Is the Wehrmacht Defeated in 1942? - WW2 Special
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- Опубликовано: 13 июн 2024
- It's late1942 and the German Army is close to ruin. The Ostheer alone has suffered more than a million casualties in its fight against the Red Army. If the Wehrmacht can not find a way to return to its former strength or reap decisive strategic benefits in the near future, it will ultimately face destruction in a war of attrition.
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We have a simple question for you guys. We'll get straight to the point: Is the Wehrmacht really defeated in 1942?
You can use the information in this video or you may have something to add that we didn't include.
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Question at 1:36 you state grenade launcher, that appears to me to be a motor, Do Europeans call them differently?
Even Kaiser Wilhelm realised he had lost the First World War when Britain stood against him. Read his diaries.
defeated?
what? do you want total war?
I don't see how the Axis could have hoped to win once they lost any hope of taking the Caucasus, Stalingrad, Midway, the Solomons and Egypt in 1942. The fact is, the Soviets, Americans and British were getting more powerful at a faster rate than the Germans, Italians and Japanese simply because of their combined industrial might and more global reach as much as anything else. They needed to wreck allied logistics as well as Soviet morale and oil production in 1942, and even then they would still be fighting an uphill battle.
@@sankarchaya No one has a nuclear bomb
yet.
Steiner's counterattack will be able to solve the mess.
Its an order so he should!
On a more serious note: Robert Citino has written a great book on the subject of this video; Death of the Wehrmacht, the German campaigns of 1942.
Any minute now
Mit dem Angriff Steiners wird das alles in Ordnung kommen...
I wonder if indie will actually reference these memes when it comes to the battle of Berlin.
As Professor Stephen Kotkin explains in one of his lectures, the Wehrmacht of 1941 was more or less destroyed and replaced across 42-43 with another, older army. The Red Army of 1941 was destroyed, too, but the replacement forces of 42 onwards were similarly young, better equipped and led with increasing competence at every level of command.
Can we all just agree that the germans sucked and would of lost on every front no matter what. Not just to incompetent commanders and soldiers, but due to the worst logistics in any recent war, horrific planning, terrible tanks and equipment, and poorly trained drugged up and booze riddened soldiers
@@PowellPeraltask8er An argument can be made that Hitler's aggression and allied leader's lack of preparedness is the reason why the Wehrmacht was so successful early on in the war. The aggressive decision making meant they were always a step ahead of what could've been equally matching enemy armies and by extension always ahead of equally or greater prepared enemy defense industries and economies. What the Germans couldn't afford was for the war to drag on, in that way they were like a ponzi scheme or an overly aggressive fighter winning purely on momentum waiting to collapse.
@@PowellPeraltask8er I don't think I can agree on that. The speed and success of Germany's invasion of France (defeating two superpowers and taking shockingly few casualties in the process) suggests they had amazing equipment, soldiers and commanders.
Germany's 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union also suggests they had amazing equipment, soldiers and commanders. In 4 months they pushed around 1,000 miles into Russian territory, killed or captured around 2.5 million Russian soldiers, destroyed around 30,000-40,000 Russian tanks and armored vehicles, around 50,000+ Russian planes of every variety (mostly on the ground, lol), destroyed/captured an incalculable number of artilleries of all varieties, and so on and so forth. And then again, in 1942, despite the mauling and the sheer horror of German logistics, they handily defeated Russian counter-attack attempts and pushed even further into Russia, again killing/capturing/destroying mind blowing amounts of Russian soldiers/equipment/armor/planes.
It's from 1943 onward that you start to see the incompetence and the suckage, when Hitler has fired all of his best generals that won the biggest "victories" (technically defeats I guess, but still better than anything they managed to pull out of the bag after 1942) and replaced them with lackeys who tell him what he wants to hear.
@@drencrum U are right. The ruthless deceitfull and well prepared aggression that marked the German successes in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Holland, Norway, France, and Greece, turned the head of Hitler and all his generals. They had the (not altogether unfounded) belief that they were invincible. So why bother with intelligence gathering ?? Russia was just one more country to cross off the list. The total lack of German intelligence about Russia (such as, it had no roads, a huge army with endless reserves, very cold winters and appallingly muddy rainy seasons, was producing T34 Tanks in vast quantites, AND had a different railway gauge to Germany, making supplying the German army in Russia a logistical nightmare) was to result in their defeat. This total failure of intelligence stemmed directy from the sweeping early German successes, which confirmed their belief that they were a superior 'master race.'
Sometimes your greatest strength (which for the Germans, was their arrogance) is your greatest weakness. This was to demonstrated to the Germans in Russia.
@@PowellPeraltask8er Ehhh, they could have won early had they not invaded Russia. All that went to pot almost right away when they did.
As one commentator said, "The men of the German Army in 1939/45 moved much like their Fathers did in 1914/1918. On foot or draft animal."
Well, some of them did move much more by vehicle and by air than in WW1.
@@timobrienwells Very true Sir.
Fathers you mean. The grandfathers would be too old, and many of the men who served 1914-18 were even of draft age in ww2.
@@shivmalik9405 Yeah, you're right. Still, I guess the Franco Prussian war a footslog as well!!!! lol.
I imagine the ones in '18 and '45 moved similarly, "bloodshod, all lame, all blind, deaf even to the hoots"
I find small details that created major issues and played a significant role in the way the war went fascinating like the 'cold proof' optical sights or oil freezing.
Graphite powder.
Works well in cold and dry conditions.
Remember the Wehrmacht were fighting in the part of Russia which has relatively warm winters. Troops raised around Tselinograd (Astana/Nur-Sultan post independence), Omsk, Ekaterinburg or many other places in European Russia know how to operate in conditions 20 degrees C colder than the -25 or -30 they are being asked to fight in.
My favourite small detail like that is rats chewing thru electrical wiring in German tanks at stalingrad
@@pyatig About three years ago, I was taking apart an old house for the wood and other things like doors and windows etc.
The house had been sitting for some time.
Plenty of rats.
One night driving home for the weekend. My truck started not running well. Popping and missing. Then it just stop running and I coasted it into a parking lot.
A rat had been in my engine compartment for almost 30 miles. It chewed one of the ignition wires off the fuse block on the firewall.
The main issue was invading the Soviet Union when there was absolutely no logical need. Stalin and H. were theoretically destined best evil buddies.and I am thankful every day that their evil bromance was doomed from the start by inevitable betrayal. But by the gods, we came far too close to them working together at the worst possible moment.
I've been on winter military exercises in northern Canada with reasonably modern equipment. I can't imagine anything more soul destroying and miserable than doing it for real, especially with the gear that they had back then.
Do you think Putin would invade Ukraine during Winter? Or is modern equipment still much less efficient during Winter?
I was 3PPCLI for seven years and the most punishing training was definitely arctic warfare. I hate the cold to this day.
The Germans made a fatal mistake in under estimating the logistics involved in sub zero temperatures.
@@yourstruly4817 Too much CNN mate, give it a break.
@@mralexlex and other Western outlets.
In my novice opinion I think if the Russians really wanted to invade, they would be reenacting the capture of the Reichstag in Kiev by now.
@@yourstruly4817 I'm not sure Putin plans to invade Ukraine at all. Can you imagine the cost of occupation? It would absolutely bankrupt Moscow, and Ukrainian partisans would create havoc for the occupying Russian forces. Putin would love to reconstruct the old USSR, but he doesn't have the means to do so.
This has been my favourite special episode so far. It really does answer so many questions I've had about the manpower of the German forces. I'm really looking forward to the later episodes and specials in the 1944/45 years where the Wehrmacht is in an absolute mess and Indy is explaining the reasons of why/how it limped on.
ruclips.net/video/caoxNSNcQZs/видео.html. Check out this 5-minute video by military history visualized. Its my favorite video on his entire channel. It's a graphical representation of German combat readiness at the start of operation barbarossa, versus the start of fall blau (Stalingrad). There were 136 German divisions classified as fully ready for all combat operations in 1941, by 1942, that number had been reduced all the way down to 8 divisions.
You can basically say that the well-trained, experienced and battle seasoned soldiers that won the wars in the West in the previous years were killed in the beginning of Operation Barbarossa in 1941-42 during the brutal fights against the Soviets.
After that they were replaced by either half-trained adolescents or garrison forces of older soldiers who originally weren't supposed to fight at the front anymore.
I once read a book in which Hitler complained in 1943 that the elite divisions with high fighting strength are losing more and more men that can't be replaced while new divisions that are well equipped and freshly trained and sent to the front disappoint in the beginning and suffer from high losses.
Military History Visualised has a video about how the losses taken in the opening of Barbarossa had to be replaced with rear echelon troops, so while numerically the Heer recovered, it was never able to make up the quality loss.
This was happening at the same time as the red army was learning its craft and how to effectively fight German divisions. The combination spelt doom
Yes. 1941-42 saw the destruction of the trained, experienced troops that Germany relied on to carve its way across Europe. Slowly but surely, across different theaters but quite true in the East, the competency of the German military was being bled out.
Meanwhile their enemies at all sides, their armies will gain strength, recover from the earlier debacles of the war, learn from their mistakes, get better. On top of that they'll improve their equipment while being better supplied.
I once thought that maybe the Germans could have sued for piece in 1943, before the apocalypse of 1944-45 takes place. Then I remembered the vile acts German leaders have done, they knew they were going to hang. So to try and prevent that, Germany had to burn.
@@Warmaker01 Yes, war isnt win by best quality but who can keep his quality and better it
Military History Visualized. I love that channel too...
Was that the one where he points out the German army in 1942 was in worse shape than the German army of 1918? Or was that comparison with 1943?
The red army lost even more, but they were already undertrained, underequiped and poorly led, so they got better with replacements
Losses in the Wehrmacht also guided Hitler's foreign policy. He leaned heavily on his allies and satellites, especially after Barbarossa. He then made every effort to keep these nations in the war, resulting in the refusal to retreat we all know. Germany's armaments plight also meant that they could not afford to equip their allies to a significant degree. So the spiral is even greater than it now seems to be.
I agree
Those kraut allies also were terrible in combat and poorly trained and equiped
@@darklysm8345 You are completely wrong.
@@darklysm8345 You should be a historian bro
@@darklysm8345 Just off the top of my head I know that even the f*cking spanish division stayed until late 1943 near Leningrad.
The Romanian 3rd and 4th armies were annihilated by the Soviets, so sending them home wasn't a thing anyway.
I got to fire a PPSH-41. It is an incredible SMG. Controllable, high rate of fire, almost no muzzle rise (because it is heavy and has a solid wood stock) and pretty accurate. The 71 round drum means fewer reloadings if not a bit slower. The empty casings eject straight up which makes it relatively ambidextrous. Well thought out and well made, it is arguably the best SMG of the war and it was used for decades.
@Marcelo Henrique Soares da Silva the one I fired had a box magazine. I don’t recall if we had a drum available but was still an awesome little gun. The MP-40 was also very controllable but had a much lower R.O.F.
@@maxsmodels The MP-40 was considerably more expensive to manufacture without much in the way of corresponding advantages. But by 1944, with the development of the modern assault rifle, all SMGs were really obsolete for most military purposes. They soldier on today (mostly in more modern postwar designs like the Uzi and MP5) in niche applications, but few militaries have issued them to infantry in large numbers since the 1960s unless they were unable to afford newer weapons and issuing surplus weapons given to them by wealthier countries who had replaced them with modern rifles.
They are big fun as range toys, though. :😎
@@brucetucker4847 yeah they are.
it is baffling just how screwed the Germans are. Bismark knew what he was talking about when he said Germany cannot fight everyone. And yet, here they are fighting everyone.
Bismarck understood the importance of subtlety in forming alliances to prevent his nation from being overrun and destroyed - Hitler just assumed that he could bulldoze anyone that didn’t see the benefit of allying themselves with his “superior” nation…
Next it will be Putin's Russia, I think. If the EU and/or NATO have the intestinal fortitude to stand up to him.
@@wilberwhateley7569 Bismarcks amazing alliances caused WW1. Though yes he was still a genius and a great man.
"Russians should have prepaired roads for us and also tell us more about the harsh winters" thoughts of German commanders in 1942
The winters were a single factor in the demise of the Wehrmacht in the east, not the a major cause.
@@insideoutsideupsidedown2218 what about lack of fuel, i think fuel was more important
As Col. Hessler said in the Bulge movie, those of us at the top knew the war was lost in 1941! Then they just fought for the love of combat. A careful look at comparative casualties even during the early success time of Barbarossa reveals a vastly different experience to beating up prior Allied victims.
Careful with the claims of Germans after the war. The moment they surrendered and the war ended, no one was a nazi or ever was, according to them. Freedom loving resistance fighters, all of them! You can't take these guys seriously.
@@darklysm8345 How??? They lost when they invaded Poland.
@@darklysm8345
Actually if we get technical they lost in 1933 when Hitler came to power.
@@darklysm8345 nah, its general accepted fact under historians, that with the invasion of the soviet union, germany took on too much and sealed its fate.
In 41 the Wehrmacht was down to less than 40% of its veteran combat troops and reserve units and non combat units (engineers etc) were pushed to the front.
from late 42 onwards germany was only capable of stabilising the frontline and conduct a fighting retreat, wich totally broke down in late 44/early 45.
with the invasion of poland, scandinavia and france germany had already expended a relevant share of its highly trained combat units and was no longer capable of taking on an peer opponent and win the engagement decisively (like for example UK or France), the soviet union had significantly higher human resources and raw material acess plus higher industrial production (and the majority of its industrial capacity with importance to the war effort had been already evacuated deep into the soviet unions in 1940)
to add to that, the german intelligence in respect to the soviet union was pretty bad, idiologically blinded and also effeectively countered by the soviet SMERSH (counter espionage), wich led to major false estimations of soviet military and industrial capabilities on the german side
@@darklysm8345 yes scientific consensus changes regularly in many topics.
But in this topic the consensus has not changed for at least 40 years and the evidence got hardened with the public acess of soviet archives and german military archives post 1990.
The Wehrmacht was defeated when Barbarossa started, and the strategic necessities that were detailed by the wargames were replaced with political and ideological illusions.
When the USSR didn't crumble on schedule, and there was no Plan B.
Hitler sacking all of his best Generals and making himself the sole supreme commander of the armed forces didn't help either.
@@weirdshibainu How stupid can you be to say that the west is saber-rattling? So should we just allow Russia to just invade Ukraine? The fact that you think Germany already lose when they invaded Russia shows a lack of historical knowledge.
@@weirdshibainu The Western nations are standing by an independent sovereign nation being threatened by a belligerent neighbour - the only one saber rattling is the belligerent neighbour...
@@user-wh8co2wi4y I agree with weirdshibanuguy on both points. Hitler was doomed, maybe not immediately after invading, but soon after, as I said, "when the USSR didn't crumble on schedule." It was decided before the rains. And there's no way the USA is really going to fight Russia in Ukraine. It's all bullshit for TV audiences. There's no Russian build up, and even less risk of a Russian invasion.
Fake news. Blow up your TV.
Fun fact: We still use a variant of the MG42 in the Bundeswehr, the MG3.
@@jsjs627 lol what? Ever been to Germany?
ruclips.net/video/hDYb6ICZHo4/видео.html MG5 vs. MG3! Welches Maschinengewehr der Bundeswehr ist besser?
Shitty gun the bren was the best in ww2
@@PowellPeraltask8er 🤣🤣
@@PowellPeraltask8er shitty? That's the best lmg that was ever created so much so that America copied it.... you're 🧠less
One of the things I find most telling about the difference in mentalities between the Allies and Nazi Germany was the fact that the Allies geared themselves towards war economies pretty much straight away, though it still took time to make it happen. But only about halfway through the war did Germany start to move to a war economy , though I've heard it said that Albert Speer, once he was in charge, was able to keep Germany fighting for two years longer than it otherwise would have been able to.
Well, German economics even prepared before the wars for an eventual war economy. But it was done with the wrong foresight and not wanting to turn the civilian population against the NSDAP. But every economic decision by the National Socialist Party since gaining power can be seen more or less as a preparation for an inevitable war.
70% of the German economy was geared toward rearmament throughout the thirties. The problem was by 1942 the financiers realised they weren’t going to get the rewards in cheap materials and slave labour Hitler had promised them.
The issue was that the Axis expected another quick campaign in Russia aso. but failed to deliver so suddenly, it became instrumental to gear the nation even more towards war but invading the Soviets was so ridiculous considering the victory in France aso. that it actually lacks any basis for serious discussion unless you talk about alternative history because historically, it was simply a massive purely politically motivated mess director the fanatical nature of Nzi ideology.
@@annoyingbstard9407 because Hitler was a closet Kaifeng Socialist.
Its true that they had partially mobilized the economy for war since the 30s ut never really went on full scale wartime policies (looking at Japan or England for examples) since the quick victories in the early war made it look unnecessary, also taking in the resources of the capitulated western countries. Germany only enacted the same policy of the other war parties after 1941
The facts that Germany has been at war for over two years by this point and one of the main reasons for the invasion of the Soviet Union was to gain needed resources it baffles me that they still haven’t switched to a war economy by the end of 1942.
If you look at tank production 43+44 it’s easy to see how unstoppable the Wehrmacht‘s tank forces could have been with the proper war industry.
But then again the industry was built on horrific slave labor so we as a species should be glad they didn’t have that idea earlier
They had from before the war, by 1942 the measures became draconian
Hitler didn't want to fully mobilise early because he was afraid the hardship would lead to internal dissent, much like it did in WWI
it's so sad that nobody got the Hearts of Iron 4 joke
I used to live in the Canadian far north. Entire weeks never got above -40c.
Try shifting a manual transmission when your gear oil is so thick the gear shift won’t move.
I appreciate all the work you put in these amazing videos
In the end the German army was designed and operated for quick victories and short wars; however, in the Soviet Union they ended up in a war of attrition and the Russians after 1941-42 rebuilt and re-equipped and then outfought them. Same war of attrition in the West too. The blame rests with Hitler, who made himself the source of all power after 1933. A repeat of 1914-1918 during which the blame rested the political-military elite in German society, prior to then their European wars were short duration, e.g. 1866 and 1870-1871.
I totally agree, but throw in that the German OKW did not learn from the costly mistakes of WW1, especially Operation Michael in March/April 1918: Fall Blau resulted in the exact same consequences, loss of stormtroops, gaining only "empty space" of no strategic value and an overall loss of both supplies, weapons and infantrymen. Had Hitler's Wehrmacht consolidated its lines on a line Riga-Minsk-Kiew-Odessa in Oct/early Nov 1941, Stalin would have been in dire shape to organize an attack against them. Instead Hitler ordered the even more costly Operation Typhoon. Well, pure speculation, and one way or another the atrocious Hitler had to be defeated…
@@darklysm8345 I didn’t say that you rude little person. I was discussing how the Germans conducted their wars. If you can’t be civil, take your own advice and go away.
After watching this channel, I read four of David Stahel’s books on barbarossa. They are quite detailed and it was rather amazing how little planning the Germans gave to supplying their troops until they were running out of supplies in the first few weeks. They really had no idea of how primitive the road systems were in parts of Russia. Of course the German’s murdering everyone as they went didn’t help with their supply system either.
@@DD-fj2ut I haven’t read them, but I should. For Hitler and most German generals quick and decisive campaigns were to be the desired norm, the army in the East and West was to live off the land and plunder what they needed, no need to worry too much about logistics then; it’s the same logic that Napoleon used as much as ancient generals did. Also the Germans (and Japanese) considered logistics and military intelligence a career dead end for any ambitious officer. As such their logistics (and for the Japanese their intelligence) services were unsophisticated especially when compared to the British and Americans - I can’t comment on Russian logistics as other than general comments in historical works I have read nothing. Their opponents took a different view. I remember reading how German troops advancing during the Michael Offensive of March 1918 were amazed, bewildered and demoralised by the size and scale of British supply dumps behind the front. You’d think they would have learned the lessons 1939-1945 as they certainly were aware of them, but they did not.
@@darklysm8345 You seem to be a clueless Wehraboo even on this theme.
Every major power hastily putting the war in place in those days were to blame, though the austrians and especially, ironically, the russians (thanks to their mobilitation) had the most blame in starting it.
I have found a good series to complement this channel and it call War Factories. It documents how each side used or misused it's factories.
You'll appreciate this little story;
My Grandfather was in the Wehrmacht and was shot through the head by a US GI in WW2!
Not sure what contested town it was alas.
He was hit, ran as far as he could then collapsed and came round in a field hospital!
You could still see the indentation from the entry wound and the exit wound where the bullet traveled through his left eyebrow and exited just by his right temple!
He recovered and began working in a munitions factory where he survived a colossal explosion when someone accidentally caused a catastrophic detonation.
He was trapped under a huge concrete support and would have died if it wasn't for a secondary detonation that lifted the concrete beam freeing his legs which allowed him to escape.
He was however burned to a crisp and the scars were very visible many years later!
They don't make men like that anymore!
His name was Werner Westermann and he passed away at the age of 93 in Lüdenscheid, Germany 🇩🇪
And as a final note, he was not a Nazi, he was a good man, albeit grumpy as you like, just a victim of circumstance like millions of others.
Never forget...
Never forget!
Well done,
One of y’all’s best video’s yet.
Extremely interesting and informative.
Statistics, in my personal opinion can be difficult to present in a fluid and interesting manner and as a result can be boring and tough to follow .
Thorough presentation of great points with valid stats flowed quite well
Thank you sir.
You're welcome Peter! A lot of numbers were crunched in the making of this episode, and I agree that endless statistics are boring, they just get tuned out after a while! Glad to hear that you thought we got the balance right in this one
I could listen to you all day, Indy. This channel is fantastic when you love WW2 history and I never miss an episode with you.
I don't remember who said this, but it's true: "amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics."
Its a dumb statemeant in case of germany.
Only an amateur would talk about logistic if your main enemy (France) is barely 100km away from your most important industrial area (Ruhr valley).
If germany would have gone all in on logistics...the war would have been over in 1940. Germanies operational afvantage carried the entire german war effort for 3 years despite the logistics beeing bad.
The german army was designed for one chief goal in mind: Defeat France.
It was build for a war on the western front where logistics are basically no real issue do to the high degree of modern infrastructure and short distances.
Who needs a tank that can go for 4000 km if the distance between the german border and Paris is 400km? Better get a tank that is stronger/better trained personal and replace it post battle.
i think it was omar bradley
@@noobster4779 Invading the Soviets was arguably always much more a project of a very small cycle than pf the entire military high command. It’s popularity was much more a result of the war with the western ally’s than any preconceived notion of any widespread character.
It is quite interesting to read of the Finnish briefings of this period. Several of the Finnish leaders had been either uncertain of the German chances or predicted the German loss already in 1942 before Stalingrad. After Stalingrad it become even more widely stated. For example the head of the Finnish military intelligence (Colonel Aladár Antero Zoltán Béla Gyula Árpád Paasonen) briefed the Finnish government on February 3rd 1943 of the apparent German defeat - and the Finnish President even openly stated this to the US Ambassador to Finland on February 20th 1943. It was however realized that disengagement from war was not possible due supply issues and the German military might. Interestingly enough some of the members of the Finnish parliament rejected the similar analysis given to them in February 1943.
If you just look at the numbers then Germany was doomed from the beginning. The Soviets had 10x more tanks in 1941, a big amount of elite forces like 5 paratrooper divisions (Germany only had one brigade in the whole war that bled out in Crete) and at least 2 million more soldiers in the beginning of the war.
The German attack took the Soviets totally by surprise and Stalins no step back order increased the casualties in the beginning of the German offensive which extremelly weakened the Red Army in the first 1-2 years of the war. They lost 1 million soldiers in just a few weeks and endless amounts of material, fuel and ressources.
But even after these high losses and being pushed back far into their homeland they recovered quickly and started counter-offensives.
Interesting Ion Antonescu Romania's dictator and Hitler ally singed a decree in October 1942, to spare the Jews from Romania and not hand them over to Germany. He was genuinely antisemitic. Also started discussions with US. I wonder why the war didn't end in 1943
Great episode, so much information well presented as usual.
This episode was over the top - coincise and to the point with great pace!
Thank you for mentioning Germany's biggest issue as much as oil resources is that they can replace the men in the army but not their skill and experience as the German tactics relies so heavily on the elite infantry and panzers so they take the worst of the loses.
Germany lost most of its best soldiers in 1941 it would not be able to replace them.
Sure must the legendary German soldiers that people talk about will show up like the snipers, panzer and flying aces in 1944-45 but again that's only because so much is demanded of them.
Yep, it is always better to have 20 guys that shoot down 3 planes each than 1 who shoots down 50 and 19 that crash during takeoff.
@@martinkafka9510 Adolf Galland, general of fighters, commented after the war that one of the main failings of the Luftwaffe was a lack of training in all weather flying and landing...
Ironically this was mainly do to the versailles treaty. The limit to a 100.000 army meant that the germans had a very small initial elite officer corps around which the entire army was raised as conscripts. In 1941 this core personal hit the soviet dirt and couldnt be replaced anymore.
The limit to 100.000 was both a strenght of the german army and a weakness. In a short term war this meant that your elite core was basically overtrained to any comparable allied force (spending 100 dollars on 100 soldiers or only 10 soldiers makes a big difference) and made up of mainly the elite veterans of WW1 plus the best personal of each following generation with high standarts. Ina long term it meant the rest of the military was heavily less trained and experienced, basically relying on the elite core force to make them combat efficent.
@@noobster4779 that certainly hurt them the treaty limits like the Japanese with their naval restrictions as well.
A rapid reorganization and sudden swelling of forces can be done as with the British army and the US Marines against the Japanese.
Like Indy mentioned Hitler opened up the officer corps that anybody so even people like Rommel could gain positions he would not be able to under the Kaiser's army but this seems to not be enough. I think really just the issue is is the war that bug uncle H wanted to wage a war that was so big that he literally just could not do it. The Germans just could not maintain a military campaign against the Russians of that scale except for 1941 when they had the best shot of actually succeeding and they failed. Once other front start to open up and expand and scope, they're just not able to focus like they need to to finish off the Russians. Im not saying the Germans didn't have a chance of beating the Russians there are times where it looks like the Soviet Union might actually collapse here and there but the longer the war goes on the less forces the Germans are able to concentrate like in 41.
Could could have been fixed by the access allies and the axis States like Italy and Japan working with the Germans but if you see how Germany treats all of its allies and puppets stay to treat them all like crap or keeps them at such an extreme distance they can't help them. It is an interesting thought of what if Japan helped out the Germans against the Russians but that's a different conversation because there's a lot of reasons why that didn't happen.
Something else I hear a lot of people praise about the German army is that they had officers who would lead from the front and I'm not saying that's a bad thin, but it seems also like a lot of times this would just get them killed and not help their officer corps problem.
@@martinkafka9510
I like an analogy I've heard where it's better to have a hundred man shoot one arrow than one man shoot 100 arrows
As has been stated time and again throughout your series: Germany does not have the industrial power to win the war.
Yup. All of the Axis powers had to count on their enemies giving up after initial defeats rather than regrouping to make use of their vastly superior industrial power.
@@kemarisite yep, it could be argued that the axis could never win.
Germany technically "won" in 1940 after the fall of France. The Commonwealth forces were driven off the continent and they had yet to invade the USSR. But like you said, Germany lacked the industrial capacity to win a long-term war and this victory would have been entirely dependent on maintaining peace with the Soviets and Britain essentially giving up (which obviously didn't happen).
Also Germany never really mobilized their industry properly for war before Speer became the minister of armaments and Goebbels made his speech. Before that the industry was very much on a pre-war almost civilian footing. Germany had been robbing the rest of Europe blind of items such as food just so the average German wouldn't realize that there's a war going on.
Their failure to conquer Great Britain was the real beginning of the end. The Royal Navy still ruled the seas, and supplies could pour in from the US (even with U boat attacks). I believe they also expected the USSR to crumble and capitulate much as Russia did in WWI. They were quickly in over their heads and must have known they were in big trouble as early as mid-1941.
By far this is one of the greatest explanations of World War 2 on the Webb. Thank you for your time and research. Incredibly interesting and no matter how much I hear I’m always learning more. Great work!
Haven't seen you in awhile. Glad you're doing well. Great show as always.
It was defeated in 1941. With both the US and Soviet Union against it, defeat was inevitable.
@Ra's Al Ghul The US and Britain bombed the Ruhr industrial zone and many German cities, crippling the German war effort.
@Ra's Al Ghul This is false, the industrial might of the US was critical to the Soviet Union through Lend Lease and the manpower from the US that allowed landings in the West tied up huge portions of the Wehrmacht that could've better been served on the Eastern front. I'm not saying the Germans would've won without the intervention of the US but they made it a lot easier on the Soviets.
@Ra's Al Ghul except thousands of trucks boots and millions of tons of military equipment . Could Soviet union win in it's own ? Yes but price would be another 4-5 million deaths over already disastrous 20 million
@@IrishTechnicalThinker The USSR benefitted greatly from lend-lease but the army the Finns defeated in December 1940 wasn't the same army the Germans were fighting in 1942. It was better led, better equipped, and fighting to defend their homeland against genocidal extermination
@@IrishTechnicalThinker You might want to watch a couple more vids in this channel, mate.
Good episode. Well researched, written and narrated. Interesting hearing about the specific problems the Wehrmacht's weapons had, especially due to the cold. Nice job.
Always nice to get more specials with so much focus on the new hardware and such. :D
This channel is so damned good! Longtime follower but it never ceases to amaze me at the quality of these videos!
Well, I am a retired college prof and also a retired military officer. In my humble opinion, Germany lost the war in the east when Marshall Zukov launched his massive counterattack around Moscow. Those divisions from Siberia made all the difference. Yes, I know about Stalingrad and Kursk and all that but they BEGAN losing at Moscow. Losing was a process - not a single event.
Yes, the Writing was on the wall by the end of 1942. It is a wee bit difficult to fight a mobile war with insufficient supplies of Gasoline.
That's why the Germans pushed so far south to reach the oil fields of Azerbaijan so that they could drain the Soviets from their fuel and use it for themselves.
This left their whole, southern frontline very thin and led to the catastrophy of Stalingrad.
Excellent Special Episode Indy and team!
Great, insightful, original presentation! 👍
I've served 21 years in the Croatian army. 8 of those as a gunner on MG-42. What a piece of engineering...
Students in the future will be able to call themselves so lucky for having this channel when doing researche for WW2
I LOVE every video you make. They’re all absolutely fantastic.
Fantastic and very informative!
Not a good idea to fight a two front war without twice as many soldiers, oil, rubber, food, tanks and trucks as your adversaries. (And then treat your adversaries as inferior and expendable.)
I think a lot of people, enthusiasts about WW2 and about "the history of warfare", as John Keegan called it, but layman in the matters that concerns and involves military operations, tend to be biased in favor of Nazi Germany, and Axis in general.
That lies in the fact that people frequently uses historical anachronism to analyze what happened at the time, in some sort of "what if" cenarios, and relying in a lot of "turning points" of the war, almost "cheering" for them. It is not wrong to imagine those cenarios, our imagination and curiosity about those alternate realities lead us to that.
But to those that frequently advocate that "Germany could have won the war if they did that or that", search for enlightenment about the facts.
The only way Germany could had pulled this off, involves miraculous political and psychological actions against the Allies, along with intangible military victories, that, of course, never happened. What happened was an immense loss of life, that changed our world forever.
Stalin did pretty much all he could to hamper Soviet war effort at the start and Germany still lost. That really should give these people pause about what German chances for victory actually were: nonexistent.
We study the what if scenarios to find the missteps and outright mistakes to attempt to prevent them or things lije them from happening again.
Germany really had no way to win a global war - they just didn't have the manpower, industry or technological advantage required to beat the overwhelming number of enemies it had earned. Even without facing the Soviets (and assuming the Soviets didn't attack later) the war was never going to end how Hitler imagined. Best case scenario for them was a peace treaty that gave them significant gains - and the chances of peace disappeared rapidly as the war dragged on and the crimes committed (on both sides, but mostly by the Axis) the bad blood boiled over and total victory was the only option. Which was impossible for Germany as long as the Royal Navy existed, because even a total victory in mainland Europe would have just put Germany back into the same place it was before - economically starved from world trade, just with even more mouths to feed and partisans around every corner. The best they could truly hope for was what they gained before the Polish campaign - slightly expanded borders, loosened restrictions on their trade and manufacture and a military stalemate that would quickly turn into the 'new norm'.
@UCX4StUA6ILxs9aCb3cnwT6g I don´t think capturing Moscow would have won the war. However, Moscow was a major railway hub, right at the center of the front line. This allowed supplies to be easily transported wherever the Soviets needed them. If Moscow was captured, those railway connections would have been either eliminated, or they would need to be redirected through other infrastructure, which often wasn´t available. Having said that, it was clear that the Wehrmacht didn´t really have the strength to even enter Moscow, let alone capture it.
The German way of war is determined by their past as Prussia; a small, impoverished and low population duchy in the middle of nowhere. Prussia could *never* win wars of attrition with their neighbours such as Russia, France, the Habsburgs and even Sweden. They thus had to defeat their enemies fast, in short, swift and brutal campaigns where they could use their strengths- superior soldiers and officers- to outmanoeuvre and annihilate enemy armies and thus defeat his will to fight. German campaigns were "front loaded", they would batter you to pieces in a hectic attack, but in the end run out of steam (which interestingly is also how the Romans described the German tribes of their time). If you could weather the storm, you would get a good chance to counterattack and roll them up, for they would attack so aggressively and viciously that they would literally bleed themselves out in it. They would attack far beyond any sense. For if sense had ruled the Prussians, they would never have engaged in wars with their stronger neighbours.
Poland and France could not weather the storm, they were too small. Britain could just about, for they could run and hide behind The Channel. The USSR also could for they had room and men enough, and a geography and infrastructure and weather that would drain the Germans.
The Germans were exceptional on a tactical and operational scale, their generals led from the front and *brilliantly* outmanoeuvrered their opponents- that turn of attack axis of Patton the Americans were so proud of, was routine for people like Manstein, Model and Balck in the East. However, this emphasis made them forget about logistics and strategy. While they could not cross The Channel, the Americans were fighting across three oceans, and while they would "hand craft" their tanks and planes, the Americans and Soviets were mass producing standard models.
Could Germany have won the war? Yes, but only until Hitler stopped the panzers during Fall Gelb. After that, there was no chance. They would be fighting on two fronts against the three greatest powers in the world at once. Bismarck and Frederick the Great would have never been so stupid.
But then, they were not Nazis; ideology makes stupid.
Hey Indy I've been watching you all the way back in ww1 and have to say I love yours and the timeghost teams content. Italy and Japan are less talked about in popular culture and inwas wondering about italy's government and economy as well as millitary and Japan's millitary here in ww2 I would love to see an italy special here at some point
Wow, what an informative video!
I am German and quite interested in history. I never came across a more stronger video in such a short time...learnt a lot new stuff.
Love your channel, superb to listen too!
"And most importantly, engines that will reliably move over unpaved roads and the rough countryside."
So why was Ferdinand Porche invited to 'VK 30 series' meeting?
To be fair, most Russian designs, including the vaunted T-34, weren't much better at this. It's just that the USSR could always build two tanks to replace every one whose engine or transmission broke down beyond repair, and the Germans couldn't. But the service life of most T-34s, particularly the early models, could be measured in weeks or in hundreds of km of cross-country travel. And given Soviet tactics in the early years most of them were destroyed before they could wear out anyway.
The Werhmacht is still just miles from the outskirts of Moscow, Leningrad is surrounded, Paulus is still getting supplied via the Luftwaffe in Stalingrad, and the southern forces are nearly to the oil fields of Azerbaijan and the eastern Caucasus. The counter-attacks by the Russian forces have delayed the Germans in the USSR, but barring something unexpected next summer, once this winter is over the Red Army will surely crumble. After the last year of constant defeat and especially after Rshev, the Russian pool of man power and conscripts has certainly got to be running low. The Germans are being slowed by their logistics, but once the roads are drivable again, and with the new technological innovations from North Africa, we'll see Panthers in Moscow.
lol
Yes surely they'll crumble
Hindsight is 20/20
We just need a bit of *inhale copium* noises when reading this
Based
This I a high quality detailed video. Great job. More more more!
Thanks for the praise. And don't worry, more is coming! Of course we don't know the future, but it looks like this war is still far from over. We have even more detailed coverage on our Instagram instagram.com/ww2_day_by_day/ , by joining the TimeGhost army and by supporting us on Patreon
Excellent evaluating of whole situation & successful labelling to selective examples thanks
The Germans had access to tank training grounds in Russia east of Moscow in the 1930’s , the little secret between A and B. They knew what they we marching into but were Not properly prepared
Your recent videos give a well rounded view of events, rather than the common narrative, great research, thanks
You're right, first time I seen someone mention it
@@flip849 ironically in 1941 the British sent tanks to the same location via Leningrad for Russian soldiers to be trained which were later deployed to the defence of Moscow in 1941,
The Germans also had flight training for aircraft in Russia too at the same time, away from allied eyes
What goes around comes around
@@jasonharryphotog funny how everyone misses the fact that military cooperation in the early ‘30s was between USSR and Weimar Republic, not Nazi Germany. The project was wrapped up right after Hitler came to power in 1933.
@@maximbravo6835 and they forgot the climate yes, exactly
@@jasonharryphotog as a matter of fact, the influence of winter climate on the outcome of the Battle of Moscow is largely overrated. First, it was just as cold on the other side of the frontline, and Soviet supply was a huge mess too. More importantly, records show that temperatures were far from extreme in the periods when the key events were unfolding. Not surprisingly, cause there was little to or action on the front in the days and weeks when General Frost would own the field.
I'm quite surprised it took so long for Germany to transition to a war economy. I guess they always had the mentality the war was almost over and there was no need to sacrifice the lifestyle of civilians for the front.
Before the war Germany had neither the resources nor the support from the population to do so but after the fall of France they could have done so earlier for sure.
The Germans produced more panthers alone in 43 and 43 then they had built all tanks from 33-41.
Hey Ramez, I think they didn't go early into fully war economy and the restrictions which results because the Nazi's regime was afraid of collapsing of home front like in 1918 when German government collapse due to war exhaustion of its population
@@auguststorm2037 Aye, they certainly knew that the Soviets would not fall completely without effort on their end although they didn’t know that they were actually completely wrong due to a number of reasons.
They substituted a “war economy” with slave labour. Millions of Dutch, Norwegians, Belgians, French, Yugoslavians, Greeks toiled in Germany, while their homes were stripped bare of food and resources.
You don’t need rationing when you just steal everything , and as territories were liberated, the artificially inflated German economy collapsed.
Good riddance.
@@Chewable396 And on top of that, the amount of equipment they seized in the early stages of the war made it look like they could keep relying on depriving their enemies of their recourses via encirclements using rapid troop movements without needing to innovate all that much.
We have to remember that WW1 was on the minds of the people and that they remembered a hard fought but achievable victory against a foe who was in a somewhat better position on paper as no civil war / purges had decimated the country. While this also produced a lot of veterans, as this war would show, veterans would not grow old where the fighting was actually serious and so, the amount of training one could do behind the frontline became increasingly relevant.
Before the war, Germany could train millions in secret but as the war progressed, the need for fresh soldiers increased dramatically, resulting in a deadly cycle of inexperienced soldiers facing off against equally inexperienced soldiers who were, however, better equipped.
After all, the massive Soviet losses of territory were a direct result of the terrible state of the red army that needed a lot of technological know how, a really underappreciated aspect of land lease, to begin to catch up. Having access to multiple safe havens, allied innovation during the war wasn’t hindered by the very thing nearly as much as it was in Europe, a fact that’s especially evident when looking at the economy of Europe after the war in comparison to the USA.
Some numbers claim that as much as 92,7% of the Soviet railway system built during WW2 originated in the USA.
Very well presented, thank you.
A lot of the points you make in this video I use when planning for next year's business operations.
Focusing on reliability, simplifying our supply chain, and taking initiative are things that are often overlooked by small business owners.
Failing to have a plan for when things don't go according to plan is something that kills a lot of businesses. At the last big company I worked for, anyone who pointed out potential flaws or pitfalls in the plan was always branded a naysayer and sidelined, so you learned to just shut up and make your own private contingency plan for what to do when the entirely predictable yet, to leadership, unthinkable inevitably happened.
I reckon that 1942 were the two most crucial years of the war. 1942 seeing the tide of war shifting from the Axis to the Allies, and 1944 determining, with the 3 great offensives D-Day, Bagration and Ichi-Go, what the post WW2 would look like.
The most crucial year for the war was 1889. No other single human fate impacted history so directly as this one man during and to an extent also after his era.
Had he died shortly after defeating France, we would look at a totally different world. Had he died before even going to war, the same would be true.
Historically, this was much more his war than anything else.
@@Arcaryon True. Although he had zero impact on what Imperial Japan was planning to do. But I reckon that while modern historians LOVE to talk about how individuals don't matter, and how everything is a major process, individuals do matter. There is always outside context problems and events caused by the right person at the right time that can derail those major processes. Chances are there was going to be another major European war. WW1 didn't came out of nowhere but was caused by the humiliation of France at the hands of Germany in the war of 1870-71. A humiliating peace breeds resentment and eventually the political stars realign themselves for another round. Since France imposed similar terms on Germany in 1919 there was bound to be another war by Germany to readdress its perceived wrongs. Or take advantage of another crisis to see that happen. Nature abhors a vacuum and a weak Germany at the heart of Europe would never have lasted that long. Even the Weimar Republic was secretly laying the foundations for rearmament. But our Austrian friend probably caused what could have been a minor conflict, or a totally different one, to spin out of control as it did. And make it so destructive, and downright evil.
My grandfather (born 1910) was subscripted in 1941 and as someone with a university degree he became an non commissioned officer with the artillery in the Baltic region. He survived the cold russian winter and came home. Though the war never left him. I remember that he told us, that -50 degrees did not feel much colder than -40 or -30. This must have been so rough for a middle aged man in his 30s, with a growing family at home and facing the "Russian" several times face to face. He actually never talked of them as the enemy, they were just on the other side of the war.
Was the Wehrmacht defeated? It probably partially defeated itself. My grandpa told me that the german officers spoke badly about the Austrians like him and belittled them. I guess this is not good for the morale of the troops. And as mentioned, my grandfather was an educated man, but so many were not and they probably felt humiliated by this behaviour.
But let's be honest: I think even my grandfather was happy that they got defeated in the end and he could return to his family in 1946, as he managed to escape the Red Army in the last minute in Kaliningrad or Gdansk and arrive in Kiel, where he and his men surrendered to the British.
"The German officers spoke badly about the Austrians like him and belittled them" What did he expect, the German Third Reich was, at the time, the most racist xenophobic country on earth. Its official state policy was white supremacy, Aryan supremacy at that, and actually exterminated their minority population. This is how seriously messed up Nazi ideology is. The fact that they actually belittled Austrians even though Hitler was one. To be fair, Austrians had it coming for voting in favour for Hitler.
@@vegitoblue5000 It goes more than that. Austrians as South-Germans and Germans, in particular Northern Germans, where always somewhat in a hate-love relationship. I'm an Austrian and here, some Germans get to feel that too sadly. Sad, because we should stand together, as we're one people.
@@AwesomeDude272 What is that supposed to mean, are you advocating for Anschluss to "stand together" because you believe you are "one people"? Have you learnt nothing of what happened the last time there was Anschluss? You of all people should.
@@vegitoblue5000 People of all countries desire being souvereign and united. But I doubt you ever thought outside of the box and beyond what BBC, NBC and Co. told you.
@@tullnerbacherprollet3847 I don't understand what are you talking about?
Absolutely awesome mate things I had not even heard of and I'd thought id read a fair bit!
That is a very good analysis 👍
Nice, no premiere today? Anyway...
We have of course at 9:42, Hitler's Buzzsaw... The Germans will have to hope the the Panzer V aka Panther tank at 12:31 will work reliably without too much engine breakdowns in the future once they are ready, given the current breakdown reports of its bigger cousin, the Panzer VI Tiger tank. In any case though, Germany only going for war mobilization in 1942, after most of the other major nations did so very early in the war might have already made a difference in the industrial capacity gap year after year.
The Panther was an excellent design in many respects, but it always suffered fatal flaws caused by just putting too much armor and gun on an engine and transmission that simply weren't designed for that much weight. It was an exercise in wishful thinking and unbalanced design, and while its reliability did eventually improve from abysmal to barely adequate, it was a poor choice for a war of perpetual retreat where any tank that suffered mechanical failure was likely to be a tank lost to the enemy's advance. But it was the inevitable product of a hopeless strategic situation: the Germans could have opted for something with more modest performance but excellent reliability like the later (E8 76mm) Shermans, but without all that extra armor and gun they would have been hopelessly overrun by the massively greater numbers of tanks their enemies could build.
My humble opinion is that the german army was already defeated in september 1941, since the soviet union did not collapsed, the red army was stiffening, and was not destroyed and encircled in the frontiers where it supposed to happen.
This is the correct take. The Reich was never going to beat the USSR.
@@lukamilas8648 The germans were already a pile of rubble and Moscow was still far from the way. Unlike the mythical portrayal of the ''Kremlin in sight''.
Such a good video. You guys do amazing research.
Thank you
Awesome stuff thank you
The German Army is already running down, and American war production has barely started and is set to explode (figuratively, then literally on the battlefield) in 1943. It's almost surprising that Germany will fight on for another two and half years despite its prospects for victory only continuing to fade by the week.
The Wehrmacht may not be defeated tactical, but strategical. The complete breakdown is only a matter of time.
@@ontheline3077 Hard to tell. If we go with the things German generals have writen everyone knew it and it´s all Hitlers fault.
@@ontheline3077 Absolutely. I'm not that familiar with sources from the time. After battle reports for example. Do we know if they know that they were beaten? I mean at least in 1944 we know that they knew it.
@@ShadowDragon1848 I do not think there was anything for them to know. After Kursk, everyone probably knew they could not win, but this is not the same as being beaten. They could still defend pretty well and hope for armistice. Also, I am not sure if they saw Japan to be also beaten at this time. So they could still hope for Japan victory and subsequent help.
Possibly strategic defeat before the counter-offensive of Dec 6 1941.
Best vid yet ... and there are many ... keep up the good work !!!! Your the best channel in all of RUclips !!!!
Thank you for your kind words and your support!!
That was great Indy , more please !
3:10 Military History Visualized also agrees on it: Versailles was did had an effect on weakening Germany, but like a Bethesda Game, it took time to really see the changes.
Is there a possibility for a special on the IS-2? (Or maybe even the whole series) This monster of a tank is often overlooked and there are few english documents on it. It would be rad if you could talk about it in depth
Perhaps our friend Chieftain might cover the late war tanks at some point, when we get there that is
fascinating information... well done.
This is a very good RUclips series thankyou for this!
You're welcome!
Ferdinand Porche. He sounds like someone who will create a technically reliable tank :P
Also the Elefant. The less said about that the better.
@@brucetucker4847 Porche was just doing his part by slowing the panzers down to the speed of the advancing infantry instead of them getting left behind all the time.....
@@Raskolnikov70 "There's a lot of Ivans out there, Hans. You know what'd be nice to have right about now? How 'bout a freakin' MACHINE GUN?"
They were defeated when they thought simultaneously fighting deep in the USSR and in north Africa against the USSR, UK and US was a winnable situation
Excellent episode. 👍
I love these videos. If you had a channel and aired 24 hrs a day, i would keep it on.
You are reproducing an urban legend about the PPsh41. It was a gun with clear limitations. Especially the drum magazine you cheered about, was horrendous and substituted therefore by cheap stickmags. A drum magazine had to fit the tolerances of a certain gun(not interchangeable) and magazines were scarce. A soldier would be issued with only the drum magazine. After firing those 70 round the magazine had to be opened up and loose ammunition hat to be placed upright in it, before closing and rewinding of the spring. One cannot imagine the horror of this procedure in combatm
I was about to comment something similar, but I think the justification here is dramatization slightly intended to represent the German perspective, and the rifleman saddled with a k98 lamenting his lack of automatic fire in urban combat. The reality is as you describe and the Germans had a different doctrine relying on their MG teams and issuing their limited supply of MP40s into the hands of officers. Also it lets him lay the groundwork for the STG's story if they get into the minutiae of covering that.
We are missing the expertise of Ian from Forgotten Weapons.
I wonder if it wasn't the piss poor logistic situation that leads to German soldiers using PPSh.
Also, judging by pictures I've seen that remark is about 2 years to early made if bigger portions of Wermacht are to be concern. It's something like late 1944 and quite often soje kind of patchwork units that we see PPSh being used. But when they are used, it's mostly those with drum mags.
@@richards6431 a shame the original collab design for the series fell apart
But if you had the right magazines fitted to it, it was a helluva gun
Von Clausewitz would probably say the Germans were defeated in 1942.
Sun Tzu might say they were defeated in 1939.
Willy & Joe would probably wait until they’re warm & dry sharing a round of beers with Bill Mauldin back in the States.
I say the defeat was determined in the moment the universe came into existence because all events are a result of determinism but for the sake of argument I would like to focus on just one single man, because Htlr was more instrumental to this conflict than anyone else.
I love these specials please make more of them
Excellent video, I noticed that The “karabiner 98” you showed at 8:50 appears to be a (possibility romainian contract) vz24, based on the straight bolt handle, the extended hand guard, front sight, and finger grooves. Or maybe a different mauser pattern. At any rate it’s very similar to a k98
Does anyone else enjoys those episodes more at winter or it's just me that I am weird!?!?!
I remember watching an ADFA officer giving a lecture on post 41 German army and he made the point that the Eastern European dirt roads did a number on the equipment. Which then was canabilized by the armoured corps in order to continue moving forward. So even when something wasn't "lost" it might not be there for combat.
Get this video recommended ofc cos like a military history and since first seconds pressed like button just because of background,how u dress , light and entourage ar all. Not surprised that infromation and narrative on high level. Wonderful content Mr.Indy Neidell. As fan of history and a grandson of 2 soviet WWII veterans bow before you with respect.
Enjoyed your video and I gave it a Thumbs Up
8:55 the PPSH 41 was actually quite unreliable compared to the MP40 , due to feeding issues caused by the drum magazine. That's why later in the war, they switched to stick mags. Also, in the frame shown earlier, that is not the standard K98k, but a different mauser-action rifle. (The K98k had a bent down bolt handle)
So was it the issue with the gun or the magazine?
I wonder how much of the alleged unreliability comes from the reports of Germans who were firing lower-powered 7.63x25mm Mauser ammo through them. Open-bolt, blowback-operated SMGs _hate_ underpowered ammo. I have a friend who has an MP40 and it runs great on surplus ammo loaded to NATO specs but has problems with much commercial 9mm.
In 1942 The Wermacht was already in trouble, When it comes to fuel
Army Group South (The ones involves in the Caucuses) kept running out of gas slowing their advances.
Plus going into Stalingrad which was not a "proper objective" of Case Blue is destroying their momentum.
Also America is now in the war and their 8th Air Force has just started their bombing missions in occupied France already causing
stress to the Reich from above, which leaves the RAF Bomber command more planes for their night bombings missions.
Plus you have at least 2 Army Corps from the US entering the fight in Africa. Which is going to cause more stress for Rommel's already strained
"Field Afrika Armee".
I'm a simple man, I see WW2 covered thoroughly and professionally, i like and sub.
Thanks for the support!
Your videos are excellent Indy
Thanks!
Hi I'm Aldolf Hitler and welcome to JackAss. Today we're going to invade the Soviet Union...
There was a saying I’ve heard a long time ago. After Stalingrad the Germans knew they couldn’t win militarily in the east. After Kursk they knew they would lose….
Actually, Himmler made the Big Jump after Stalingrad. This was kept from the world -- until the final daze of WWII.
Kursk was never intended to win the war - like all Japanese strategy after Midway, it was really just intended to put the Allies in a position where the effort required to win an outright victory wasn't worth the cost and they would agree to a negotiated peace. Even Hitler understood that a purely military victory was impossible after Stalingrad, but he hoped to at least outlast and exhaust his enemies like Frederick the Great had. As it turned out, all of the desperate bids by both countries for the last two years of the war only worsened their own position relative to their enemies and gave their enemies more resolve to fight to the finish.
Thank you for another informative and well presented video that was a great treat! And I just joined the Time Ghost Army 😁!
Welcome to the Army!
Fantastic and fascinating overview of the late 1942 Wehrmacht! Well done! Thank you, Indy!
A great subject. It seems that Stalin was correct in his mindless constant requirements for Attack Attack Attack by his forces. While the Soviets had much more casualties than the Germans, they had the will and numbers to replace them. The Germans did not
They haven't been defeated in the traditional sense, ie, unable to continue fighting, but there is no longer any way for them to "win" the war.
Great special !
A very informative WW2 special, thanks a lot Indy & crew for showing the difference between the famous German tanks Panzer, Panther & Tiger
Note the Army requested stronger, more RELIABLE tanks, not fat kitties.
Lmao. They are in for a ride
Germany simply did not consider well enough how vast the Soviet Union was. Unlike Western Europe with shorter distances and better transportation infrastructure the movement of supplies was a major problem on the eastern front.
Well, the issue was more that they didn’t expect the Soviets to bounce back. Like, 20 km from Moscow, the railroad heart of the country - that was a significant distance.
The significant thing isn’t really that the Soviets had a big country, it’s that they managed to move so much industry deeper into the country at such high speeds which is the main reason for them being able to stay in the war despite taking such high losses.
Excellent summation. Now I have to check out Major Burckhardt's experimental battalion.
Love this series.
We love you!