This is why when I pose "How Germany could have won" scenarios for WW2, I point out that any Soviet attack on Germany in 1941/42, which would not have happened anyway, would have been doomed to be a repeat of the Winter War with incompetence and gotten utterly annihilated, as opposed to being some Barbarossa in reverse. While the USSR technically won the Winter War, it only won at the cost of horrific casualties and only after it ran the Finns out of ammunition by throwing endless waves of bodies at them.
In the actual history, Germany scythed through many hundreds of thousands of front line Soviet troops with ease, mostly because these troops were not primarily Russians and not fighting for Russia. So they were quick to retreat and quick to surrender.
Later on closer to Moscow, the Germans started to fight actual Russians motivated to defend their homeland, and unlike before, when the Germans pocketed these troops, they didn't just give up right away, they kept fighting, which made them a lot more difficult to deal with.
That is absolutely true.
This is why when I pose "How Germany could have won" scenarios for WW2, I point out that any Soviet attack on Germany in 1941/42, which would not have happened anyway, would have been doomed to be a repeat of the Winter War with incompetence and gotten utterly annihilated, as opposed to being some Barbarossa in reverse. While the USSR technically won the Winter War, it only won at the cost of horrific casualties and only after it ran the Finns out of ammunition by throwing endless waves of bodies at them.
In the actual history, Germany scythed through many hundreds of thousands of front line Soviet troops with ease, mostly because these troops were not primarily Russians and not fighting for Russia. So they were quick to retreat and quick to surrender.
Later on closer to Moscow, the Germans started to fight actual Russians motivated to defend their homeland, and unlike before, when the Germans pocketed these troops, they didn't just give up right away, they kept fighting, which made them a lot more difficult to deal with.