She took a sip of the water and continued.
“Yes, we are seeing some increases in their order of battle. The Dutch, Belgians, French, and Danes have all put extra forces into the field, armed with equipment handed over by units already back in their homelands. Of course, the Germans are increasing the most, but we know that this is being encouraged to permit more Amerikanski, British, and Commonwealth forces to return home.”
“And yet there’s something that holds you back from making full assurances… some gap in your information maybe…. or some female intuition we are not yet informed of?”
“You are correct, Comrade General Secretary. There’s something that concerns me greatly in all this.”
It was Stalin’s turn to take a drink, and he sipped his tea deliberately slowly as he took in the woman’s face.
“Is it the reorganisation of the Red Army?”
“No, Comrade General Secretary. The reasons for that are sound and will profit the Motherland greatly. No, it’s something else entirely.”
“Proceed, Comrade General.”
“Whilst the manpower of the enemy forces in Europe and the Pacific has reduced, we see a focussing of his existing eastern manpower, specifically concentrating in China, Manchuria, and Korea… the garrison of Japan apart.”
“And that poses a threat… this we know, Comrade Nazarbayeva.”
Beria’s interruption drew no response as the GRU officer simply continued as if his words had not been spoken.
“Our forces in the east were reduced by the needs of the west, dangerously so… this we can now see and have acknowledged… a risk that the GKO considered acceptable at the time. Again, across the borders of China and the east, the enemy seemingly displays no hostile intent, and continues to scale down his manpower… but there is the issue that causes me concern. We have an imbalance of forces in Persia and the Pacific, one that is greatest in the east.”
The anticipated interruption didn’t come and the uncomfortable vacuum drew her into its embrace.
“It’s a question of quality… across the board… the Allies have made technological advances and these are now in place across the battlefield and above it.”
“Our own tanks… the IS-III, IV, and VII… the T-54 maybe… now seem to be equalled or even bettered by new arrivals.”
She counted points off on her fingers as she recited the concerns one by one.
“Super Pershing… Pershing II… Chamberlain… Hancock… Centurion… Black Panther… and that’s just in tanks.”
She consulted her notes before continuing.
“They have new bombers… the B-29 used in the Pacific now arrives in numbers, and the improved B-50 version has started to trickle across the ocean.”
“Their new fighters…the Amerikanski’s Shooting Star and Thunderjet fill over half the US fighter regiments… and the damned Skyraider aircraft that hurt our ground forces so badly has increased from ten regiments to twenty-seven at least… at least… and the Amerikanski are producing enough to let the Royal Air Force and Luftwaffe have some of their own. That tells us a lot, of course. The British have the new Lancaster, and their own jet fighters have trebled in numbers since the ceasefire.”
“Even the new British piston engine aircraft are extremely formidable opponents, as we discovered near Estonia.”
Nazarbayeva referred to an incident involving the new RAF twin-engine fighter, the Hornet, three of which ran rings around a full regiment of the latest La-9 fighters.
No shots had been fired but the De Havilland aircraft had appeared to be superior to the latest Lavochkin across the board, as the reports of the humiliated regimental commander and his pilots indicated.
‘And yet your report made no mention of these issues, Comrade Beria!’
Her thoughts transferred to action, and Nazarbayeva indicated Beria with a gesture that she didn’t mean to be dismissive.
“The NKVD commission on our own technological advancements appears to lean towards some exaggeration, and has some glaring omissions.”
Beria jumped to his feet but was cut off by Stalin’s raised hand.
“Quite rightly, you need to justify that statement quickly, Comrade Nazarbayeva. The NKVD report was most thorough and was signed off by Comrade Marshal Beria himself.”
The eyes of the man in question blazed in fury.
“I meant no disrespect, Comrade Marshal. I apologise. What I meant was that the findings of the commission tended towards the upbeat to avoid discouraging results, which is understandable in these times of positivity and hope for the future.”
“So… what exactly do you think has been misreported… or presented to us in too positive a fashion?”
“Comrade General Secretary. Our tanks were at a great disadvantage towards the end of the war. We saw increased losses in tank versus tank combat, apparently due to some new type of shell, something both the NKVD and ourselves have yet to fully confirm and identify, although NKVD has made some inroads by identifying the name ‘HESH’.”
She nodded to Beria in mid-sentence, as an acknowledgement of his office’s work, not as a weak attempt to curry favour, which was how the NKVD head interpreted it.
“From survivor’s descriptions, the new shell seems to break open our tank’s own armour and send it around like shrapnel. We have not yet developed a defence, and yet the NKVD report avoids the issue and speaks only of the up armouring of existing tank types, and more spaced armour to combat their hollow-charge weaponry.”
“We know of the powertrain improvements made to the IS-III, and they have maximised the reliability of the vehicle, its previous weak point. This is reported in the NKVD report, as well as the new installations being made in the latest T-54 production vehicles. Yet no mention is made of the problems that remain with the IS-IV and the proposal that was made to discontinue its production in favour of more reliable and mobile vehicles.”
Stalin struck a match as he examined Beria’s reaction to the woman’s words…
The reaction was quite plain.
‘…traitorous accusations! You bitch!’
“The IS-VII is spoken of in great detail. The first experimental vehicle has proven to be more than was hoped, but it may not see service in numbers for at least another year, probably more… and yet it forms nearly two pages of the report all by itself.”
She displayed the two pages in question.
“Two pages for what will probably be no more than forty vehicles by this time next year.”
She opened the folder in another pre-marked place and moved neatly to the inventory of aircraft, where glaring omissions were apparent to anyone, regardless of the upbeat nature of the NKVD commission’s report.
“Our current aircraft are almost universally outclassed by the later marks of their existing inventory and most of new aircraft of the enemy. Even our ex-German equipment, what little we can still run, appear to offer a difficult match for the latest jet fighters of our enemy. And what do we propose now? Copies of German, Japanese, and Allied aircraft that perform in an inferior fashion, most of the time because our best fuels are unavailable or our re-engineering of their engines is unsatisfactory. These matters are hidden away quite thoroughly, whilst the performance of our own new aircraft… well…”
She turned to a page of the NKVD report and quoted.
“The new Lavochkin-9 is a superior piston-engine fighter at least the equal of the standard aircraft of the enemy in speed, firepower, and performance. And yet… no mention of the encounter with the enemy over the Baltic in which it proved decidedly second best, Comrade General Secretary.”