbarossa were direct results of these orders and allowed the more flexible German command structure to simply run circles around the static Russian positions.

The experience and training of the soldiers on the ground in '41, was probably on par with most nations at the time if even better because of the combat experience, albeit disastrous, which many soldiers would have recently had during the winter war. However, overall Soviet Military doctrine, even the nascent Deep Operations theory placed great emphasis on large scale movements, and offensive operations, possibly to the detriment of small, low level decision making and defensive experience, but there remained a legacy going back to Brusilov in WW1 in the Soviet military of specialized shock training for certain detachments, and in this way small unit tactics were still being honed. Soviet infantry were probably in general just as the rest of the military; well equipped, and experienced, but not well led. The thinking and theorizing was definitely there, but like everywhere else there were organizational catastrophes going on in the Army which prevented their realization in 41, which resulted in a great proportion of the most experienced soldiers being wiped out early on.

By 1943, the slow process of reorganizing the Military was beginning to bear fruit, and a leaner, far more experienced and even equipped infantrymen would be facing Germans. In later 41 and 42 the Soviets had thrown much of their complex military organizations, such as large independent tank divisions, out the window in favor of more manageable, yet large military structures, and the leadership and tactics at a lower level no doubt reflected these less complex structures as well. In 43 however, they began to return to the more intricate structures with smaller commands, and you would likely have begun to see smaller scale leadership improve as well. Deep Operations became the dogma again, and with it came a greater degree of autonomous delegation on the front-lines. In terms of equipment, the huge losses suffered in 41 had been overcome and things were turning around. Soviet production of small arms drastically outpaced that of the Germans in many key areas, notably automatic adoption. In 41, the emphasis for infantry equipment was a higher proportion of semi-automatic rifles such as the Tokarev SVT. By 1943 they decided to bypass this, and bolt actions were now paired with enormous amounts of submachine guns reaching the frontlines. Whereas the German war industries sought in every sphere to be masters, Soviet production had always emphasized doing one thing well, and doing a lot of it, though some things would remain woefully outdated.

By 1945, the differences in the these military philosophies had become even more stark. Whereas the average German soldier would still be using a bolt action rifle, and most likely not using motorized transport even this late, with a small number of far more elite troops using very advanced weapons and mechanized transport, the Soviets had continued to produce their tried and true equipment such as the PPSH, except in enormous quantities. It got to the point where entire infantry companies (~100-150 soldiers) would be entirely equipped with sub-machine guns, something uncommon even to the lavishly supplied US soldiers of the time, and producing devastating levels of firepower. Whereas in 41 and 42 very hastily trained Soviet soldiers flooded the ranks to stem the tide of the German onslaught, by 1945 the most hardened Soviet veterans remained, and they faced on average woefully inexperienced, under or overaged and infirm German adversaries. Another final change from 43 to 45 however would be that Lend-lease shipments began to affect things for the average infantry in earnest. Most notably Soviet soldiers motorization skyrocketed, and for once Soviet logistics were almost entirely freed from being tied down by the Rail-head.