Otto Carius Book Tigers in the Mud is one of the best memoirs of a Panzer commander on the Eastern Front and a must read for anyone who is interested in this period of History
I met a cool German (Thomas) who met Otto Carrius as a kid in Germany. Thomas's dad and Otto were friends from WW2. Thomas had a lil German helmet on and asked Otto what was it like in a tank? So Otto threw a handful of pocket change at his head and said, "now you know" with all the pinging from the coins he started to laugh.
You must feel sorry for these 18 year old kids from both sides, who after short training were put into the battles to die in burning tanks. As usual the generals survived to write books and memoirs.
Can you even imagine most of today's kids in the same situation? "There's no cushion on this seat,i'm gonna sue" or "This tank is too slow,i'm offended"..LOL
@@j.jwhitty5861 baseless? Do you even watch the news? Colleges with cry closets..people going to court to kick out their 30 year old son etc. The new generation is so convinced that the world owes them something and require so much validation that they are ill equipped for real life...let alone a battlefield.
@@cleetorishanns5116 there are thousands of young men and women in our military right now. also, many serving in this country as police and firemen. You have insulted them all.
I wish the History/Discovery Channel would fire their video editors, after every commercial break they repeat or recap every damned thing that came before. Instead of putting more into the show they chose to use filler to take 20 minutes of video and stretch it to 45, it is so annoying that I stopped watching them. The Veterans could have told us more of their war, or more detail anything other than constantly repeating everything after a break.
The ads are from RUclips they were not recorded with the program. If you are watching on PC and running the Google chrome get a Extension called 'AD blocker' i watch RUclips for a lot of things and i do not get one... It also blocks ADs and pop ups from every other site
@@wwillgoudge2749 I use Firefox, and yes I have adblocker, I haven't seen a RUclips add in years, and I was not referring to them. You don't have to seen the ads to see were the breaks are in the program.
The most amazing thing about tank combat back then is that there was no drones or Satellites but air observation to lead the tank commander. Today tank commanders have a vast array of support that allows them to concentrate in fighting the enemy alone.
26:40 The IS-2 had a low rate of fire because of the size of main armament. The D25-T 122 mm gun used a separate shell and powder charge as its shell is too big to be produced as the single-piece ammunition. Aside from loading problem, IS-2 could carried only 28 rounds inside the tank, compared to tiger tanks which could carried around 90 rounds.
I tell this story everytime I see videos with Wehrmacht versus Russian tank battles. My great uncle was a German soldier in the east from 1941 to 1945. He was in a 24th mechanized infantry in which his speciality was mechanics. Armor and mechanized infantry mutually supported each other. He told of not having to worry too much about being close to wehrmacht tanks in combat because the commander almost always was visible in his gondola only completely getting in the turret under heavy artillery or air strikes. Conversely, the Russian tankers would fight closed up and would often run over their own soldiers. Russian commanders would not concede this doctrine no matter the situation
That leads to their downfall in stalingrad the germans are too careful of their own men and would not allow their own artillery to fire danger close missions meanwhile the soviets could keep their artillery barrage up while their infantry advances danger close ofcourse this changes in an operational scale of warfare where the artillery drops in a scheduled time
Horrendously careless and unregarding of the lives of their own soldiers. Even Commanders complained that experienced cadres could not be built up this way.
The brother of my Grandfather served in the same unit with him late in the war. He was a gun loader for the Jagdtiger in the 512th heavy tank destroyer battalion and surrendered to the Americans in May 1945. My grandfather is a veteran of many battles as infantry for the Wehrmacht. He eventually was captured along with the 6th army in Stalingrad. He was in the 44th infantry division. In the end he was among the few to return to Germany in the mid 1950s and lost 80 pounds of body weight during Russian captivity.
Not so long ago, only the truly dedicated studied the battles in the Baltics and East Prussia.Good to see the information become public; both sides fought with skill and determination.
@@diggingdeeperpodcastddp2342 " lol" BS. They learned and had some exceptional officers and troops.Or they still would have lost. There are plenty of examples; don't try to revise history.
@@markferguson3745 His comment partially is true nevertheless, Soviets had tremendous consequences after the purges just before war which eliminated most of high command. As reflected in this video, troops in most case had absolutely no experience using tanks and would jump into them as soon as it would roll out of factory with wet paint still on them. Every male villager went to the war on a very short notice and indeed were miles apart from being an professional and well trained/skilled soldier, but there's not a single reason to use derogative and mocking language as that internet troll did.
I believe only commanders tank used to have them, not even sure for what reason as you still couldn't communicate with your unit. Radios for its complexity to produce and manufacture were indeed ultra rare on the Soviet side. But there was many other disadvantages, firstly very hastly training as was reflected in this video, heavily limiting their capabilities to hit enemy tanks, and the shooting range of T-34 was shorter by like half km, so they had drive close to enemy tanks under fire before being able to reach them.
Horrendously uncaring of their own men even for the most detached and practical reasons. Russian Generals even tried modestly to change these policies as they could not build up crews and groups with experience on which to build and plan successes and 'pin' newer fresher troops lacking experience
how did all the sudden russian tanks not get steamrolled by german tanks? how did russian tanks destroy german tanks if german tanks were better numbers should have mattered?
Since i have watched it , maybe 20 times i have you beat on the mins but not the absolutly riveting personnal accounts, thanks to all whokeep me learning a d happy, a toast to the tank men who my generation has not nor probably couldnt match
"We were so brain-washed that we always believed in the 'Endsieg' (Final Victory)." - German tanker. We watch these entertaining videos, and get caught up in the tactics, and the battles as if they were chess games. I think it's important to remember that all this monumental violence started in _ideology._ And ideology is a way to justify any means, including ultimate violence, for national gain. It's like a lever: press on one end with fervent nationalism, and at the other end it suddenly makes perfect sense to crush any other nations that seem to stand in our way. Many people think patriotism is a great and lofty virtue. But I just think of what human tragedy can (and forever will) be so easily justified by it.
"And ideology is a way to justify any means, including ultimate violence, for national gain." ... or for international gain, or for economic gain, or for racial gain, or for the working class gain, etc Looks like you are circumscribing "Ideology" to nationalism/patriotism only.
@@mr.mojorisin6402 _Organized_ religion _has_ often worked that way. I'll be so bold as to allow that there are spiritual traditions - often _contained_ within established religions - that aren't concerned with power & ideology, but rather, with personal spiritual progress. But it's unfortunately true that those goals get easily lost in the hierarchies of religious denominations - with their need to keep their positions & privileges & values within society.
The problem is extremism....you can take anything too far. Just like the problem isn't left or right...it's radical left or right,which end up basically being yin & yang. Both fantastical extremes are hateful, intolerant, practice "us vs them",& "black,& white thinking"...just basically their own political, destructive cults. The extreme left end (communism),is no better or worse than the extreme right end(NAZIsm...or fascism in general.) Both are equally despicable,copy each other's tactics,& propaganda strategies-while being ideological enemies. But both can end in the same spot. The millions of innocents murdered by evil fascism,or even more millions murdered by evil communism. They just have different scapegoats,targets,& lies. Both pose an equal threat to peace,freedom,& democracy,& always will. And religious fanaticism is similar in many ways,though different in other respects. But every bit as reprehensible. And all of them have so much blatant hypocrisy that knows no ends.
Regarding the description, I would say that actually the Soviets had turned the tide of the war by 1942 with Stalingrad. Once that happened, the Germans were pretty much turned on the defensive.
Russian stopping the Germans from taking Moscow and Leningrad were important,Stalingrad sealed the future of the Eastern war,also Hitler's failure to develop the jet fighter program as fast as could have been done might have given USA and Britain air superiority over Germany. German success at Stalingrad would have given Germany vast reserves of oil and enabled German support to go through from the Black Sea area to support German activity in North Africa.
They repeat where a commercial break would be inserted if the program is shown on TV. In my experience it’s just programs that are shown in the US that do this.. like they need to remind the viewer what they were watching just two minutes earlier.. The rest of the world seems to be able to have a longer attention span.
I doubt you'd maintain a fascination with tanks if you served in them! Yes, they bring a lot of punch and firepower to the battlefield, but they're VERY vulnerable. Not only from other tanks, but from infantry (even light airborne infantrymen) who carry all sorts of antitank weapons these days. Mechanized infantry has even more.. Then there are mortars, artillery, and aircraft, both rotary and fixed-wing. Remember what Bill Mauldin's cartoon said about tanks in WWII.... "Moving foxholes attract attention."
Those tanks knocked out 20 000 Soviet tanks. Sadly for them the Soviets manufactured 60 000 T34's alone. Therein lies the problem. The Tiger was also a powerful tank, but only 1300 were ever built and they kept breaking down, and were not very mobile.
Read Otto Carius', Tigers in the Mud. It put to rest many of the misconceptions I had regarding the Mark VI. 2 Tigers would absolutely dominate an engagement and then be ordered to drive 50-60 km overnight to another hot spot. They weren't designed for that much travel so things broke. They were heavy but that armor made the survivability difference in combat. The numbers game, yeah, lost that one. My M60 series tanks were always breaking something too. Needing constant maintenance. We'd go months without necessary parts. This was normal peacetime training.
@@petersouthernboy6327 Logistics, supply. That was doomed from the start. Pure fantasy on the part of der Führer. "Rundstedt later testified that while he recognized the merit of Hitler's operational plan, he saw from the very first that "all, absolutely all conditions for the possible success of such an offensive were lacking." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Bulge
@@ronvk100 Exactly. They were tasked with seemingly impossible missions, yet in almost every instance were dominating in their field of battle. Wittman's tank in one engagement was hit 23 times with antitank and tank rounds. No Sherman could survive that.
It never fails to amaze me that the Soviets had such bad tactics! They just threw their tanks willy nilly at the German defenders. They didn’t seem to have any organization in their operations! You need to have combined forces, a mixture of tanks, artillery, infantry and air support all in communication with each other. The Soviets eventually won, but at such a cost in human life!
Read Otto Carius' Tigers in the Mud. The main disadvantage of the Soviet tank tactics was to fight "buttoned up". The tank commanders thus had a very limited view of the battlefield. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Carius
The total k/d ratio was about 2:1, which with terrible training, no communication, and having to attack rather than defend sounds not bad for the Soviets.
Mate, in Red Army all soldiers had just a few days of training before being rushed to battle, and tank crews were no exception. Materials were excellent, but soviet tactics never went beyond massive attack. Losses were simply irrelevant: for every tank lost, 10 were sent in, and for every soldier killed, other 100 were recruited.
Terrible and terrible training. Stalin had such a fear that he killed all of the old Russian Imperial commanders, the only ones with real experience in his purge. Marshall Zhukov survived because he was below the radar. Without him, they would certainly have lost Kursk. The only reason he managed in F$% up Soviet System is because, after proving himself, he famously told Stalin that if he didn't like his plan, then he might as well send him to the front as a soldier and he can run the whole thing himself. Stalin actually yielded probably knowing he had no one else.
On amazon video there is a doco called 75 winter danach with english subtitles,2 german soldiers tell their experience of war in russia and of being prisioners in siberia.Raw stuff.
The Crazy part is these guys going over old battle fields and handling old Explosive like there is no danger of it going Boom. That makes it even more of a chance of it going off.
Thanks to Russia for defeating Germany 🇩🇪 If only we could remember that we fought together at one time for victory ! Canada 🇨🇦 thx you for your contribution!
You are crazy. The biggest danger even today and alway has been, is communism. And that's also what the West even up to this day is fighting against for the last 75 years or so. The Allies never considered the Russians as true Allies. Even before the end of WW2 very high ranking Generals like "Patton" and also Churchill, recognized that Russia's communism was the real enemy that needs to be defeated. And also today, the recent events in Ukraine is the just again one of the latest examples why communism needs to be defeated.
Basic military doctrine gives the defender the advantage of the attacker needing a 3-4 advantage to defeat prepaired positions. Kusk was a Soviet defence in depth & a draw was catastrophic for the Wehrmacht. Operation Citadel was a gift for the Russians.
Otto Carius wasn't a Superman, but he was a Super Human. I'd recommend tuning into Mark Felton's channel instead of this television stuff, or History Hustle or TIK if you really want to learn something NEW about WWII history.
The Tiger Tank #217 from Otto Carius was a Middle Version.This is in the Video not right.And many more...but it is only Graphics for the Video.Its ok.The Documentation is interesting!
I bet the Russians got a right shock when the German naval ordnance started landing on their tanks! I could still sense and see hatred in the eyes of the old Russian tank operator with the yellow/red tie.Understandable.
@@petersouthernboy6327 np what about the jews in the camps, they weren't nazis ,they were born and lived in Germany, there were resistance groups ,that called themselves nazis for cover yet they certainly weren't
@@petersouthernboy6327 Israel isn't 100% Jewish yet we call it the Jewish state(its a country) , you only need 60% of a population to earn a title of majority in a country
It sort of sanitizes the whole thing because you never get any impression of the often horrific deaths the tank crews suffered. A lot of this covers the Battle of Bagration I think which was the biggest Russian victory of the war. Huge tracts of territory across the whole front were recaptured, vast quantities of German equipment were destroyed and enormous numbers of Germans were captured and were then paraded in a seemingly endless column through the streets of Moscow. You certainly don't get any sort of feel for that fact in much of this doco.
@@Nnnuvolari The Battle of Bagration definitely extended into the Baltic region. In the Siauliai Offensive in Lithuania hurridly organised German counter attacks managed to restore the severed connection between the remnants of Army Group Central and North but German attempts to retake Siauliai failed. Bagration dwarfs all other Allied offensives during WW2 but that fact has been ignored until recently. 31 of the 47 German divisional and corps commanders involved were either killed or captured. I have just looked at a photo of a collection of German generals heading the parade through Moscow.
@@paultyson4389 German Army groups North and Center had neighbourg fronts there. The aim of this docummentary is Army Group North not Centre. You seem to have some sort of fixation with the Bragation offensive. It certainly has not been ignored in the past. It was a huge success for the Soviet army but have in mind that they enjoyed a 10 to 1 superiority in artillery, planes and tanks in a very extended front and that Hitler's orders prevented many German units from tactical retreats.
Sorry, but the Tiger was built to counter the KV series tanks......not the T34's. The pz4's with the long barreled 75s had no problems dealing with them, even when they up gunned them to the t34-85.
hm, to my knowledge 1944 the red army had mostly T34 with the 85mm gun and perhaps the first IS1 .... i dont htink there were many of the old T34 with short 75mm from 41´ left !
@@Yermansk in 44 there were plenty of T34/85 and russian production was huge and fast; not complicated and lame and shortages all around and bombs every night destryoing your yesterdays work :-)
This 'War Stories' Channel is so very awesome. I think i have almost watched every video in there library. Thank you for the many hours of late night or early morning watching while i lay in bet falling to sleep to these videos :)
The German veterans explaining about the technical aspect of battle, trauma and strategy While the Russian veteran is like "we just kept slamming them, choking them, turned them away like a will" goes on ranting like a poetry
The only remaining Tiger 1 running in the world is in the British Tank Museum.Captured in Tunisia by the British and brought back to u.k for propaganda purposes. For the time they were built,they are awe inspiring.
The GrossDeutschland division I think is the same one that the author Guy Sajer wrote about in his autobiography. It has been a while since I read the book.
The Sajer book is mostly fiction as are so many written by German soldiers of WW2 "The most frequently cited inaccuracy is Sajer's statement that, after being awarded the coveted Grossdeutschland Division cuff title, he and a friend were ordered to sew it on their left sleeves, when it was actually sewn on the right sleeve. Edwin Kennedy wrote that this error was "unimaginable" for a former member of such an elite German unit. Sajer also discusses campaign locations in vague terms and never with specific dates. For example, he asserts that during the summer of 1942 he was briefly assigned to a Luftwaffe training unit in Chemnitz commanded by famed Stuka ace Hans-Ulrich Rudel, but according to Rudel himself, his training unit was actually in Graz, Austria, during the whole of 1942. Sajer mentions seeing "the formidable Focke-Wulf [...] 195s, which could soar up quickly," taking off from an airfield outside Berlin, when no such aircraft ever existed (a Focke-Wulf projekt 195, a heavy transport, was in the pipeline, but never got off the drawing board. Finally, the names of most of Sajer's companions and leaders do not appear on official rolls in the Bundesarchiv, nor are they known to the Veterans Association, whose leader, Helmuth Spaeter, was one of the first to question whether Sajer actually served in the Grossdeutschland Division as he claimed?
@@HerrDocktor23 The U.S. made a compromise to avoid continued mass warfare with Russia avoiding million more dead and possible nuclear complications. As undesirable as that was, in time the long game proved the lesser evil.
The US had less casualties because they care about the loss of human life, especially their own. Stalin wasn't burdened with that particular problem. The US won with machines and tactics. Joseph Stalin won with a huge body count of his own men.
Ehhh I don’t know about all of them , look up a lot of the war crimes done Done by the werhmacht. Pretty sure most of Eastern Europe and Western Europe wouldn’t agree with your Sentiment
@@saphixs9372 Russian revolution under Lenin, later under Stalin, Hiroshima, Naga..... watch Hellstorm and Europe the last battle. Threaty of Versailles, Germany did not start the first WW. I could go on and on. For the full story watch The greatest story never told by Dennis Wise.
Might that should be kept in perspective .They were generally supported and provided for poorly, and led with an indifference for their sacrifices and lives.At that time not unusual for large armies where only higher officers lives were valued.
@@markferguson3745 it is not true, actually. Soviets started to outnumber the Germans only in 1943, and mostly by "scraping the barrel" - conscripting every category available. On liberated territories every man immediately was taken into the Red Army with just minor checks on his actions under German occupation (hensewhy the cases of respectable veterans suddenly found to be German auxiliary "policemen" and stuff like that). In 1945 literally every military unit of Red Army was quite undermanned, being actually equal to solid unit of lower rank. Under all this conditions there is one simple conclusion: Soviets could not throw "a lot of" man into enemy until it works because it was unaffordable. There was no need to buy more time with blood as it happened in 1941. Red Army was well supplied, soldiers and their command learned how to fight and quality of German "average soldier" quite dropped. You don't need to throw men into enemy positions when you have enough artillery shells for this.
A lot of these firsthand memories WW2 soldiers are always problematic to me. It's not the accounts from the actual soldiers so much. We all know memory can be flawed, but by and large I believe a lot of what is said. It's the focus on battle stories. It leaves the impression of the invincible German army. So I have to say it. OK, if you were so good, and the Sovjets so terrible at hitting anything - how come you didn't win the war? And NO, the Sovjets didn't outnumber the Wehrmacht 20:1. It's just not mathematically true. So this account itself, while interesting, should be treated with caution when it comes to saying much about the greater picture of the war.
TIK history on youtube does good docs dives, from stats they showed in the last year of the war the soviets casualty rates were lower than German eastern front numbers.
@Al Dillabaugh TIK is definitely not 'tainted by sovjet propaganda'. He's a libertarian; i.e. promotes small state, private enterprise, scepticism of collective ideology. In a lot of ways the opposite of 'Sovjet'. And the red Army only outnumbered the Wehrmacht, when they were winning - meaning, when they actually got their tactics right and took the initiative. In the early part of the war, the force ratio was actually pretty equal, but here it was often the Germans who outnumbered the Red Army in many battles: beccause they had the initiative and was superior tactically - they used their numbers better.
Its easier to set up ambushes on the defensive. There are many legendary stories of the Soviet tanks wiping out entire columns in 1941. Single tanks blocking waves of Germans.
Can someone tell me where the Soviet Air force was?? As I understand they had complete mastery of the sky in 1943 as the Luftwaffe has been greatly diminished through attrition and the fact that the rest has been assigned to combatting Allied bombers in western Germany. The Soviets would have had a field day in destroying German tanks with their Stormavik fighter bombers.
I mean, you wouldn't learn from this doc because they are literally interviewing only one side who says only glowing positive things about themselves. History Channel produces a lot of this borderline German propaganda even in to the 1990s because the German vets were handy mouthpieces for Cold War anti-Soviet propaganda.
thats what won the war for them, they had no skill, or training, just an enormous amount of factories they spawned from the forced labor and deaths of millions.
When the german veteran laughed and I cant believe we believed that, ive heard something similar from another german veteran when I showed him some ss books in my collection. When I opened them up and he read what it said about America, he laughed out loud and said that he cant believe that him and his friends actually believed that
It’s amazing that these shows mainly show German vehicles destroying Allied or Soviet tanks. You’d be left wondering how the Axis lost the war if their tanks were never destroyed!
What it must have been like to witness these tank battles back then. Armor against armor, the best tank technology of the time and training interpreted by two different militaries meeting head to head. Oh what a sight it must have been. On another side, we must not forget the lives lost, and honor the ones that are still alive which are now very few. No matter what side, they all we’re doing what they were ordered to do, and after that it was what they had to do to survive. It was a different time then, right after the depression, and nobody knows what they would do unless they were put into the position.
I was thinking this doc was beginning to get comically one-sidedl Then I realized: they are literally interviewing only one side with the exception of the one Russian dude who says like two sentences lol.
Get used to this series reusing every sentence they can put into another episode. Looking back on it they could've done way better than this even at the time they made it.
First-person accounts of Red Army verifiable armored combat from early campaigns are virtually impossible to find, particularly for a Western production.
All the Russian ones probably dead from famine, homelessness, civil war, and state sanctioned murder being that they were in Russia between 1950 an now.
Germans had Tigers Tank killer tanks great shooting skills n excellent tank Commanders but Soviets outnumbered them with T-34 tanks. Later by 1944 JS-2s heavy tanks join T-34s n destroy Tigers Despite Tigers detecting weakness in them. Complete nightmare for retreating German tank units. Only difference bw both armies was that Germans desperately lacked reinforcements n reserves by 1944 n lost battles to mighty Soviet forces.
Most tanks weren't Tigers or Panthers everyone forgets that the fighting was done by Panzer 4's and 3's which did the heavy lifting, comparatively tigers were very few and the soviets also had excellent tank commanders and gunnery but its rarely mentioned over the big shiny tanks everyone wants to see.
@@AK-qy5iw The fins did excellent in the winter war against russia but were no where near the germans infact out of all the countries that fought in ww2 the fins were not even in the top 5 imo and this is coming from a man who really admired their fighting spirit in the winter war.
@@davidwatt4511 who are in top 5 and who put them there? And Winter War was not all the Finns did. Tali Ihantala battle from Continuation war, impressive stuff. Not going to deny that German were one of the best soldiers but I also know that Estonian young officers who served in the "Narva" batallion of the WSS panzerdivision "Viking" have said that marksmanship and individual skills and initiative of the young officers, NCOs and soldiers were better in the former Estonian army than in German forces in general. I think to put together a top 5 is just impossible, noone has enough information to make such a list. But go on.
@@AK-qy5iw Can i ask your nationality?The top 5 are just my personal opinion.Imo germans top and followed by the brittish.Then russia,japan and the the USA.
@@davidwatt4511 I hinted on my nationality in the last comment. I am from Estonia. Idk what are the criteria? Ability to fight smartly or to heroically die? The combination of these 2? Idk honestly about the ability of fighting smartly of the japanese, but they sure were the best at dying heroically. Russians were the best at dying stupidly. Have you read Otto Carius'es memories how he compared fighting on the Ostfront to the Western front? He didnt consider the Americans serious opponents at all after fighting against the soviets. About the Brits he said they had good artillery but the infantry was not so impressive. I would leave the unmotivated countries out of the comparison. Brits and Americans had no reason to fight this war and their dedication cant be compared to soldiers of any nationality that fought for their nation's survival. I will never agree that the Brits were better than the Finns, or the Baltic volunteers of the G army who fought for their nation's survival against their mortal enemy. Finns are calm, stoic, educated, highly motivated, full of personal initiative, well lead, skilled. Where would the Brits get a motivation that can compared to the Finnish or Baltic motivation? For Brits it was another foreign expedition to destroy Germany again, they had nothing to die for. To fight against fanatics like the japanese or some of the soviets is very different from fighting a western army. Such list can not be put together. Russians had some skills like digging in in record times, but their way of fighting was always and is today throwing masses in after artillery barage. I would not call them good soldiers as I have served in soviet army and that was - and still is as we know now - a joke.
Has anybody else paid attention to the german-soviet kill ratios? According to these silly videos the Germans destroy a good hundred soviet tanks for every German tank lost - But if you look at the manufacturing data it is nothing like that. The actual ratio is more like 2 soviets to 1 german which is still bad but the idea of hordes and hordes of mongols overrunning the defenders of western Christianity is pretty damn silly and more a product of the cold war than of rationality.
The German soldier of ww 2 was excellently trained, well equipped, and most importantly, highly motivated. They were self-starters and natural warriors. I’m an American but even I can recognize those facts.
Many of the Soviet tank crews were peasants who were put in uniform, given a few shots at the gunnery range and shipped off to the frontlines, hence the poor performance by many of their forces on a head to head clash with the Axis forces.
Remember the Germans invaded 3 years prior and the number of Russians soldiers that were killed so there was also a lot of replacement with no time for training.
So Very True and that was thru out the rest of the war, same goes for its Armies in WW1, 1870s war with the Ottomans, Crimean War, Napoleonic Wars,18th century War with Prussia , Great Northern War with Sweden King Charles and its Wars with the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th and 17th century ( Poles were the only ones to capture Moscow and have Muscovy totally surrender), their tactics have been just throw in 100,000 soldiers against 20,000 and let the math and attrition pull out their victory, not saying every battle was like that but around %85 of their battles thru out history have been, you want proof, look whats goin on now in Ukraine! The Communist Chinese are even worse, totally Toilet paper Armies!
@Zyruss Miguel Aquino You have been drinking Russian Vodka or your a Bonafied Communist!!!!, Kill Ratio among German Tanks increased vastly later in the war, many Panzer Aces, WSS or Regular Heer came about and highly experienced Panzer Battle Groups, Panzer Grenadiers and Tank Hunter killer Battle groups that would number a company of Tiger1 or 2s and Panthers Gs or Stugs or JadgPanthers,Panzer IVs etc etc etc would completely slaughter an entire Soviet Tank Battalion of T 34/85s or Joseph Stalins without having even one tank damage. Nothing improved with Soviet training just same old and lousy except New Tank Models ( again with One Way Radio, """HOW STUPID""", kill the Commanders Tank and thats all she wrote for that Soviet Tank Unit) and a few more Red Guard created Divisions after having some wiped out by say Grossdeutchland Division or the 5th WSS Wiking Division which a cousin of mine was a member of ,German Czech born, was a WSS Obersturmfuhrer ( 1st Lieutenant), the difference the Red Guards fought harder,tougher, mostly with anger,which in battle pretty much clouds a soldiers judgment and pretty much won,t last long in battle but maybe a few minutes longer than Regular Soviet Units and take out alittle more German units by going """CRAZY"" .My cousin sometimes called them the """"MANIAC SOLDIERS"""", many were loaded up with Vodka,Revenge in their minds and went Pell Mell into hails of 88s and 75s and 81mm and 8mm spewing out of dozens of MG 42s.
Otto Carius Book Tigers in the Mud is one of the best memoirs of a Panzer commander on the Eastern Front and a must read for anyone who is interested in this period of History
Thank you for this. Just started reading it upon your recommendation and it’s very interesting.
Thank you!! Ordered it on Amazon the other day and just started it!
They should make a movie about Otto, his story is a pretty crazy one! Man lived through some very brutal moments in his life!
Great book by Otto indeed. I can recommend Spearhead by Adam Makos as great read too.
my Tiger is stuck in the mud
I met a cool German (Thomas) who met Otto Carrius as a kid in Germany. Thomas's dad and Otto were friends from WW2. Thomas had a lil German helmet on and asked Otto what was it like in a tank? So Otto threw a handful of pocket change at his head and said, "now you know" with all the pinging from the coins he started to laugh.
Yeah. Rather be infantry...or no war at all. Ping.
That's real
OTTO WAS A LEGEND, WOULD HAVE BEEN COOL TO TALK TO HIM.
As a tanker who's been in 2 war's in a m 60a3 much respect for those who went before me. SEMPER FI brother tankers
It’s amazing just how skilled the German soldier was. Absolutely out performed others.
they were so great that they lost hehe
@@gnolkenstein5527 im sure if the americans backed germany instead of russia, the german forces wouldve reached the Pacific
@@healththenopulence5106 isnt that more a testament to how good americans are? Germany lost ALL offensives in the soviet union
@@gnolkenstein5527 its the late war they lost but in the beginning they succeed every offensive
@@healththenopulence5106 Patton said we fought on the wrong side
You must feel sorry for these 18 year old kids from both sides, who after short training were put into the battles to die in burning tanks. As usual the generals survived to write books and memoirs.
Can you even imagine most of today's kids in the same situation? "There's no cushion on this seat,i'm gonna sue" or "This tank is too slow,i'm offended"..LOL
@@cleetorishanns5116 That is a pretty stupid baseless comment.
@@j.jwhitty5861 But true..:)
@@j.jwhitty5861 baseless? Do you even watch the news? Colleges with cry closets..people going to court to kick out their 30 year old son etc. The new generation is so convinced that the world owes them something and require so much validation that they are ill equipped for real life...let alone a battlefield.
@@cleetorishanns5116 there are thousands of young men and women in our military right now. also, many serving in this country as police and firemen. You have insulted them all.
I wish the History/Discovery Channel would fire their video editors, after every commercial break they repeat or recap every damned thing that came before. Instead of putting more into the show they chose to use filler to take 20 minutes of video and stretch it to 45, it is so annoying that I stopped watching them. The Veterans could have told us more of their war, or more detail anything other than constantly repeating everything after a break.
They must have enough raw footage to put something there. It's annoying.
This hour has 22 minutes
The ads are from RUclips they were not recorded with the program. If you are watching on PC and running the Google chrome get a Extension called 'AD blocker' i watch RUclips for a lot of things and i do not get one... It also blocks ADs and pop ups from every other site
@@wwillgoudge2749 .
But there is still constant repetition due to ads in the original programme.
@@wwillgoudge2749 I use Firefox, and yes I have adblocker, I haven't seen a RUclips add in years, and I was not referring to them. You don't have to seen the ads to see were the breaks are in the program.
Fun fact, the ship bombarding Tukums was the veteran heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen with her destroyer group.
Indeed
The most amazing thing about tank combat back then is that there was no drones or Satellites but air observation to lead the tank commander. Today tank commanders have a vast array of support that allows them to concentrate in fighting the enemy alone.
There's no tank battles anymore
@@craigmuller591 Ukraine?
@@craigmuller591 false
@@TF2Scout.. Truth
26:40 The IS-2 had a low rate of fire because of the size of main armament. The D25-T 122 mm gun used a separate shell and powder charge as its shell is too big to be produced as the single-piece ammunition. Aside from loading problem, IS-2 could carried only 28 rounds inside the tank, compared to tiger tanks which could carried around 90 rounds.
No, 92 rounds in tiger
@25:50 Actually it had 90 mm RHA or 100 mm CHA sloped at 60° from the vertical. The transition from front to sides is 135 mm .The mantlet is 115 mm.
Excellent history documentary. Thank you for the time put to make this. Will show it with my kids.
I tell this story everytime I see videos with Wehrmacht versus Russian tank battles.
My great uncle was a German soldier in the east from 1941 to 1945. He was in a 24th mechanized infantry in which his speciality was mechanics. Armor and mechanized infantry mutually supported each other. He told of not having to worry too much about being close to wehrmacht tanks in combat because the commander almost always was visible in his gondola only completely getting in the turret under heavy artillery or air strikes. Conversely, the Russian tankers would fight closed up and would often run over their own soldiers. Russian commanders would not concede this doctrine no matter the situation
That leads to their downfall in stalingrad the germans are too careful of their own men and would not allow their own artillery to fire danger close missions meanwhile the soviets could keep their artillery barrage up while their infantry advances danger close ofcourse this changes in an operational scale of warfare where the artillery drops in a scheduled time
@@Akeno0002 that is interesting
Wow thanks guys for that info 👍🏾
The Russians rarely had radio's, only the commander's tank.
Horrendously careless and unregarding of the lives of their own soldiers. Even Commanders complained that experienced cadres could not be built up this way.
Carius survived the war to live a long prosperous life
He founded the biggest pharmaceutical company in Germany
@@benschultz1784 drugs were rampant in ww2, on both sides
Carius 's, book Tigers in the mud is amazing
@@kostaskakaris4092 I’ve read the book and even have his signature in it. By far the best war story I’ve ever read
The brother of my Grandfather served in the same unit with him late in the war. He was a gun loader for the Jagdtiger in the 512th heavy tank destroyer battalion and surrendered to the Americans in May 1945.
My grandfather is a veteran of many battles as infantry for the Wehrmacht. He eventually was captured along with the 6th army in Stalingrad. He was in the 44th infantry division.
In the end he was among the few to return to Germany in the mid 1950s and lost 80 pounds of body weight during Russian captivity.
Not so long ago, only the truly dedicated studied the battles in the Baltics and East Prussia.Good to see the information become public; both sides fought with skill and determination.
Russia fought will numbers not skill lol
@@diggingdeeperpodcastddp2342 " lol" BS. They learned and had some exceptional officers and troops.Or they still would have lost.
There are plenty of examples; don't try to revise history.
Check out TIK. He has done a great dcumentary on this.
@@markferguson3745 His comment partially is true nevertheless, Soviets had tremendous consequences after the purges just before war which eliminated most of high command. As reflected in this video, troops in most case had absolutely no experience using tanks and would jump into them as soon as it would roll out of factory with wet paint still on them. Every male villager went to the war on a very short notice and indeed were miles apart from being an professional and well trained/skilled soldier, but there's not a single reason to use derogative and mocking language as that internet troll did.
The lack of radios in Soviet tanks was a major disadvantage. What amazed me is how they would group the tanks when they rested in a town.
I believe only commanders tank used to have them, not even sure for what reason as you still couldn't communicate with your unit. Radios for its complexity to produce and manufacture were indeed ultra rare on the Soviet side. But there was many other disadvantages, firstly very hastly training as was reflected in this video, heavily limiting their capabilities to hit enemy tanks, and the shooting range of T-34 was shorter by like half km, so they had drive close to enemy tanks under fire before being able to reach them.
Horrendously uncaring of their own men even for the most detached and practical reasons. Russian Generals even tried modestly to change these policies as they could not build up crews and groups with experience on which to build and plan successes and 'pin' newer fresher troops lacking experience
In 43 minutes I learned more about this horrific struggle than in my whole study of WW 2.
how did all the sudden russian tanks not get steamrolled by german tanks? how did russian tanks destroy german tanks if german tanks were better numbers should have mattered?
Lol
Since i have watched it , maybe 20 times i have you beat on the mins but not the absolutly riveting personnal accounts, thanks to all whokeep me learning a d happy, a toast to the tank men who my generation has not nor probably couldnt match
Rest in peace valiant warriors and innocent civilians war is a horror and knows no boundaries of humanity.
"We were so brain-washed that we always believed in the 'Endsieg' (Final Victory)." - German tanker. We watch these entertaining videos, and get caught up in the tactics, and the battles as if they were chess games. I think it's important to remember that all this monumental violence started in _ideology._ And ideology is a way to justify any means, including ultimate violence, for national gain. It's like a lever: press on one end with fervent nationalism, and at the other end it suddenly makes perfect sense to crush any other nations that seem to stand in our way. Many people think patriotism is a great and lofty virtue. But I just think of what human tragedy can (and forever will) be so easily justified by it.
"And ideology is a way to justify any means, including ultimate violence, for national gain."
... or for international gain, or for economic gain, or for racial gain, or for the working class gain, etc
Looks like you are circumscribing "Ideology" to nationalism/patriotism only.
PPpp and a half PPP
P]
.?
Yup, and religion works the same way
@@mr.mojorisin6402 _Organized_ religion _has_ often worked that way. I'll be so bold as to allow that there are spiritual traditions - often _contained_ within established religions - that aren't concerned with power & ideology, but rather, with personal spiritual progress. But it's unfortunately true that those goals get easily lost in the hierarchies of religious denominations - with their need to keep their positions & privileges & values within society.
The problem is extremism....you can take anything too far. Just like the problem isn't left or right...it's radical left or right,which end up basically being yin & yang. Both fantastical extremes are hateful, intolerant, practice "us vs them",& "black,& white thinking"...just basically their own political, destructive cults.
The extreme left end (communism),is no better or worse than the extreme right end(NAZIsm...or fascism in general.) Both are equally despicable,copy each other's tactics,& propaganda strategies-while being ideological enemies. But both can end in the same spot. The millions of innocents murdered by evil fascism,or even more millions murdered by evil communism. They just have different scapegoats,targets,& lies. Both pose an equal threat to peace,freedom,& democracy,& always will. And religious fanaticism is similar in many ways,though different in other respects. But every bit as reprehensible. And all of them have so much blatant hypocrisy that knows no ends.
Regarding the description, I would say that actually the Soviets had turned the tide of the war by 1942 with Stalingrad. Once that happened, the Germans were pretty much turned on the defensive.
I describe it as, Stalingrad turned the tide and Kursk confirmed it's magnitude.
The Soviets perfectly well what they were doing.
Russian stopping the Germans from taking Moscow and Leningrad were important,Stalingrad sealed the future of the Eastern war,also Hitler's failure to develop the jet fighter program as fast as could have been done might have given USA and Britain air superiority over Germany. German success at Stalingrad would have given Germany vast reserves of oil and enabled German support to go through from the Black Sea area to support German activity in North Africa.
Thanks to the lend/lease
Kursk turn the tide completely
Its so irritating when these videos repeat themselves.
They repeat where a commercial break would be inserted if the program is shown on TV.
In my experience it’s just programs that are shown in the US that do this.. like they need to remind the viewer what they were watching just two minutes earlier.. The rest of the world seems to be able to have a longer attention span.
read books instead my friend.
@@minot.8931 ey im American but that dont mean i like the way our TV is set up but i do love this show
They have to fill a time slot....20 min of actual material, 50 min of show.
THANK YOU for all the informative uploads, War Stories.
Respects to all who have fallen there.
and fascist too?
@@1967last Wehrmacht too
@@1967last definitely not the commies
@@hercg1967 you are nazyboy?
@@1967last No, I was born and raised in communism..
This series basically led me into my tank fascination. I loved this series so much when I still had cable and still love it now.
I doubt you'd maintain a fascination with tanks if you served in them! Yes, they bring a lot of punch and firepower to the battlefield, but they're VERY vulnerable. Not only from other tanks, but from infantry (even light airborne infantrymen) who carry all sorts of antitank weapons these days. Mechanized infantry has even more.. Then there are mortars, artillery, and aircraft, both rotary and fixed-wing. Remember what Bill Mauldin's cartoon said about tanks in WWII.... "Moving foxholes attract attention."
Yes the engineering alone is amazing.
Then all the tactics available. Very interesting subject.
I really enjoy watching War stories
Same here friend
@L Train45 you do realize that this channel licenses the videos they're uploading? They aren't ripped off from anything.
Amazing footage
Those tanks knocked out 20 000 Soviet tanks. Sadly for them the Soviets manufactured 60 000 T34's alone. Therein lies the problem. The Tiger was also a powerful tank, but only 1300 were ever built and they kept breaking down, and were not very mobile.
Read Otto Carius', Tigers in the Mud. It put to rest many of the misconceptions I had regarding the Mark VI. 2 Tigers would absolutely dominate an engagement and then be ordered to drive 50-60 km overnight to another hot spot. They weren't designed for that much travel so things broke. They were heavy but that armor made the survivability difference in combat. The numbers game, yeah, lost that one. My M60 series tanks were always breaking something too. Needing constant maintenance. We'd go months without necessary parts. This was normal peacetime training.
@@mikedixon7651 - Tiger II didn’t seem to help in Ardennes
@@petersouthernboy6327 Logistics, supply. That was doomed from the start. Pure fantasy on the part of der Führer. "Rundstedt later testified that while he recognized the merit of Hitler's operational plan, he saw from the very first that "all, absolutely all conditions for the possible success of such an offensive were lacking." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Bulge
the Tiger 1 was a reliable Panzer , but was abused by need of battle
@@ronvk100 Exactly. They were tasked with seemingly impossible missions, yet in almost every instance were dominating in their field of battle. Wittman's tank in one engagement was hit 23 times with antitank and tank rounds. No Sherman could survive that.
It never fails to amaze me that the Soviets had such bad tactics! They just threw their tanks willy nilly at the German defenders. They didn’t seem to have any organization in their operations! You need to have combined forces, a mixture of tanks, artillery, infantry and air support all in communication with each other. The Soviets eventually won, but at such a cost in human life!
Read Otto Carius' Tigers in the Mud. The main disadvantage of the Soviet tank tactics was to fight "buttoned up". The tank commanders thus had a very limited view of the battlefield. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Carius
@@mikedixon7651: it didn’t help that they had the commander’s hatch facing the wrong way.
The total k/d ratio was about 2:1, which with terrible training, no communication, and having to attack rather than defend sounds not bad for the Soviets.
Mate, in Red Army all soldiers had just a few days of training before being rushed to battle, and tank crews were no exception. Materials were excellent, but soviet tactics never went beyond massive attack. Losses were simply irrelevant: for every tank lost, 10 were sent in, and for every soldier killed, other 100 were recruited.
Terrible and terrible training. Stalin had such a fear that he killed all of the old Russian Imperial commanders, the only ones with real experience in his purge. Marshall Zhukov survived because he was below the radar. Without him, they would certainly have lost Kursk. The only reason he managed in F$% up Soviet System is because, after proving himself, he famously told Stalin that if he didn't like his plan, then he might as well send him to the front as a soldier and he can run the whole thing himself. Stalin actually yielded probably knowing he had no one else.
Mein Lieber Otto!! Fantastic old gentlemen!! //Lars
Extreme bravery on both sides. On a lighter note - separated at birth - Otto Carius and Fred Astaire.
Quite different than gentle and fragile snowflake teens nowadays
27:00 Carius and his platoonmate farming afk enemies
😂😂😂
World of Tanks and War Thunder be like:
The name is, General Hyazinth von Strachwitz-be easier to find him if your captioning was correct.
Good material. Thx 4 the upload. 👍
On amazon video there is a doco called 75 winter danach with english subtitles,2 german soldiers tell their experience of war in russia and of being prisioners in siberia.Raw stuff.
Cant find it on google
@@HateTheIRS Amazon prime video. 75 winter danach.
thx! I wanna see this
Wahre Kameraden... For all Soldiers, peace... Greetings from Germany
Failure to win the air battle with Brittain should have kept them away from commencing a two-front war.
The war on the Eastern front was already lost before a two-front war was even a problem for the Germans.
facism. Hope you know what it means, you'll have your answer
@@jassen1924 It's not that simple at all, Russia was a major threat, communism, and still is.
@@MrShadowofthewind Communism was/is mostly a threat to the Russians and was invented in Germany,not Russia.
Maybe have some variety home brewed right here. (communism)
The Crazy part is these guys going over old battle fields and handling old Explosive like there is no danger of it going Boom. That makes it even more of a chance of it going off.
Thanks to Russia for defeating Germany 🇩🇪 If only we could remember that we fought together at one time for victory ! Canada 🇨🇦 thx you for your contribution!
You are crazy.
The biggest danger even today and alway has been, is communism.
And that's also what the West even up to this day is fighting against for the last 75 years or so.
The Allies never considered the Russians as true Allies.
Even before the end of WW2 very high ranking Generals like "Patton" and also Churchill, recognized that Russia's communism was the real enemy that needs to be defeated.
And also today, the recent events in Ukraine is the just again one of the latest examples why communism needs to be defeated.
Toto je videohra, nie skutočnosť, obyčajná fantasmagoria.
Basic military doctrine gives the defender the advantage of the attacker needing a 3-4 advantage to defeat prepaired positions. Kusk was a Soviet defence in depth & a draw was catastrophic for the Wehrmacht. Operation Citadel was a gift for the Russians.
German forgot reinforcement weapons food and fuel
Otto Carius wasn't a Superman, but he was a Super Human. I'd recommend tuning into Mark Felton's channel instead of this television stuff, or History Hustle or TIK if you really want to learn something NEW about WWII history.
Link please for Maark Felton channel
@@grandmastergyorogyoro532 ruclips.net/channel/UCfCKvREB11-fxyotS1ONgww
@@jduff59
Thank you for your help friend 👍
@@grandmastergyorogyoro532 Enjoy that channel (he's got a couple) Marcus!
Dr. Felton's channel is great!
The Tiger Tank #217 from Otto Carius was a Middle Version.This is in the Video not right.And many more...but it is only Graphics for the Video.Its ok.The Documentation is interesting!
I bet the Russians got a right shock when the German naval ordnance started landing on their tanks!
I could still sense and see hatred in the eyes of the old Russian tank operator with the yellow/red tie.Understandable.
As usual , your work is excellent.thanks!
This channel licenses all the videos they post, they don't create any of them.
Mister commentator, in Germany there was not only Nazis !!! So no generalizations !!!
And who else was there to boot? On ours..
In 1944 they were all Nazis. Every one.
@@petersouthernboy6327 np what about the jews in the camps, they weren't nazis ,they were born and lived in Germany, there were resistance groups ,that called themselves nazis for cover yet they certainly weren't
@@petersouthernboy6327 Israel isn't 100% Jewish yet we call it the Jewish state(its a country) , you only need 60% of a population to earn a title of majority in a country
Overwhelming numbers that was the key to Soviet assault
Crazy impressive accuracy from the Kriegsmarine. Wow
It sort of sanitizes the whole thing because you never get any impression of the
often horrific deaths the tank crews suffered.
A lot of this covers the Battle of Bagration I think which was the biggest Russian victory of the war. Huge tracts of territory across the whole front were recaptured, vast quantities of German equipment were destroyed and enormous numbers of Germans were captured and were then paraded in a seemingly endless column through the streets of Moscow.
You certainly don't get any sort of feel for that fact in much of this doco.
Bagration was an operation with many many battles.
This is about German Army Group North. Bagration was a series of ofensive battles against Army group Centre.
@@Nnnuvolari The Battle of Bagration definitely extended into the Baltic region. In the Siauliai Offensive in Lithuania hurridly organised German counter attacks managed to restore the severed connection between the remnants of Army Group Central and North but German attempts to retake Siauliai failed.
Bagration dwarfs all other Allied offensives during WW2 but that fact has been ignored until recently. 31 of the 47 German divisional and corps commanders involved were either killed or captured. I have just looked at a photo of a collection of German generals heading the parade through Moscow.
@@paultyson4389 German Army groups North and Center had neighbourg fronts there. The aim of this docummentary is Army Group North not Centre. You seem to have some sort of fixation with the Bragation offensive. It certainly has not been ignored in the past. It was a huge success for the Soviet army but have in mind that they enjoyed a 10 to 1 superiority in artillery, planes and tanks in a very extended front and that Hitler's orders prevented many German units from tactical retreats.
@@Nnnuvolari Eie . !
i really like storys keep it coming ❤❤
History repeats itself again !
Sorry, but the Tiger was built to counter the KV series tanks......not the T34's. The pz4's with the long barreled 75s had no problems dealing with them, even when they up gunned them to the t34-85.
But the Germans still lost.
@@Donkeybone10 and having your factories and supply lines bombed day and night really didn't help.
Correct. It was the Panther tank that was built to counter the Soviet T-34.
sorry , but love to correct you..what a world
Third best episode of season 2 after the Six Day War and the October War.
hm, to my knowledge 1944 the red army had mostly T34 with the 85mm gun and perhaps the first IS1 .... i dont htink there were many of the old T34 with short 75mm from 41´ left !
too right, full of incorrect info, just about all technical 'facts' are wildly wrong
They still had mostly 76 mm t34 up to 1943 at kursk they realized they needed better guns and tanks
@@Yermansk in 44 there were plenty of T34/85 and russian production was huge and fast; not complicated and lame and shortages all around and bombs every night destryoing your yesterdays work :-)
@@kubanskiloewe t34 85s were being deployed at the central front byliurussia for operation bagration
@@inigobantok1579 ok, and this was 43´ if i remember correct.
Omg thank you i love this episode!!
Thanks for sharing sir. Animation and recreation of battle is spot on.
This is an episode of a TV show, not something created by this channel.
This 'War Stories' Channel is so very awesome. I think i have almost watched every video in there library. Thank you for the many hours of late night or early morning watching while i lay in bet falling to sleep to these videos :)
Greatest tank battles on history
The German veterans explaining about the technical aspect of battle, trauma and strategy
While the Russian veteran is like "we just kept slamming them, choking them, turned them away like a will" goes on ranting like a poetry
I'd love to have met Rudolf. So much to pearn from him. Here we are again, same ground and similarly outnumbered.
My fiance is a CNA and cares for Rudolph, he is doing well
The only remaining Tiger 1 running in the world is in the British Tank Museum.Captured in Tunisia by the British and brought back to u.k for propaganda purposes.
For the time they were built,they are awe inspiring.
So glad y’all took the advice of turning the music volume down!
Really enjoyed this doc!
Can’t wait for more.
Keep it up!👍
This channel doesn't produce any of the videos they post, they're all licensed from their respective creators.
Thank you very much. I enjoyed those war-action simulations. very illustrative with a great historical contents.
We need more of these
Pretty sure they're planning on uploading the entire series, I believe they made 3 or 4 seasons of it.
Nice video with clear explaining of events battle tanks...during 2WW
The GrossDeutschland division I think is the same one that the author Guy Sajer wrote about in his autobiography. It has been a while since I read the book.
Correct. "The Forgotten Soldier".
What a book that was I remember reading it myself ,
The Sajer book is mostly fiction as are so many written by German soldiers of WW2
"The most frequently cited inaccuracy is Sajer's statement that, after being awarded the coveted Grossdeutschland Division cuff title, he and a friend were ordered to sew it on their left sleeves, when it was actually sewn on the right sleeve. Edwin Kennedy wrote that this error was "unimaginable" for a former member of such an elite German unit. Sajer also discusses campaign locations in vague terms and never with specific dates. For example, he asserts that during the summer of 1942 he was briefly assigned to a Luftwaffe training unit in Chemnitz commanded by famed Stuka ace Hans-Ulrich Rudel, but according to Rudel himself, his training unit was actually in Graz, Austria, during the whole of 1942. Sajer mentions seeing "the formidable Focke-Wulf [...] 195s, which could soar up quickly," taking off from an airfield outside Berlin, when no such aircraft ever existed (a Focke-Wulf projekt 195, a heavy transport, was in the pipeline, but never got off the drawing board. Finally, the names of most of Sajer's companions and leaders do not appear on official rolls in the Bundesarchiv, nor are they known to the Veterans Association, whose leader, Helmuth Spaeter, was one of the first to question whether Sajer actually served in the Grossdeutschland Division as he claimed?
It is. East Prussia is where his buddy Hans (?) met his end. The book was Forgotten Soldier.
@@Baskerville22 I have heard this more than once. There certainly are some inconsistencies.
“Continued to hit and hit until death everywhere” yet alive to tell the tale
U.S. deaths in the entire Pacific war are less than most single battles on the Russian front, incredible.
In the Titanic struggle between Bolshevism and Fascism, the US sided with the Bolsheviks. So sorry Poland, Romania, Hungary, Latvia, etc, etc.
@@HerrDocktor23 The U.S. made a compromise to avoid continued mass warfare with Russia avoiding million more dead and possible nuclear complications. As undesirable as that was, in time the long game proved the lesser evil.
The tactics used determined casualties. When slaughter is the outcome, only the leadership is to blame...
@@ioccatonyz1 Scale has something to say about that. Millions vs millions gets more slaughter than 50,000 vs 30,000.
The US had less casualties because they care about the loss of human life, especially their own. Stalin wasn't burdened with that particular problem. The US won with machines and tactics. Joseph Stalin won with a huge body count of his own men.
And I was expecting the dulcet tones of Dr. Mark Felton. Oh well, It's "Fragile German Quality" vs. "Good Enough To Drive Soviet Quantity."
Someone fighting for STALIN calling anyone evil sounds strange
To all german soldiers of WW2: Thank you for your service. You gave it all with honor and loyalty till the bitter end. RIP.
Ehhh I don’t know about all of them , look up a lot of the war crimes done Done by the werhmacht. Pretty sure most of Eastern Europe and Western Europe wouldn’t agree with your Sentiment
@@joshuabonilla3491 Of course this sentiment doesn't go for any other participant of the war, they were all without any war crimes right?
@@happaala Thank you for this comment!!👍👍👍☝️
@@happaala Well the scale of the german war crimes is significant bigger
@@saphixs9372 Russian revolution under Lenin, later under Stalin, Hiroshima, Naga..... watch Hellstorm and Europe the last battle. Threaty of Versailles, Germany did not start the first WW. I could go on and on. For the full story watch The greatest story never told by Dennis Wise.
The way he says “1.2 million troops. Thousands of heavy guns” shows even the narrator is in disbelief of the once great Soviet might.
It took the great Russian might 4 years to go the same distance you can drive in 19 hours.
Might that should be kept in perspective .They were generally supported and provided for poorly, and led with an indifference for their sacrifices and lives.At that time not unusual for large armies where only higher officers lives were valued.
@@markferguson3745 it is not true, actually. Soviets started to outnumber the Germans only in 1943, and mostly by "scraping the barrel" - conscripting every category available. On liberated territories every man immediately was taken into the Red Army with just minor checks on his actions under German occupation (hensewhy the cases of respectable veterans suddenly found to be German auxiliary "policemen" and stuff like that). In 1945 literally every military unit of Red Army was quite undermanned, being actually equal to solid unit of lower rank.
Under all this conditions there is one simple conclusion: Soviets could not throw "a lot of" man into enemy until it works because it was unaffordable. There was no need to buy more time with blood as it happened in 1941. Red Army was well supplied, soldiers and their command learned how to fight and quality of German "average soldier" quite dropped. You don't need to throw men into enemy positions when you have enough artillery shells for this.
Thankyou for the well produced video. Interesting to hear from the Eastern front. The interviews with the veterans were excellent!
A lot of these firsthand memories WW2 soldiers are always problematic to me. It's not the accounts from the actual soldiers so much. We all know memory can be flawed, but by and large I believe a lot of what is said. It's the focus on battle stories. It leaves the impression of the invincible German army. So I have to say it. OK, if you were so good, and the Sovjets so terrible at hitting anything - how come you didn't win the war? And NO, the Sovjets didn't outnumber the Wehrmacht 20:1. It's just not mathematically true. So this account itself, while interesting, should be treated with caution when it comes to saying much about the greater picture of the war.
TIK history on youtube does good docs dives, from stats they showed in the last year of the war the soviets casualty rates were lower than German eastern front numbers.
@Al Dillabaugh TIK is definitely not 'tainted by sovjet propaganda'. He's a libertarian; i.e. promotes small state, private enterprise, scepticism of collective ideology. In a lot of ways the opposite of 'Sovjet'. And the red Army only outnumbered the Wehrmacht, when they were winning - meaning, when they actually got their tactics right and took the initiative. In the early part of the war, the force ratio was actually pretty equal, but here it was often the Germans who outnumbered the Red Army in many battles: beccause they had the initiative and was superior tactically - they used their numbers better.
Its easier to set up ambushes on the defensive. There are many legendary stories of the Soviet tanks wiping out entire columns in 1941. Single tanks blocking waves of Germans.
So any ratio lower than 20:1 doesn't count? The Soviets had oil and the Germans did not. Even Tik acknowledges that.
This is an episode of the series "Greatest Tank Battles" from the old History Channel. It's available on CD.
Thanx
Think it’s on one of the big streams as well
Why buy the dvd when it's available right here on RUclips?
Dang war stories!
I have the feeling the the author hopes the German was the victor of the war.
Many of us do
Can someone tell me where the Soviet Air force was?? As I understand they had complete mastery of the sky in 1943 as the Luftwaffe has been greatly diminished through attrition and the fact that the rest has been assigned to combatting Allied bombers in western Germany. The Soviets would have had a field day in destroying German tanks with their Stormavik fighter bombers.
Kursk was not a battle of tanks. It is pure propaganda. It was a battle of attrition where artillery and air force had the upper hand.
Do not expect any answers or a true impartial representation from Americans: they simply carry on with Dr. Goebbels work!
I mean, you wouldn't learn from this doc because they are literally interviewing only one side who says only glowing positive things about themselves. History Channel produces a lot of this borderline German propaganda even in to the 1990s because the German vets were handy mouthpieces for Cold War anti-Soviet propaganda.
That was awesome
I see you zoomed in to hide the History Channel mark that should be on the screen throughout this
Proof pls
Considering History channel airs brain junk such as fake Storage Wars and staged reality TV shows now, I wouldn't worry about it.
Doesn't appear to be zoomed in. And they don't have anything to hide considering they license all these videos.
Top channel like it much
No mention of those factories buiding out those tanks 24 seven
there are other videos that talk about that.
thats what won the war for them, they had no skill, or training, just an enormous amount of factories they spawned from the forced labor and deaths of millions.
@@CoramDeogenua ZERG rush!
@@CoramDeogenua Da Tobarish.
When the german veteran laughed and I cant believe we believed that, ive heard something similar from another german veteran when I showed him some ss books in my collection. When I opened them up and he read what it said about America, he laughed out loud and said that he cant believe that him and his friends actually believed that
Is it me or is this totally taking the German perspective?
As per the title !!
It's you.
I stopped watching after 7 minutes.
Americans rooting for Nazis as usual: "fighting the wrong enemy" regrets!
It’s amazing that these shows mainly show German vehicles destroying Allied or Soviet tanks. You’d be left wondering how the Axis lost the war if their tanks were never destroyed!
Otto Carius very smart, He created moment of surprise.
What it must have been like to witness these tank battles back then. Armor against armor, the best tank technology of the time and training interpreted by two different militaries meeting head to head. Oh what a sight it must have been. On another side, we must not forget the lives lost, and honor the ones that are still alive which are now very few. No matter what side, they all we’re doing what they were ordered to do, and after that it was what they had to do to survive. It was a different time then, right after the depression, and nobody knows what they would do unless they were put into the position.
I cannot hear what the man is saying for the bloody loud music in the background
Russian tank tatics during ww2: keep sending armor, we have more tanks than they have of ammo
So intense.
I was thinking this doc was beginning to get comically one-sidedl Then I realized: they are literally interviewing only one side with the exception of the one Russian dude who says like two sentences lol.
Get used to this series reusing every sentence they can put into another episode. Looking back on it they could've done way better than this even at the time they made it.
First-person accounts of Red Army verifiable armored combat from early campaigns are virtually impossible to find, particularly for a Western production.
All the Russian ones probably dead from famine, homelessness, civil war, and state sanctioned murder being that they were in Russia between 1950 an now.
Tanks for the memories. 😆
I have seen photos of Stratwitz...he could pass as an aristocratic Englishman.
I agree. He was also a count in civilian life
Aristocrats look similar regardless of nationality
I think you consider it to be a best compliment, do you ))
The English language is related to the German and Germans make up a surprisingly large part of the USA blood line.
Agreed. He reminds me of a more tightly-laced version of Montgomery.
Nice
Germans had Tigers Tank killer tanks great shooting skills n excellent tank Commanders but Soviets outnumbered them with T-34 tanks. Later by 1944 JS-2s heavy tanks join T-34s n destroy Tigers Despite Tigers detecting weakness in them. Complete nightmare for retreating German tank units. Only difference bw both armies was that Germans desperately lacked reinforcements n reserves by 1944 n lost battles to mighty Soviet forces.
Most tanks weren't Tigers or Panthers everyone forgets that the fighting was done by Panzer 4's and 3's which did the heavy lifting, comparatively tigers were very few and the soviets also had excellent tank commanders and gunnery but its rarely mentioned over the big shiny tanks everyone wants to see.
I love how they just mowed everything down that was in their way
The germans by far were the best soldiers of ww2.The only thing that beat them were sheer numbers.
I would vote for the Finns
@@AK-qy5iw The fins did excellent in the winter war against russia but were no where near the germans infact out of all the countries that fought in ww2 the fins were not even in the top 5 imo and this is coming from a man who really admired their fighting spirit in the winter war.
@@davidwatt4511 who are in top 5 and who put them there? And Winter War was not all the Finns did. Tali Ihantala battle from Continuation war, impressive stuff. Not going to deny that German were one of the best soldiers but I also know that Estonian young officers who served in the "Narva" batallion of the WSS panzerdivision "Viking" have said that marksmanship and individual skills and initiative of the young officers, NCOs and soldiers were better in the former Estonian army than in German forces in general. I think to put together a top 5 is just impossible, noone has enough information to make such a list. But go on.
@@AK-qy5iw Can i ask your nationality?The top 5 are just my personal opinion.Imo germans top and followed by the brittish.Then russia,japan and the the USA.
@@davidwatt4511 I hinted on my nationality in the last comment. I am from Estonia. Idk what are the criteria? Ability to fight smartly or to heroically die? The combination of these 2? Idk honestly about the ability of fighting smartly of the japanese, but they sure were the best at dying heroically. Russians were the best at dying stupidly. Have you read Otto Carius'es memories how he compared fighting on the Ostfront to the Western front? He didnt consider the Americans serious opponents at all after fighting against the soviets. About the Brits he said they had good artillery but the infantry was not so impressive. I would leave the unmotivated countries out of the comparison. Brits and Americans had no reason to fight this war and their dedication cant be compared to soldiers of any nationality that fought for their nation's survival. I will never agree that the Brits were better than the Finns, or the Baltic volunteers of the G army who fought for their nation's survival against their mortal enemy. Finns are calm, stoic, educated, highly motivated, full of personal initiative, well lead, skilled. Where would the Brits get a motivation that can compared to the Finnish or Baltic motivation? For Brits it was another foreign expedition to destroy Germany again, they had nothing to die for.
To fight against fanatics like the japanese or some of the soviets is very different from fighting a western army. Such list can not be put together. Russians had some skills like digging in in record times, but their way of fighting was always and is today throwing masses in after artillery barage. I would not call them good soldiers as I have served in soviet army and that was - and still is as we know now - a joke.
Very good, thanks.
Has anybody else paid attention to the german-soviet kill ratios? According to these silly videos the Germans destroy a good hundred soviet tanks for every German tank lost - But if you look at the manufacturing data it is nothing like that. The actual ratio is more like 2 soviets to 1 german which is still bad but the idea of hordes and hordes of mongols overrunning the defenders of western Christianity is pretty damn silly and more a product of the cold war than of rationality.
Indeed
The German soldier of ww 2 was excellently trained, well equipped, and most importantly, highly motivated. They were self-starters and natural warriors. I’m an American but even I can recognize those facts.
Many of the Soviet tank crews were peasants who were put in uniform, given a few shots at the gunnery range and shipped off to the frontlines, hence the poor performance by many of their forces on a head to head clash with the Axis forces.
Remember the Germans invaded 3 years prior and the number of Russians soldiers that were killed so there was also a lot of replacement with no time for training.
The Russians had more tanks than tankdriver ;)
So Very True and that was thru out the rest of the war, same goes for its Armies in WW1, 1870s war with the Ottomans, Crimean War, Napoleonic Wars,18th century War with Prussia , Great Northern War with Sweden King Charles and its Wars with the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th and 17th century ( Poles were the only ones to capture Moscow and have Muscovy totally surrender), their tactics have been just throw in 100,000 soldiers against 20,000 and let the math and attrition pull out their victory, not saying every battle was like that but around %85 of their battles thru out history have been, you want proof, look whats goin on now in Ukraine! The Communist Chinese are even worse, totally Toilet paper Armies!
@Zyruss Miguel Aquino You have been drinking Russian Vodka or your a Bonafied Communist!!!!, Kill Ratio among German Tanks increased vastly later in the war, many Panzer Aces, WSS or Regular Heer came about and highly experienced Panzer Battle Groups, Panzer Grenadiers and Tank Hunter killer Battle groups that would number a company of Tiger1 or 2s and Panthers Gs or Stugs or JadgPanthers,Panzer IVs etc etc etc would completely slaughter an entire Soviet Tank Battalion of T 34/85s or Joseph Stalins without having even one tank damage. Nothing improved with Soviet training just same old and lousy except New Tank Models ( again with One Way Radio, """HOW STUPID""", kill the Commanders Tank and thats all she wrote for that Soviet Tank Unit) and a few more Red Guard created Divisions after having some wiped out by say Grossdeutchland Division or the 5th WSS Wiking Division which a cousin of mine was a member of ,German Czech born, was a WSS Obersturmfuhrer ( 1st Lieutenant), the difference the Red Guards fought harder,tougher, mostly with anger,which in battle pretty much clouds a soldiers judgment and pretty much won,t last long in battle but maybe a few minutes longer than Regular Soviet Units and take out alittle more German units by going """CRAZY"" .My cousin sometimes called them the """"MANIAC SOLDIERS"""", many were loaded up with Vodka,Revenge in their minds and went Pell Mell into hails of 88s and 75s and 81mm and 8mm spewing out of dozens of MG 42s.
Wasn't he supposed to be like 2 years old at that time? Looks in his late sixties or early seventies to me...