My father was in the Finnish army (which suffered too small losses to even fit in the presentation) fighting the Soviets, and was wounded in a Russian counter-attack north of Petrozavodsk in October 1942. The battle diary of his brigade says "we suffered bad losses".
A Russian division-strength attacking force pushed a Finnish brigade-strength force back about 400 m on a fraction of the front which was about 800 m wide.
The "bad losses" were 49 men killed on the Finnish side. The Russian losses in this two-day battle were estimated about 1400 men killed. And as a result the Finnish commander remarked that "the Russians have changed; they are no longer throwing human life away completely mindlessly and they actually try some sensible military attack tactics".
A ratio of 30 Russians killed in attack to grind down 1 enemy was "sensible" compared to what the Russians had been doing before that. Of course, eventually it worked, they had the 31st soldier as well.
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My father was in the Finnish army (which suffered too small losses to even fit in the presentation) fighting the Soviets, and was wounded in a Russian counter-attack north of Petrozavodsk in October 1942. The battle diary of his brigade says "we suffered bad losses".
A Russian division-strength attacking force pushed a Finnish brigade-strength force back about 400 m on a fraction of the front which was about 800 m wide.
The "bad losses" were 49 men killed on the Finnish side. The Russian losses in this two-day battle were estimated about 1400 men killed. And as a result the Finnish commander remarked that "the Russians have changed; they are no longer throwing human life away completely mindlessly and they actually try some sensible military attack tactics".
A ratio of 30 Russians killed in attack to grind down 1 enemy was "sensible" compared to what the Russians had been doing before that. Of course, eventually it worked, they had the 31st soldier as well.