Meltyukhov 2000:446 Table composed by the author according to: История второй мировой войны. Т. 4. С. 18; 50 лет Вооруженных Сил СССР. М., 1968. С. 201; Советская военная энциклопедия. T. I. M., 1976, С. 56; Боевой и численный состав Вооруженных Сил СССР в период Великой Отечественной войны (1941–1945 гг.). Статистический сборник № 1 (22 июня 1941 г.). М., 1994. С. 10–12; РГАСПИ. Ф. 71. Оп. 25. Д. 4134. Л. 1–8; Д. 5139. Л. 1; РГВА. Ф. 29. Оп. 46. Д. 272. Л. 20–21; учтены пограничные и внутренние войска: Пограничные войска СССР в годы Второй мировой войны, 1939–1945. М., 1995. С. 390–400; РГВА. Ф. 38261. Оп. 1. Д. 255. Л. 175–177, 340–349; Ф. 38650. Оп. 1. Д. 617. Л. 258–260; Ф. 38262. Оп. 1, Д. 41. Л. 83–84; РГАЭ. Ф. 1562. Оп. 329. Д. 277. Л. 1–46, 62, 139; Д. 282. Л. 3–44.
Meltyukhov 2000, (electronic version). Note that due to the fact that Russian archives have been and to an extent still are inaccessible, exact figures have been difficult to ascertain. The official Soviet sources invariably over-estimated German strength and downplayed Soviet strength, as emphasized by David Glantz (1998:292). Some of the earlier Soviet figures claimed that there had been only 1,540 Soviet aircraft to face Germany's 4,950; that there were merely 1,800 Red Army tanks and assault guns facing 2,800 German units etc. In 1991, Russian military historian Mikhail Meltyukhov published an article on this question (Мельтюхов М.И. 22 июня 1941 г.: цифры свидетельствуют // История СССР. 1991. № 3) with other figures that slightly differed from those of the table here, though had similar ratios. Glantz (1998:293) was of the opinion that those figures “appear[ed] to be most accurate regarding Soviet forces and those of Germany's allies,″ though other figures also occur in modern publications.
