Sergei Biriuzov (1904 – 1964)
Marshal of the Soviet Union and Chief of the General Staff.
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Soviet rocket troops possess enough equipment to be able, if need be, to sweep any aggressor from the face of the earth at whatever point of the globe he may be and whatever military power, territory, or economy he may possess.
The storming of the Mannerheim Line was regarded as a model of operational and tactical art. Troops were taught to overcome the enemy's protracted defense by a gradual accumulation of forces and a patient "gnawing through" of breaches in the enemy's fortifications in accordance with all the rules of engineering science. Insufficient attention was paid to questions of co-operation among different branches and services of the armed forces under rapidly changing conditions. We had to retrain ourselves under enemy fire, paying a high price for the experience and knowledge without which we could not beat Hitler's army.
The Germans also attempted to muddle the issue. They composed fables and wrote on their lists that the Soviet generals had voluntarily deserted to the enemy side. None of us believed this. We knew well that such distinguished generals as Khomenko and Bobkov would not surrender alive to the enemy.
The problem of destroying enemy rockets in flight has been successfully solved in our country.
We ceased to deal seriously with mobile combat. We relegated to oblivion the fundamentals of combat-in-depth tactics and of combined arms maneuvers which had been widespread before the Finnish campaign.
Strategic missiles are precisely the weapons which can deliver a decisive blow against the enemy's primary targets — his armed forces, and first of all, his strategic nuclear attack weapons. As a result of such a strike, the political objectives of a war can be attained in the first days of the conflict.
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