The Soviets specialized in massing their weaponry at the main point of attack. They also specialized in creating “breatkthough” units, specifically the artillery divisions, the penal battalions, and the heavy tank/assault gun regiments.
The tank and infantry units took heavy losses in these breakthrough attacks, even after intense artillery bombardment. The Germans were always quite adept at inflicting casualites, even up to May 1945. But from this point on they will rarely stop the Soviets cold.
The big issue for us in the Cold War is if we were faced by a Warsaw Pact conventional attack could we wear down the Sov’s enough to stop them before they got across West Germany or we were rendered combat ineffective ourselves. We knew we could kill a lot of them, but most people bet we’d either lose that race or have to go nuclear.