I am a proud member of the Soviet Union, and I have answered the call to defend the Mother Land against the Facists in WWII. What is the extent of my training, and what is my fate?

by Wastelander108

In Western Media we often see the average Soviet soldier as severely under trained, under supplied, and just generally not at all bright. So a couple of questions regarding such:

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  1. What is the extent of Soviet training? We usually see a truck full of fresh recruits unloaded about 300 feet or so from the front line where they undergo very brief training on the basics of using a rifle and that is it before they run straight to the battlefield. Was there no basic training? Was there no military organization into Companies, Squads, Fire Teams, ect.? Or was this a rare event that happened in desperation (such as the Siege of Stalingrad) and then has just been portrayed as being the norm throughout the entire war?
  2. Were Soviet troops really that under supplied? A somewhat famous quote from a popular video game goes something along the lines of: "One man gets bullets, the other man gets a rifle! When the man with the rifle dies, the man with the bullets picks up the rifle!" Did the Soviet Union really not have enough weapons to supply the army? I personally find that hard to believe considering there are literally millions of authentic Mosin Nagant rifles still in circulation today, some even unused. Furthermore if they really did not have enough weapons for the whole military did they honestly just send unarmed soldiers out to die instead of putting them to work in a logistics unit or something instead where they can still do something to benefit the army without needing a weapon?
  3. Now, onto the infamous suicide charge. We have all seen it, hundreds of men bravely charging across an open area towards a fortified position at the sound of a whistle blow, only to be cut down by machine gun fire with no survivors. Was this a legitimate Soviet tactic? Did commanders really throw hundreds of lives away with a single charge with no real plan in mind other than "Get over there and kill the enemy!"? Or again is this just a case of it happening maybe once or twice and it being turned into a stereotype and generalized as being a constant thing that happened throughout the war?

Thanks in advance for any answers!

DanKensington

Ah, the popular view of the Red Army; questions along these lines pop up every now and then.

You'll be most interested in u/Georgy_K_Zhukov's answer on blocking detachments, which also addresses several other matters along the way - namely, your question 2 and part of your question 3. The remainder of your question 3 is addressed in this answer regarding 'human wave' attacks, also by Zhukov, including his reply to a question beneath. For your question 1, u/kieslowskifan covers training in this answer.