We have a general rule that we do not do special episodes about individual battles. Since each and every one of them is important to somebody, if we do one we'd have to do them all, and there aren't that many hours in the day to even attempt that. And that would also destroy the holistic nature of this series- i.e., presenting a week instead of a battle to illustrate the ebb and flow of the war and how everything is really all tied together. That we would not be able to convey if we made this series battle-centric. Having said that, we DO do specials that involve the planning, logistics, weapons, etc. for major offensives and whole campaigns, for getting into the minutiae of that is not possible in the regular weekly chronological episodes, and that is what you get today. I personally (and this is Indy writing this) believe that is really the major role of the specials, to flesh out aspects of the war we can't cover in the regular series, but what do you guys think?
I couldn't agree more. The build up for this operation coinciding with the brutal battle that is happening at Stalingrad for me means, a special episode on said build up is the right thing to do.
I agree with the format that you all have done with your channel. A very good way to unfold the war to us while using specials to give us greater insight in certain aspects of it.
The whole campaign was misguided, even without hindsight they knew they could not move the captured oil to be refined back in germany. In order to be at least a semi successful case blue needed more conservative/realistic goals such as capturing Stalingrad first and only then moving south as far as Maikop at most, this would allow them to pull 17th army instead of the romenians from the cauccusus ( tik mention this idea) and completely removing the Italians from the Don, and replacing them with 11th army for example. This would allowe them to beat off most of op Uranus and leave the door for the caucusus open for a 1943 campain.
This outfit, coupled with this magnificent tie, is one for the ages... You just cannot hide from the tie, it's as overwhelming as the Soviet army might that is about to be unleashed.
That statement is exceptionally funny and witty, Onyx1916! I'm usually pretty good at coming up with a reaction to weird things, but that tie is so incoherent that my mind draws a blank...
@@henex1296 You know you're dealing with a professional when he can do that whole video with a strait face knowing the tie looks so ridiculous. Indy is one of those one-of-a-kinds, and in the best way. Someone who does what he loves and loves what he's doing and makes a whole lot of people feel good watching it. Thank you, sir! May we have another?!
@@fredhubler4128 Well I wasn't judging Indy by any means. Was more of a referring to an old comedy. Indy is a great man. Tbh tho I haven't watched the video yet and I forgot that he is always wearing a tie and completely missed the point that Onyx1916 was referring to Indy's tie (that's what u get for being up so late) and this time he is even wearing a different tie. My bad. Lol. But I do absolutely agree with you.
maybe even add material to it like you did with Perl Harbour. Stalingrad was one of the most important pivotal points in WW2. The first time the Axis lost on a major scale.
It is said that during early November, German intelligence was able to intercept thousands messages saying "Prepare Uranus", unfortunately they were not able to determine if they were directed to their own men or to the axis troops.
The whole campaign was misguided, even without hindsight they knew they could not move the captured oil to be refined back in germany. In order to be at least a semi successful case blue needed more conservative/realistic goals such as capturing Stalingrad first and only then moving south as far as Maikop at most, this would allow them to pull 17th army instead of the romenians from the cauccusus ( tik mention this idea) and completely removing the Italians from the Don, and replacing them with 11th army for example. This would allowe them to beat off most of op Uranus and leave the door for the caucusus open for a 1943 campain.
The whole campaign was misguided, even without hindsight they knew they could not move the captured oil to be refined back in germany. In order to be at least a semi successful case blue needed more conservative/realistic goals such as capturing Stalingrad first and only then moving south as far as Maikop at most, this would allow them to pull 17th army instead of the romenians from the cauccusus ( tik mention this idea) and completely removing the Italians from the Don, and replacing them with 11th army for example. This would allowe them to beat off most of op Uranus and leave the door for the caucusus open for a 1943 campain.
I honestly thought Uranus wouldn't be capable of turning the tide, with the massive amount of men involved. Like, how do you fit in so many men into Uranus without it getting messy confusing and painfull. But alas I underestimated the strength of Uranus.
Short answer: Soviet organization and logistics was getting really damn good. Also, Maskirovka the concealment of large movements was also getting state of the art.
I doubt that Zhukov was as deeply involved in planning of Stalingrad offensive as he credited himself. Zhukov's was in charge of Rzev's operation and very unlikely had enough time to to plan something else.
9:15 "And yes, civilians in October are still living in the city of Stalingrad" How was traffic today dear? It was terrible, German in the morning and Russian in the afternoon.
i love the fact that the german after uranus will blame the italians, the hungarians and the romanians because they felt to the soviet offensive, when they know wery well those armyes cannot resist without german armored support. they know it and they promised them help and backup, but as many times they did, and many times they will, they lied to theyr allies.
SPOILER One German corps commander, Ferdinand Heim, was dismissed, in his view he was a scapegoat. He said they could not blame the Romanians, and Army commanders were too senior to blame, so he was picked. Heim was later given command of German forces in Boulogne and was captured by the Canadians in 1944.
It was a book wrote by an Italian called cento Milla (tin cauldron) (dont have the word in Italian ) di ghiacco about the retreat in the blizzard of the Fretter-Pico kampfgruppe from the front..
@@badbotchdown9845 there is alsoThe Sergeant in the Snow By Mario Rigoni. About the colapse of the front and subsecuent retreat. Amazing little book to read, about an horrific situation. It reads pretty much as a first person acount of a man experiencing the end of the world.
@@badbotchdown9845 6 or so years ago I had a chance to talk with an Italian veteran, who had lived through operations Uranus and subsequently Little Saturn.
This outfit, coupled with this magnificent tie, is one for the ages... You just cannot hide from the tie, it's as overwhelming as the Soviet army might that is about to be unleashed :D
Your coverage of the war continues to steadily get ever more epic, as the quality remains amazing. I don't know where you get your energy from, but this work will outlast the whole team. Thank you for teaching me and so many others the history lessons we never got, in order to build a better world.
If you ever wonder why Operation Uranus was called Операция Уран (Uran), it was because Uranus was part of the four Counteroffensive plans drafted up by STAVKA named after planets. Mars and Uranus would be the breakthrough operations using Rzhev and Stalingrad as the defensive lynchpin, and encircle the German forces around these two areas. Operation Jupiter and Saturn, on the other hand, are follow up operations for Mars and Uranus, racing towards the Baltic and Black seas respectively to encircle Army Group North and Army Group South B respectively while they were focused on Leningrad and the Caucuses. These grandiose and ambitious counteroffensive plans were telling of the optimistic attitudes of STAVKA, their overestimation of their enemy's exhaustion and their own strength. It is important to bear these plans in mind, as they are going to significantly impact the course of the Battle of Stalingrad. EDIT: I am not a Russian speaker, but I am aware of the fact that in Russian, Uranus is called Uran, so the English "UrAnus" joke would fly over the head of all Soviets at the time.
I had fun reading these comments and I was expecting them all over the place, but yes, for common Russian speaker, there is not joke for UrAnus :D Great and insightful comment. Should have more up votes, than just Uranus jokes.
It's also not pronounced with the stress on the second syllable but on the first, because it's originally a Greek word and not a Latin, so even in English the pun is partly because of mispronunciation.
00:22 I love that the English languge and its speakers were wise enough to come up with a less... back door pronunciation of the word "Uranus" I love even more that youtubers rarely go with that pronunciation :- ) back door jokes feed the agorithm just fine, right? A wise decision, Warld War Two Crew - I want to talk to comrade Zhukov now! - you can't, comrade general. They are having a staff meeting, and they are very deep in Uranus.
So to give some numbers for November: Romanian 3rd Army with 2 Armored Divisions in reserve (1 Romanian, 1 German): 160.000 men. Romanian 4th Army: 78.000 men. And in 19th of November, Romanian 13th, 14th Infantry and 1st Cavarly divisions from 3rd Army will be hit with 2 Soviet Armies with over 340.000 men. Romanians will lose 158.000 men as casualties by January 1943.
As the comment above said, this doesn't include the hundreads of tanks, thousands and thousands of artillery guns, the 2 to 1 advantage in planes (which is further increased if you take in consideration the fact that the Germans deployed their fighters late) . Then there's the shortages of the Romanians, with few anti tank guns, few of which could penetrate the frontal armor of the T34 from medium ranges. Even so, Romanian reports of the battle indicated that in most sectors, the initial attacking waves were repulsed with heavy casualties inflicted on the Russians. It was the tanks and artillery of the Red Army and the lack of counters the Romanians had to those things, which broke them so easly.
@@daniels0376 the main problem during Uranus was the fog, which prevented both the Luftwaffe and the Royal Romanian Air Force to act as flying artillery. On the anti-tank side, the Romanians had AT guns, but many were 45/47mm pieces. Also, I would like to mention that the 22nd Panzer-Division was probably the worst armoured unit of the German Army, having approximately 40 functioning Pz. 38(t)s(meanwhile the Romanian 1st Armoured Division had 110 Pz. 35(t)s, 11 Pz. IIIs and 11 Pz. IV). On an interesting side-note, the Romanian Armoured Division managed to destroy a significant amount of Soviet tanks, through ambushes and clever movement(127+, according to Mark Axworthy)
A national catastrophe for us Romanians. The Romanian High command repeatedly warned the German HC about the following: thin line and no depth of troops considering long line of front, not enough ammunition and especially anti tank weapons (which the germans made several times promises to supply), large concentrations of russian troops nearby, the immediate need to neutralize bridge heads such as the one at Kremenskoya and so on.
“Call the operation ‘Uranus’ because that sounds like something else in English, so when Americans in the future study this they’ll be able to crack lots of jokes.” -Stalin, probably
Stalin may have been a cold-blooded murderer and a brutal tyrant, but people don't understand that he was just planning for the long-term, after all Lenin once said "the end goal of socialism is communism, but the end goal of communism is anus jokes"
@@timcahill4676 Whenever I hear British people say it, they say "ur-ah-nuss" which isn't as funny as the typical American pronunciation. Maybe that's just my personal experience though. God knows how Australians pronounce it.
in those days, my grandfather was somewhere on the Don river front, driving up and down the frontline placing minefields, barbed wires and all the defences they can while wearing his summer uniform with only his pijamas under it.
@@benogurok5175 italian. he was driving the car for an officer that were sent up and down the front directing fortification field works. expecially among the romanians, but like, everywhere it was needed. not much help from the germans involved, ammo was scarce and there was a huge lack of mortars, machineguns... almost no AT guns, not the german ones anyway.
With the Western Allies looking likely at making a breakthrough at El Alamein and now with the Soviet probing the German flanks at the Stalingrad Front with Operation Uranus soon in due course, could this be turning of the tide? Perhaps "the end of the beginning"?
there is a great book written by an italian alpino about the Don front and operation uranus, it's called "Il Sergente Nella Neve" "the sargeant in the snow". it's a really simple book, but pack quite a punch. i would recomend it.
Those of us who follow TIK's Stalingrad series are well aware of the situation. Those Romanian and Italian divisions had German units interspersed to help them, but these have been moved to 6th Panzer Army to help Paulus' depleted forces. The Romanian and Italian divisions do not have the same quality or quantity of equipment their German allies have. Nor are they happy about the Russian winter. They are not motivated. The Red Army soldiers know that the NAZI's are not going to be as nice to them as the communists are. "The Emperor is not as merciful as I am."
Ive been a fan of this channel since the Great War series and agree that you guys have got the format right. The specials stop me from having withdrawal symptoms so keep them up lol. Thanks to all the team and I am so glad so many people enjoy the show. Who would have thought history would be so popular? Just shows how well it is being done.
I hope we also get an episode on Operation Mars which commenced around the same time and was designed to also encircle the Axis troops on the central front.
It would be super cool to see collated videos about a certain topic, so just one continuous video of all the Stalingrad segments. Love the work, absolutely incredible!
I doubt that Zhukov was as deeply involved in planning of Stalingrad offensive as he credited himself in his memoirs . Zhukov's was in charge of Rzev's operation and very unlikely had enough time to to plan something else. I strongly believe the Rzev operation known of Rzev meatgrinder requires a separate episode
Zhukov wasn't in charge of reze'v by the end it was Konev how took charge after he was transferred by stavka. How much if Uranus was he doing that's a different topic.
TIK History cover the topic in some of his videos, and he presents a strong argument that Uranus was a collective effort that was being discussed by the generals for a couple months already, and that Zhukov just got all the credit for being the commander and being one of the men that will control soviet post-war narrative
Zhukov's collegial rather than solitary commanding role in Stalingrad does him credit more than anything else. He wasn't in a situation comparable to Montgomery or Eisenhower. He had to do with commissars, with Beria's and Stalin's paranoia, and with distrust permeating all levels both military and civilian. How he navigated all those minefields, without ever becoming a yes-man to Stalin, while still concentrating on the war, marks the genius of the man IMO.
I think you folks are doing a fantastic job of covering such a complex subject. Weekly plus specials work together well. I also thank you for the references so I can read them myself. Great tie!
I just really appreciate how you're able to take each week break it down and make every event clear to The Listener. This sure beats some of those 1950s series black and white jobs. Not touching my Victory at Sea though
Have there been any serious reports made by the Romanian recon units about the buildup ? Or something about more/better equipment for the troops? I know how it ends, but I'm curious how prepared/unprepared were the 3rd and 4th.
Both romanian generals , Petre Dumitrescu and Constantinescu Klaps warned the germans about the troops buildup an also porposed actions to eliminate the bridgeheads starting from late september. I suppose Indy doesn't have access to much of the non english sources and this is why he misses a lot of these informations :)
Yes, the Romanian high command made at least 3 reports on the Russian build-up and recommended the destruction of soviet bridgeheads on the Don. On the other hand, the Romanian command requested reserves from the Germans(the Romanians covered a front at least two times longer that it was recommended for the number of divisions they had. And, at least on the norther flank, only 3 of those divisions had a strength higher than 50% of their initial strength- they were not only covering a huge front, but were also under-manned, under-supplied and under-gunned)
@@michaelvonbiskhoff7771 wow, thanks for clearing it up. This just goes to show how dangerous a tunnel vision can be, not allowing you to see the things around you. I hope they can at least make the sensible choice to cut their losses when the attack comes and preserve their strength.
@@robertm.8653 the main problem was the fact the Germans had information that the Soviets were going to plan and execute a major offensive in the winter of 1942-1943. They estimated that the offensive was to be directed towards Army Group Centre, at Moscow. The Germans deployed their reserves accordingly and completed defeated the Russians during operation Mars(it was such a disaster for the Soviets that they declared postwar that it was just a diversion, it was not an offensive). Unfortunately for the axis, the Russians executed two major offensives. This is why the Germans didn't deploy reserves at Stalingrad.
@@michaelvonbiskhoff7771 it must have been terrifying, seeing the enemy your leaders kept saying is on his last legs, starting 2 large offensives with seemingly endless men and material ( from their POV ) . I remember they said that Manstein and his army was also moved to take Leningrad after they captured Crimea and I can't help but think if those men could have made some difference. The entire front was huge and moving so many men from one end to the other seems rather weird, but I'm guessing not every decision was made with a pragmatic but rather optimistic view.
It may seem beside the point,…but the waistcoat, and, in particular, the tie, are spectacular. I especially hope that that glorious tie pops on your auction barn.
Hello, Timeghost team, thank you for your hard work! I have a request to make: could you cover countries and regions that contributed to WWII, that are often overlooked in history, like how you did in "The Great War" channel (for example "Canada in WWI")? You could begin with Central Asia :)
@@KronnangDunn you are unfair. Kazakhstan, then a republic of the USSR contributed immensely to the Soviet war efforts. In fact Panfilov's division that played a key role in stopping and rolling back German tanks rushing towards Moscow along the Volokolamsk highway November - early December 1941 was formed and trained in Kazakhstan. Link to a novel describing those events en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volokolamsk_Highway
Great episode! Thanks a lot for covering the planning of this massive offensive. Just wanted to call out the classification of Soviet tank forces. Their classification was actually shifted up by one level, e.g. a Soviet Tank Army is equivalent in number of men to a German Tank Core. Thought it might be worth mentioning so that viewers didn't get a false impression of the Soviet numerical superiority (which was certainly there just not as big as might be inferred)
Will you do an episode about Rzhev meatgrinder? Many people lost their lives there, and so far the only mention of it was one sentence at the end of an episode and instagram.
11:35 I think it was in Anthony Beevors book about Stalingrad I read about this. How do you hide a tank army out on the steppe??? You said it before War Is Not Cool!, but it is so interesting to learn about how wars were fought.
Maybe something for another episode, could be special or whatever - How was the situation controlled on the occupied land of USSR? I am not talking about nazis killing civilians and all of that but more about the numbers, how many soldiers had to be in this super huge area to make sure there's no revolt, who those soldiers were and how it was organized in general? I think it could be very interesting.
and just to be clear - I know a little bit about it but from all these regular episodes we can see the front line and not that much of what happens behind it. The occupied territory is huge and there had to be some sort of organization done for nazis to uphold the control of it all. Local military outposts, officers in charge responsible for all sorts of things etc. Who they were, how they were picked, how many men they've had under their command etc.
They never had enough - there were parts of the occupied USSR that were so out of control that Luftwaffe crews were told not to land or bail out there as the local partisans would kill them.
I read recently it was not only Uranus, but a general plan named "The Four Planets". And Uranus was not the main assault, it was Mars (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mars), a failure. But this failure helped Stalingrad, because Germans couldn't transfer reinforcement from the other front.
Soviet sources claim Mars was a diversionary operation to support Uranus but both were preparatory for Saturn which was to attack toward Rostov on Don to trap the whole of Army group Don. It isn’t fully executed but little Saturn still does a lot of damage and sets the front for the trap laid at Kursk.
@@davidwright7193 The important thing to understand is that in the second half of 1942 Soviet Union command was able to start planning strategic level operations which involved several fronts, rather than just do firefighting and plugging the wholes in the defence lines and carry out not always efficient counter offensive operations.
@@miquellluch1928 There are a number of reasons: newly organized divisions were not trained enough, generals were still learning, sometimes on their mistakes, cohesion between armies and fronts wasn’t good enough, the number of required tanks and other vehicles wasn’t sufficient, command and reporting within some fronts wasn’t always clear, political officers had too much military authority. Many of these things changed during the course of 1942.
Damn Indy! I wish I could rock a vest like you do...oh how I miss the 90s. Thanks btw for this great episode. Being finally caught up I can actually get in on these early now. I sometimes wonder how close to killing Zhukov Stalin came in '38?
As I was saying on the new episode that came out yesterday (Saturday for non-patron users) the reason the Germans were not able to move many troops from other fronts during operation Uranus was because the USSR also launched operation Mars against the German Central Army Group during the same period the USSR was trying to destroy the Germans in the South. Operation Mars was actually a larger offensive then operation Uranus was. But it is not played up much because the attack failed. The USSR after the war created the story that operation Mars was just a distraction anyway. But when you look at the scale of the attack it is easy to see this is a false claim. The USSR wanted to execute 2 major surrounding operations during this years winter. But only the Stalingrad operation ended up succeeding.
Uranus was the distraction for Mars, and same with each of their subsequent expansions Jupiter & Saturn, proof is in the names chosen Mars, God of War, Jupiter prime paternal God.
@@SaulKopfenjager I have heard that as well. It is said the USSR then said Mars was the distraction for Uranus. I think though that the USSR did actually have the hope in both plans succeeding and that neither was just a decoy attack.
No major Soviet offensive was a distraction. Their strategy was, as far as resources allowed, to hit on all fronts at all times and push through wherever broke first. British and US watchers fail to fully grasp that the USSR was partially occupied, the wolf was not at the gate (or across a channel or ocean), but actually in the house and killing its inhabitants. This added immense urgency to their drives to attack the enemy regardless of cost, that was not all Stalin's or Soviet cruelty, terrible though they were. Britain feared heavy losses on their strained forces so committed with care, while America favoured using materiel over men whenever possible. Both approaches reflected their situation as much as their war practices. Soviet ruthlessness with their own lives partially reflects that they were already suffering what their allies feared most and strove their hardest to prevent.
@@stephenphillips4609 Let’s not throw propaganda things over a good historical channel. Soviets had nothing to do put put out as much resistance as possible to stop Germans from advancing further and defeat them as soon as they can, because it doesn’t matter whether you lose the same number of soldiers during 3 months or 1 year. 3 months is actually better, because you have more chances to grind and defeat the enemy armies faster. If you start thinking too much about caring and saving resources, they will not help at the end if you lose the war before you can fully use them.
Look at the Generals Russia had in the victory at Stalingrad. Some of the greatest generals ever. Georgy Zhukov, Alexandr Vasilevski, Konstantin Rokossovsky, Nikolay Voronov, Vasily Chuikov, Nikolai Vatutin, Andrey Yeremenko
When Zhukov first presented his ideas to Stalin, he is reported to have said "You can shove that plan right up your ass!" Thus was christened Operation Uranus.
In Slavic languages it is just regular word, name of Greek god and planet. Nothing "funny" about it. Only for English speakers this is funny (in childlish manner), cause frankly, after years and years of reading "uranus" puns on Internet it is getting boring, almost annoying. Too bad that Indy and crew dind't try to avoid this kind of "humor" by using Russian pronunciation: Uran
At least in terms of commanders, pretty much everyone as army commanders to the upper echelons are the "Who's Who" of the best of Red Army generals for WWII. The brutal part of all this is that the Germans have literally expended themselves towards Stalingrad already. All their best formations are hammering away over there and as Indy showed, their flanks are stripped of the best Axis formations: The German ones. The best the Germans have to offer in the region are already committed while the Soviets are keeping them at bay with one hand. The other hand of the Red Army is behind their back with a mighty club about to beat the living hell out of the Nazis. Get a good stock of popcorn and soda ready. It's going to get "real" over here.
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
We have a general rule that we do not do special episodes about individual battles. Since each and every one of them is important to somebody, if we do one we'd have to do them all, and there aren't that many hours in the day to even attempt that. And that would also destroy the holistic nature of this series- i.e., presenting a week instead of a battle to illustrate the ebb and flow of the war and how everything is really all tied together. That we would not be able to convey if we made this series battle-centric. Having said that, we DO do specials that involve the planning, logistics, weapons, etc. for major offensives and whole campaigns, for getting into the minutiae of that is not possible in the regular weekly chronological episodes, and that is what you get today. I personally (and this is Indy writing this) believe that is really the major role of the specials, to flesh out aspects of the war we can't cover in the regular series, but what do you guys think?
I think your channel is great and I leave it in your excellent hands!
@@justinreilly6619 i second this
I couldn't agree more. The build up for this operation coinciding with the brutal battle that is happening at Stalingrad for me means, a special episode on said build up is the right thing to do.
"You see that tie, Paulus? That's what Uranus is gonna look like when I'm done!"
-Georgy Zhukov. Probably
I agree with the format that you all have done with your channel. A very good way to unfold the war to us while using specials to give us greater insight in certain aspects of it.
Operation Uranus will do a lot of damage in the vulnerable areas of the rear of the enemy lines.
"LOL!"
-Georgy Zhukov after reading this comment. Probably
....hence the mame.
That what he said...... rofl
especially if you attack and attack and attack. In other words, if you put attack on an infinite lube
one might say it is a decisive thrust
I'm really glad to see we're probing this topic deeply.
Getting in to Uranus.
Made me laugh way too hard.
Hahahahahahha
Getting *deep* into unexplored territory.
@@Ardridalain i giggled way too laugh in the office, myself. And im not even sorry.
Message to all Soviet commanders: "Prepare Uranus."
Message to all Nazi commanders: The same, really.
L o fucking L
The whole campaign was misguided, even without hindsight they knew they could not move the captured oil to be refined back in germany. In order to be at least a semi successful case blue needed more conservative/realistic goals such as capturing Stalingrad first and only then moving south as far as Maikop at most, this would allow them to pull 17th army instead of the romenians from the cauccusus ( tik mention this idea) and completely removing the Italians from the Don, and replacing them with 11th army for example. This would allowe them to beat off most of op Uranus and leave the door for the caucusus open for a 1943 campain.
"You see that tie, Paulus? That's what Uranus is gonna look like when I'm done!"
-Georgy Zhukov. Probably
This outfit, coupled with this magnificent tie, is one for the ages...
You just cannot hide from the tie, it's as overwhelming as the Soviet army might that is about to be unleashed.
That statement is exceptionally funny and witty, Onyx1916! I'm usually pretty good at coming up with a reaction to weird things, but that tie is so incoherent that my mind draws a blank...
@@fredhubler4128 You know when you pull a tie and it get's fucked up? I think was the thing that inspired him. :-/
@@henex1296 You know you're dealing with a professional when he can do that whole video with a strait face knowing the tie looks so ridiculous. Indy is one of those one-of-a-kinds, and in the best way. Someone who does what he loves and loves what he's doing and makes a whole lot of people feel good watching it. Thank you, sir! May we have another?!
@@fredhubler4128 Well I wasn't judging Indy by any means. Was more of a referring to an old comedy. Indy is a great man. Tbh tho I haven't watched the video yet and I forgot that he is always wearing a tie and completely missed the point that Onyx1916 was referring to Indy's tie (that's what u get for being up so late) and this time he is even wearing a different tie. My bad. Lol. But I do absolutely agree with you.
When Stalingrad is finished, could you guys make a supercut of all the Stalingrad segments? It would be awesome to rewatch it all in one go.
Holy crap yes! Please do so
Definitely will consider it.
Aye, that'd be fabulous!
maybe even add material to it like you did with Perl Harbour. Stalingrad was one of the most important pivotal points in WW2. The first time the Axis lost on a major scale.
Just thought about it watching the last episode.
It is said that during early November, German intelligence was able to intercept thousands messages saying "Prepare Uranus", unfortunately they were not able to determine if they were directed to their own men or to the axis troops.
Underrated comment
"Prepare Uranus..." but due to logistical problems, the Axis didn't have lube... I'm out
@@bogdanvojnovic989 well, it's not the Soviets problem
The answer is yes.
The whole campaign was misguided, even without hindsight they knew they could not move the captured oil to be refined back in germany. In order to be at least a semi successful case blue needed more conservative/realistic goals such as capturing Stalingrad first and only then moving south as far as Maikop at most, this would allow them to pull 17th army instead of the romenians from the cauccusus ( tik mention this idea) and completely removing the Italians from the Don, and replacing them with 11th army for example. This would allowe them to beat off most of op Uranus and leave the door for the caucusus open for a 1943 campain.
The Stalingrad Front is about to hammer a potent thrust deep into the tender nether regions of the Axis line.
Defenders of Stalingrad, hold on to hope! Hold on to Uranus!
you need at least 69 likes
The jokes just write themselves. 🤣
"Guys, we're cool, right?
...
......guys?"
Romanians, probably
The whole campaign was misguided, even without hindsight they knew they could not move the captured oil to be refined back in germany. In order to be at least a semi successful case blue needed more conservative/realistic goals such as capturing Stalingrad first and only then moving south as far as Maikop at most, this would allow them to pull 17th army instead of the romenians from the cauccusus ( tik mention this idea) and completely removing the Italians from the Don, and replacing them with 11th army for example. This would allowe them to beat off most of op Uranus and leave the door for the caucusus open for a 1943 campain.
I honestly thought Uranus wouldn't be capable of turning the tide, with the massive amount of men involved. Like, how do you fit in so many men into Uranus without it getting messy confusing and painfull. But alas I underestimated the strength of Uranus.
RUclips's censor algos are so confused right now, LOL..... :D
7:13 And, as stated here, who could have guessed that Uranus would eventually facilitate such an “unpluggable hole”? Just remarkable.
@Michael Horton please stop 😭😭😭
Short answer: Soviet organization and logistics was getting really damn good. Also, Maskirovka the concealment of large movements was also getting state of the art.
😂😂😂
"Uranus is about to take a pounding, Paulus!! Open it wide!!"
-Georgy Zhukov. Probably
"You see that tie, Paulus? That's what Uranus is gonna look like when I'm done!"
-Georgy Zhukov. Probably
"I can do this all week!"
-Georgy Zhukov talking about the "Uranus" jokes. Probably
I doubt that Zhukov was as deeply involved in planning of Stalingrad offensive as he credited himself. Zhukov's was in charge of Rzev's operation and very unlikely had enough time to to plan something else.
@@epictetusepictetus5033
"No, but I've got a TON of 'Uranus' jokes!!"
-Georgy Zhukov. Probably
@@82dorrin
Stalin renamed the operation to end this stupid joke once and for all.
Oh? What is it called now?
Operation Urectum
I am very proud of Indy not breaking character when saying "Uranus."
it may have cost him more than you ever know to keep a straight face
9:15
"And yes, civilians in October are still living in the city of Stalingrad"
How was traffic today dear?
It was terrible, German in the morning and Russian in the afternoon.
How was the traffic dear?
Don't worry, I found a corpse so us and the kids won't starve for another week.
Germans: "It looks like our problems are all behind us".
HEY-OOO
Well played with words.
Soviets: You bet!
Me: I consider myself a serious historian.
Also me: *Giggling at "Uranus."*
Anal probing
Have you probed this topic deeply?
@@82dorrin *yes*
You shouldn't giggle, Uranus is a serious topic of discussion.
Can we change Uranus's name to something that sounds more serious? I grow tired of sll the jokes. Oh how about Urrectum
i love the fact that the german after uranus will blame the italians, the hungarians and the romanians because they felt to the soviet offensive, when they know wery well those armyes cannot resist without german armored support. they know it and they promised them help and backup, but as many times they did, and many times they will, they lied to theyr allies.
SPOILER
One German corps commander, Ferdinand Heim, was dismissed, in his view he was a scapegoat. He said they could not blame the Romanians, and Army commanders were too senior to blame, so he was picked. Heim was later given command of German forces in Boulogne and was captured by the Canadians in 1944.
It was a book wrote by an Italian called cento Milla (tin cauldron) (dont have the word in Italian ) di ghiacco about the retreat in the blizzard of the Fretter-Pico kampfgruppe from the front..
@@badbotchdown9845 there is alsoThe Sergeant in the Snow By Mario Rigoni. About the colapse of the front and subsecuent retreat. Amazing little book to read, about an horrific situation.
It reads pretty much as a first person acount of a man experiencing the end of the world.
@@badbotchdown9845 6 or so years ago I had a chance to talk with an Italian veteran, who had lived through operations Uranus and subsequently Little Saturn.
@@-few-fernando11 we understood well they have needed to say what happened in these hard days of complete horror
I look forward to this channel every Saturday morning. Such good information. I’m learning things that I’ve not ever learned in any books I’ve read.
Thanks Nick, that really means a lot to us!
Yes, every episode I learn something new. Thank you for all the excellent work.
Everyone's focusing on the Uranus jokes, but can we take a second to appreciate the absolute WIDTH of that tie?
Probably he has a second job at Tony Soprano's Badda Bing.
I'm wondering where gianni's tie post is, maybe they're appreciating the tie for a bit longer
@@pnutz_2 Gianni is still in shock. He'll post his review once he's come back to his senses.
@@Raskolnikov70 I found his post, he was lost for words
@@pnutz_2 What happened to him? Is he okay?
Kind of lost for words over this tie. Good lord. 5/5
I know man, I know. It’s my favorite geometrocity so far. If I lived in Ural Oblast in 1937 or so, I’d be so proud to wear it.
@@Southsideindy would Stalin let you get away with something so decadent?
This outfit, coupled with this magnificent tie, is one for the ages...
You just cannot hide from the tie, it's as overwhelming as the Soviet army might that is about to be unleashed :D
gianni! I didn't see your post and I was worried
Its a beauty. Dada flies to Africa on wings of Navajo peyote.
"Is the Answer in Uranus?" LOL that title is so clever
::))
Uranus on the Don…
I think they really pegged this title
LOL SO CLEVER
how old are you, 13?
Why is Jesus making anus jokes?
The Romanians and Hungarians are often forgot about in ww2 discussions. Few realize how big of a part they actually played
Your coverage of the war continues to steadily get ever more epic, as the quality remains amazing. I don't know where you get your energy from, but this work will outlast the whole team. Thank you for teaching me and so many others the history lessons we never got, in order to build a better world.
Thank you so much for the kind words!
If you ever wonder why Operation Uranus was called Операция Уран (Uran), it was because Uranus was part of the four Counteroffensive plans drafted up by STAVKA named after planets. Mars and Uranus would be the breakthrough operations using Rzhev and Stalingrad as the defensive lynchpin, and encircle the German forces around these two areas.
Operation Jupiter and Saturn, on the other hand, are follow up operations for Mars and Uranus, racing towards the Baltic and Black seas respectively to encircle Army Group North and Army Group South B respectively while they were focused on Leningrad and the Caucuses. These grandiose and ambitious counteroffensive plans were telling of the optimistic attitudes of STAVKA, their overestimation of their enemy's exhaustion and their own strength.
It is important to bear these plans in mind, as they are going to significantly impact the course of the Battle of Stalingrad.
EDIT: I am not a Russian speaker, but I am aware of the fact that in Russian, Uranus is called Uran, so the English "UrAnus" joke would fly over the head of all Soviets at the time.
I had fun reading these comments and I was expecting them all over the place, but yes, for common Russian speaker, there is not joke for UrAnus :D
Great and insightful comment. Should have more up votes, than just Uranus jokes.
Yeah... never hear much about operation mars. Hmmm...
It's also not pronounced with the stress on the second syllable but on the first, because it's originally a Greek word and not a Latin, so even in English the pun is partly because of mispronunciation.
@@francisdec1615 So pee jokes, not poop jokes.
The Romanians are probably wondering why they are hearing boss music right now.
They still won't receive antitank weapons, even if they told the Germans about the boss music heard beyond the fog. 🙁
ruclips.net/video/lDQ7hXMLxGc/видео.html
Me, who has the spirit of a 12 year old:
"Ah yes... that title..."
HMM YESSS,
You really shouldn't trap the souls of children.
@@thetruerift the answer is in my anus
We're all 12-year-olds right now.
Every comment so far has been some variation of the same joke. I love this channel :)
Stalin: And what is this operation called?
Zhukov: Operation Uranus
Random Colonel: *giggles*
Stalin: Shoot him *Has tiniest giggle himself*
Well, on russian it sounds as "Uran".
"You see that tie, Paulus? That's what Uranus is gonna look like when I'm done!"
-Georgy Zhukov. Probably
@@Healermain15 Stalin giggles more “shot them twice, use a small caliber, and aim for Theiranus.
Anybody else feel like a little... giggle?
@@Tumoxa89 When I talk about my friend...Biggus....dickus..and his operation....uranus?
00:22
I love that the English languge and its speakers were wise enough to come up with a less... back door pronunciation of the word "Uranus"
I love even more that youtubers rarely go with that pronunciation :- )
back door jokes feed the agorithm just fine, right? A wise decision, Warld War Two Crew
- I want to talk to comrade Zhukov now!
- you can't, comrade general. They are having a staff meeting, and they are very deep in Uranus.
I just call it "Uran" (pronounced Oo-ran) which does not call to mind backdoor shenanigans. :)
Most of the jokers here, are not even native english speakers, so the name should be ok for them, but the snobbery is very high everywhere.
Uranus' alternate pronunciation isn't much more mature.
@@stevekaczynski3793 Boooooooorriiiiiinnnnggg!!!
So to give some numbers for November:
Romanian 3rd Army with 2 Armored Divisions in reserve (1 Romanian, 1 German): 160.000 men.
Romanian 4th Army: 78.000 men.
And in 19th of November, Romanian 13th, 14th Infantry and 1st Cavarly divisions from 3rd Army will be hit with 2 Soviet Armies with over 340.000 men.
Romanians will lose 158.000 men as casualties by January 1943.
Just the numbers spell disaster but added to which the Red Army has tanks, lots of tanks and the Romanians have no real answer.
As the comment above said, this doesn't include the hundreads of tanks, thousands and thousands of artillery guns, the 2 to 1 advantage in planes (which is further increased if you take in consideration the fact that the Germans deployed their fighters late) .
Then there's the shortages of the Romanians, with few anti tank guns, few of which could penetrate the frontal armor of the T34 from medium ranges.
Even so, Romanian reports of the battle indicated that in most sectors, the initial attacking waves were repulsed with heavy casualties inflicted on the Russians.
It was the tanks and artillery of the Red Army and the lack of counters the Romanians had to those things, which broke them so easly.
@@daniels0376 the main problem during Uranus was the fog, which prevented both the Luftwaffe and the Royal Romanian Air Force to act as flying artillery. On the anti-tank side, the Romanians had AT guns, but many were 45/47mm pieces. Also, I would like to mention that the 22nd Panzer-Division was probably the worst armoured unit of the German Army, having approximately 40 functioning Pz. 38(t)s(meanwhile the Romanian 1st Armoured Division had 110 Pz. 35(t)s, 11 Pz. IIIs and 11 Pz. IV). On an interesting side-note, the Romanian Armoured Division managed to destroy a significant amount of Soviet tanks, through ambushes and clever movement(127+, according to Mark Axworthy)
A national catastrophe for us Romanians. The Romanian High command repeatedly warned the German HC about the following: thin line and no depth of troops considering long line of front, not enough ammunition and especially anti tank weapons (which the germans made several times promises to supply), large concentrations of russian troops nearby, the immediate need to neutralize bridge heads such as the one at Kremenskoya and so on.
1580.000 men? Wow, that about 2-3% of their entire male population at that time!
“Call the operation ‘Uranus’ because that sounds like something else in English, so when Americans in the future study this they’ll be able to crack lots of jokes.”
-Stalin, probably
Stalin may have been a cold-blooded murderer and a brutal tyrant, but people don't understand that he was just planning for the long-term, after all Lenin once said "the end goal of socialism is communism, but the end goal of communism is anus jokes"
I suspect it was the last thing on his mind, but then I don't have much of a sense of humour.
Americans think they are the only ones who speak English even though it’s called the English language
@@timcahill4676 I recognize the unfortunate existence of the british, but I refuse to imply anything regarding their humanity.
@@timcahill4676 Whenever I hear British people say it, they say "ur-ah-nuss" which isn't as funny as the typical American pronunciation. Maybe that's just my personal experience though. God knows how Australians pronounce it.
in those days, my grandfather was somewhere on the Don river front, driving up and down the frontline placing minefields, barbed wires and all the defences they can while wearing his summer uniform with only his pijamas under it.
Italy, Romania or Hungary?
@@benogurok5175 italian. he was driving the car for an officer that were sent up and down the front directing fortification field works. expecially among the romanians, but like, everywhere it was needed. not much help from the germans involved, ammo was scarce and there was a huge lack of mortars, machineguns... almost no AT guns, not the german ones anyway.
My grandfather fell at Kletskaia,the most terrible artillery fire suffered by romanians
@@matteoorlandi856 Sounds like they had at least a vague idea trouble was on the way, but the materiel for warding it off was not there.
I recently listened to an audio book about the retreat of the Alpini from the Don. Epic stuff.
With the Western Allies looking likely at making a breakthrough at El Alamein and now with the Soviet probing the German flanks at the Stalingrad Front with Operation Uranus soon in due course, could this be turning of the tide? Perhaps "the end of the beginning"?
Let's hope so!
Maybe the beginning of the end
@@thurbine2411 lol i see what you did there
Don't forget Guadalcanal and Kokoda!
@@TheBreadB I think the tide has already turned in the Pacific Theatre with Midway, what do you reckon?
Interesting to hear about Uranus and how they planet.
Under appreciated joke
a uranus joke that doesn't include butts, how rare
I just want to say - that is an amazing tie.
A tie truly worthy to discuss Uranus.
Indie your tie is glorious.
Wildest tie so far.
there is a great book written by an italian alpino about the Don front and operation uranus, it's called "Il Sergente Nella Neve" "the sargeant in the snow". it's a really simple book, but pack quite a punch. i would recomend it.
Mario Rigoni Stern - a wonderful wrtiter
@@fredbergotte wonderfull writer and a wonderfull person. few men were able to describe war as simply, yet so deeply...
Thanks!
Those of us who follow TIK's Stalingrad series are well aware of the situation. Those Romanian and Italian divisions had German units interspersed to help them, but these have been moved to 6th Panzer Army to help Paulus' depleted forces. The Romanian and Italian divisions do not have the same quality or quantity of equipment their German allies have. Nor are they happy about the Russian winter. They are not motivated. The Red Army soldiers know that the NAZI's are not going to be as nice to them as the communists are. "The Emperor is not as merciful as I am."
Very happy you chose to do a special episode of the Soviet counterattack. Hope to see many more .
Hey, Indy. Can you talk about the supply lines of the soviets in Stalingrad and the Caucasus? Keep up the amazing job. Regards from México, compadre.
Ive been a fan of this channel since the Great War series and agree that you guys have got the format right. The specials stop me from having withdrawal symptoms so keep them up lol. Thanks to all the team and I am so glad so many people enjoy the show. Who would have thought history would be so popular? Just shows how well it is being done.
I hope we also get an episode on Operation Mars which commenced around the same time and was designed to also encircle the Axis troops on the central front.
It would be super cool to see collated videos about a certain topic, so just one continuous video of all the Stalingrad segments. Love the work, absolutely incredible!
I doubt that Zhukov was as deeply involved in planning of Stalingrad offensive as he credited himself in his memoirs . Zhukov's was in charge of Rzev's operation and very unlikely had enough time to to plan something else. I strongly believe the Rzev operation known of Rzev meatgrinder requires a separate episode
Zhukov wasn't in charge of reze'v by the end it was Konev how took charge after he was transferred by stavka. How much if Uranus was he doing that's a different topic.
Roman Toppel would be a great guest for Rhzev, Military History Visualized has spoken to him several times
TIK History cover the topic in some of his videos, and he presents a strong argument that Uranus was a collective effort that was being discussed by the generals for a couple months already, and that Zhukov just got all the credit for being the commander and being one of the men that will control soviet post-war narrative
Victory has a thousand fathers while defeat is an orphan.
Zhukov's collegial rather than solitary commanding role in Stalingrad does him credit more than anything else. He wasn't in a situation comparable to Montgomery or Eisenhower. He had to do with commissars, with Beria's and Stalin's paranoia, and with distrust permeating all levels both military and civilian. How he navigated all those minefields, without ever becoming a yes-man to Stalin, while still concentrating on the war, marks the genius of the man IMO.
I think you folks are doing a fantastic job of covering such a complex subject. Weekly plus specials work together well. I also thank you for the references so I can read them myself. Great tie!
Thank you!
Operation Uranus is an awesome subject to learn or come back to!
Indy, any chance yo could add Close Captioning. Love your woek.
That image shows that Chuikov kicked.... Uranus.
You do this so well, the research you do must tike so much time and effort, well done like them all.
I just really appreciate how you're able to take each week break it down and make every event clear to The Listener. This sure beats some of those 1950s series black and white jobs. Not touching my Victory at Sea though
Victory At Sea.... AMEN Sir
Ah that was the spiritual ancestor of Indy and WWII channel
Ευχαριστούμε!
“I will send our army to victory with Uranus!”
-Zhukov… probably
Wow! This tie is freaking outlandish!
They are going to need the largest artillery pieces to perform well in Operation Uranus
Damn! That's a big tie.
Have there been any serious reports made by the Romanian recon units about the buildup ?
Or something about more/better equipment for the troops?
I know how it ends, but I'm curious how prepared/unprepared were the 3rd and 4th.
Both romanian generals , Petre Dumitrescu and Constantinescu Klaps warned the germans about the troops buildup an also porposed actions to eliminate the bridgeheads starting from late september. I suppose Indy doesn't have access to much of the non english sources and this is why he misses a lot of these informations :)
Yes, the Romanian high command made at least 3 reports on the Russian build-up and recommended the destruction of soviet bridgeheads on the Don. On the other hand, the Romanian command requested reserves from the Germans(the Romanians covered a front at least two times longer that it was recommended for the number of divisions they had. And, at least on the norther flank, only 3 of those divisions had a strength higher than 50% of their initial strength- they were not only covering a huge front, but were also under-manned, under-supplied and under-gunned)
@@michaelvonbiskhoff7771 wow, thanks for clearing it up. This just goes to show how dangerous a tunnel vision can be, not allowing you to see the things around you. I hope they can at least make the sensible choice to cut their losses when the attack comes and preserve their strength.
@@robertm.8653 the main problem was the fact the Germans had information that the Soviets were going to plan and execute a major offensive in the winter of 1942-1943. They estimated that the offensive was to be directed towards Army Group Centre, at Moscow. The Germans deployed their reserves accordingly and completed defeated the Russians during operation Mars(it was such a disaster for the Soviets that they declared postwar that it was just a diversion, it was not an offensive). Unfortunately for the axis, the Russians executed two major offensives. This is why the Germans didn't deploy reserves at Stalingrad.
@@michaelvonbiskhoff7771 it must have been terrifying, seeing the enemy your leaders kept saying is on his last legs, starting 2 large offensives with seemingly endless men and material ( from their POV ) . I remember they said that Manstein and his army was also moved to take Leningrad after they captured Crimea and I can't help but think if those men could have made some difference. The entire front was huge and moving so many men from one end to the other seems rather weird, but I'm guessing not every decision was made with a pragmatic but rather optimistic view.
It may seem beside the point,…but the waistcoat, and, in particular, the tie, are spectacular. I especially hope that that glorious tie pops on your auction barn.
Hello, Timeghost team, thank you for your hard work! I have a request to make: could you cover countries and regions that contributed to WWII, that are often overlooked in history, like how you did in "The Great War" channel (for example "Canada in WWI")? You could begin with Central Asia :)
Include Brazil and México...
And also Portugal too!!!
Don’t forget Lichtenstein!!! 😝
Or Holland, in which the Luftwaffe broke its wings and would never truly recover 😎
@@KronnangDunn you are unfair. Kazakhstan, then a republic of the USSR contributed immensely to the Soviet war efforts. In fact Panfilov's division that played a key role in stopping and rolling back German tanks rushing towards Moscow along the Volokolamsk highway November - early December 1941 was formed and trained in Kazakhstan.
Link to a novel describing those events
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volokolamsk_Highway
Great episode! Thanks a lot for covering the planning of this massive offensive. Just wanted to call out the classification of Soviet tank forces. Their classification was actually shifted up by one level, e.g. a Soviet Tank Army is equivalent in number of men to a German Tank Core. Thought it might be worth mentioning so that viewers didn't get a false impression of the Soviet numerical superiority (which was certainly there just not as big as might be inferred)
Will you do an episode about Rzhev meatgrinder? Many people lost their lives there, and so far the only mention of it was one sentence at the end of an episode and instagram.
11:35 I think it was in Anthony Beevors book about Stalingrad I read about this. How do you hide a tank army out on the steppe???
You said it before War Is Not Cool!, but it is so interesting to learn about how wars were fought.
It either says a lot about Soviet "maskirovka" or a lot about a deterioration in German aerial reconnaissance.
My internet is slow and the thumbnail didn't load,
I was very confused what this video would be judging from the title
As always, Love the show :P
What is the correct URL for the video about the Paulus war games? The link in the video is for siege tactics.
I respect Stalin for unashamedly channeling his inner 4 year old when it came to naming the offensive that will turn the war.
Stalin: We'll name the operation after the one of the Planets.
Underling: Which one? Pluto, Jupiter, Mercury....
Stalin giggling: You'll see.
Glad to see that you are back !
This is an exciting time. That is a remarkable tie.
Yes, but it just screams "Atlantic City".
@@stevekaczynski3793 it does? Never been, interesting place?
Great episode, and an even greater tie! Wonderful job as always 👏 😁
Thank you!
Maybe something for another episode, could be special or whatever - How was the situation controlled on the occupied land of USSR? I am not talking about nazis killing civilians and all of that but more about the numbers, how many soldiers had to be in this super huge area to make sure there's no revolt, who those soldiers were and how it was organized in general? I think it could be very interesting.
and just to be clear - I know a little bit about it but from all these regular episodes we can see the front line and not that much of what happens behind it. The occupied territory is huge and there had to be some sort of organization done for nazis to uphold the control of it all. Local military outposts, officers in charge responsible for all sorts of things etc. Who they were, how they were picked, how many men they've had under their command etc.
They never had enough - there were parts of the occupied USSR that were so out of control that Luftwaffe crews were told not to land or bail out there as the local partisans would kill them.
Excellent look at logistics! Keep it up.
I read recently it was not only Uranus, but a general plan named "The Four Planets". And Uranus was not the main assault, it was Mars (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mars), a failure.
But this failure helped Stalingrad, because Germans couldn't transfer reinforcement from the other front.
“No plan survives contact with the enemy”
Soviet sources claim Mars was a diversionary operation to support Uranus but both were preparatory for Saturn which was to attack toward Rostov on Don to trap the whole of Army group Don. It isn’t fully executed but little Saturn still does a lot of damage and sets the front for the trap laid at Kursk.
* en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mars
@@davidwright7193 The important thing to understand is that in the second half of 1942 Soviet Union command was able to start planning strategic level operations which involved several fronts, rather than just do firefighting and plugging the wholes in the defence lines and carry out not always efficient counter offensive operations.
@@miquellluch1928 There are a number of reasons: newly organized divisions were not trained enough, generals were still learning, sometimes on their mistakes, cohesion between armies and fronts wasn’t good enough, the number of required tanks and other vehicles wasn’t sufficient, command and reporting within some fronts wasn’t always clear, political officers had too much military authority. Many of these things changed during the course of 1942.
Surprise to see a special episode but a welcome one for sure.
I'm just wondering if your planning to do anything about Operation Mars or Rzhev in general?
Best tie, vest, and shirt combo I've ever seen. Was this really a style in the WWII years? If so, an excellent one!
"You just wait Paulus, you'll have Uranus handed to you!"
I'm not even sorry.
What sory for him? He will be a top commander in the communist Eastern Germany.
@@mariusjurca2980 ah you misunderstand, in English, he just made a lame dirty (and funny) joke and he's not sorry that he made it
I feel so at home on this channel lol ... the humor and subject matter always just feels so personalized
Am I going to be okay Doctor ? I don't think so, Mercury is in Uranus. I don't do that astrology stuff Doc. Neither do I, my thermometer broke.
Damn Indy! I wish I could rock a vest like you do...oh how I miss the 90s. Thanks btw for this great episode. Being finally caught up I can actually get in on these early now. I sometimes wonder how close to killing Zhukov Stalin came in '38?
As I was saying on the new episode that came out yesterday (Saturday for non-patron users) the reason the Germans were not able to move many troops from other fronts during operation Uranus was because the USSR also launched operation Mars against the German Central Army Group during the same period the USSR was trying to destroy the Germans in the South.
Operation Mars was actually a larger offensive then operation Uranus was. But it is not played up much because the attack failed. The USSR after the war created the story that operation Mars was just a distraction anyway. But when you look at the scale of the attack it is easy to see this is a false claim. The USSR wanted to execute 2 major surrounding operations during this years winter. But only the Stalingrad operation ended up succeeding.
Uranus was the distraction for Mars, and same with each of their subsequent expansions Jupiter & Saturn, proof is in the names chosen Mars, God of War, Jupiter prime paternal God.
@@SaulKopfenjager I have heard that as well. It is said the USSR then said Mars was the distraction for Uranus. I think though that the USSR did actually have the hope in both plans succeeding and that neither was just a decoy attack.
No major Soviet offensive was a distraction. Their strategy was, as far as resources allowed, to hit on all fronts at all times and push through wherever broke first.
British and US watchers fail to fully grasp that the USSR was partially occupied, the wolf was not at the gate (or across a channel or ocean), but actually in the house and killing its inhabitants. This added immense urgency to their drives to attack the enemy regardless of cost, that was not all Stalin's or Soviet cruelty, terrible though they were.
Britain feared heavy losses on their strained forces so committed with care, while America favoured using materiel over men whenever possible. Both approaches reflected their situation as much as their war practices.
Soviet ruthlessness with their own lives partially reflects that they were already suffering what their allies feared most and strove their hardest to prevent.
@@johnkinsella5358 Laurence Rees (or maybe Ian Kershaw) put it in the 90s, the Soviets won because they valued human life even less than the Nazis
@@stephenphillips4609 Let’s not throw propaganda things over a good historical channel. Soviets had nothing to do put put out as much resistance as possible to stop Germans from advancing further and defeat them as soon as they can, because it doesn’t matter whether you lose the same number of soldiers during 3 months or 1 year. 3 months is actually better, because you have more chances to grind and defeat the enemy armies faster. If you start thinking too much about caring and saving resources, they will not help at the end if you lose the war before you can fully use them.
Had no idea that there was a ww2 series i will be listening to this while i work this is great
The Germans should have seen this coming after what happened the previous year in Moscow.Zhukov was the real brains behind the Soviet army.
Please do more specials like this one
I am raelly glad that Tsar Boris III was smart enough not to send the Bulgarian army there.
Awesome surprise video!!! Thank yiu
You*
-Oy, Fritz. . .
-What is it, Heinz?
- What does "Soviet Deep Battle" stands for, again?
- . . .
- *looks on with angst*
So I love the tie, but can we talk about how awesome that vest is? So classy!
Look at the Generals Russia had in the victory at Stalingrad. Some of the greatest generals ever.
Georgy Zhukov, Alexandr Vasilevski,
Konstantin Rokossovsky, Nikolay Voronov, Vasily Chuikov, Nikolai Vatutin, Andrey Yeremenko
Thanks for all you do, Indy and team!
Thank you for watching!
When Zhukov first presented his ideas to Stalin, he is reported to have said "You can shove that plan right up your ass!" Thus was christened Operation Uranus.
"Thoust is invited to forcefully deposit that scheme in thy posterior orifice." (PG version)
Thank you for the lesson
Those sovjets sure knew how to call an operation. This is land were true memelords were born ;)
Will be great if you can invite David Glantz to the program and do an interview on this topic.
Great video Indy!
Also, I would've named the Operation, "Mountain". Because Uranus, besides the puns, doesn't sound serious imo
They are probably named ambiguously so that enemy spies don't know to look into this operation specifically
In Slavic languages it is just regular word, name of Greek god and planet. Nothing "funny" about it. Only for English speakers this is funny (in childlish manner), cause frankly, after years and years of reading "uranus" puns on Internet it is getting boring, almost annoying.
Too bad that Indy and crew dind't try to avoid this kind of "humor" by using Russian pronunciation: Uran
@@VedranCro I wasn't tryna make a pun. It's not a serious name for a Russian military plan, imho. But I can see your pov
@@VedranCro all who are opposed to the Uranus puns are condemned to burn in the deepest circle of hell
I would have called it "Operation Mamaliga", after the Romanian street food, but that might have given too much away :)
What a tie!
At least in terms of commanders, pretty much everyone as army commanders to the upper echelons are the "Who's Who" of the best of Red Army generals for WWII.
The brutal part of all this is that the Germans have literally expended themselves towards Stalingrad already. All their best formations are hammering away over there and as Indy showed, their flanks are stripped of the best Axis formations: The German ones. The best the Germans have to offer in the region are already committed while the Soviets are keeping them at bay with one hand. The other hand of the Red Army is behind their back with a mighty club about to beat the living hell out of the Nazis.
Get a good stock of popcorn and soda ready. It's going to get "real" over here.
Crazy to think that the war just keeps goin in an endless loop. One offensive into another.
Come for the history, stay for the puns. 😁
Omg, the suspense! We have waited for it for one and half year! Lets go and crush them!
I feel like I should point out, idk, that "Uranus" in Russian is "Уран" (Uran). No "haha ur anus" jokes.
@@maximpact4070 no, it comes from an ancient Latin "yuoro anuso", meaning "your ass".
Deep knowledge.
@@TheFaveteLinguis But not of Latin.
Zhukov: The answer is in Uranus!
Stalin: Really, commander?
Damn it's been 3 years already. Time sure does fly fast. Seems like yesterday the germans were In paris
Would it be possible to get a special about the civilians that were still trapped in Stalingrad during the fighting?