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Art.With 100 members I'm sure somebody can help this Aussie plebe with this question...which Soviet award is closest to the Victoria Cross or the Medal of Honor?Would members agree that a Cavalier of the Order of Glory is the closest?Or am I right in thinking that the Russian system with its very specific conditions means no exact match is possible.My maths always were terrible but with around 10 million troops in the field the percentage that were honoured as Cavaliers is pretty tiny ...
Mike
Bravo2Zero
Remembering the Battle of Isurava,New Guinea...60 years ago tomorrow.
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Mike,
I would think that the Hero of the Soviet Union would be the closest match,
Bryan
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A VC of M of Honor is for conspicuous bravery in a single act. Thus, I agree that an act worthy of a HSU in the USSR is the closest the Soviets had to these western awards. A cavalier of Glory has 3 classes, thus the orders were given for 3 seperate acts as one "climbed up" the order chain from 3rd - 1st. You couldn't jump over the 2nd and 3rd class orders and earn a first. It is also important to note that HSU was a classification higher than one awarded an Order of Lenin. HSU was a title earned in combat, Orders of Lenin were awarded for everything and to everyone (combat, labor, science, arts), including to organizations!
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For those more intimate with the dissection of comparative Soviet citations than myself:
How different were HSU citations from Order of Glory citations? I realize there is a fairly mechanical formula at work (in theory): kill five tanks, get "X", kill seven and get "Y".
I ask because at times I get the feeling with Glory citations: "Why wasn't that a HSU?" And does a Glory 1 = HSU x 3? How much of the who got what for what acts is accident and how much is politics?
My specific interest lies in the conscious copying of the Russian Cross of St. George (which was also the model for the Order of Glory also, in several dimensions) for the Order of Merit (renamed in 1902 as the Indian Order of Merit) which was established in India in 1837. Do one brave deed, get 3rd class; do another, get 2nd class; do a third and get 1st class; and in one unique case do a 4th deed and get a bar to your 1st class badge. When the VC was extended to Indian troops in 1911, there was a debate as to why an IOM1 did not equate to three VC awards.
Do the two divergent theories of recognising bravery (HSU vs. Glory) clash in the USSR?
Sorry to drag you far afield....
Ed Haynes
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I'm not sure there is an easy answer to this. Obviously, politics, rank (officer vs. enlisted), ethnic background, party affiliation, commanding officer loyalty/friendship, informal connections (patron/client), and so forth could play a part in these decisions as they did and do in the armed forces of all countries the world over.
I don't think Cavaliers and HSU were not mutually exclusive. I see no reason why a buck sergeant in the mud in Stalingrad couldn't have gone from a fresh faced newbie to a HSU without ever receiving a Order of Glory.
I would strongly disagree that there is a way that so many other orders or multiple awards of a lower medal in some way equate with the HSU, VC, or MoH. I know that when it comes time for promotion, citations and awards are numerically calculated using rank/numbers assigned by the military. I think this is the only case that this is true---those that earn them do not weigh them in the same way promotion boards do.
