Historian Reacts: STALINGRAD - Call of Duty VANGUARD 

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It's ridiculous that the plot featured a Soviet female character saying "you won't let me fight because I'm a woman" no no just no. The Soviets would commit anyone to battle, they even strapped bombs onto dogs.

How does Vendetta, the first CoD WaW Soviet Union mission do better in portraying stalingrad than all of Polina's campaign, Vanguard is a real joke.

13:10 Man,you just gotta love how tank with some 20 tons just passed over thin wooden boards like it is nothing.

A thing that bugs me is way early on in the mission, the brother mentions he's making Molotovs, when he probably would have only referred to them as firebombs, since the name Molotov Cocktail is an insulting nickname made up by the Finns

One inaccuracy in this video that can be excused is the green cross on the soldiers arm. The Red Cross isn’t actually in the public domain, and the organisation has pursued many companies for its ‘misuse’ ranging from first aid kit manufacturers, toy makers and yes, even video games. For example, the symbol on the Halo Health Pack being changed from a Red Cross to a red H. The other way to get around it is by making the cross a different colour like white in the Far Cry series or green, which is the path Vanguard went for.

I've heard that Stalingrad burned so fiercely from the bombing that at night you could read a book 20 miles away. Most of the city's buildings were wooden and parched dry by the summer heat; turning them into tinder boxes easily lit by the incindiary bombs dropped by the Luftwaffe. This makes the opening sequence of Polina outrunning a German bombing raid all the more ridiculous.

Imagine if a veteran from Stalingrad acctually showed the historical inaccuracies

As for Stalingrad's architecture, there were actually somewhat "luxiurios" apartments in the city center, and especially the centre was not just factories and apartment blocks. (But i agree that based on pictures available of the city pre WW2 it doesnt look like whats shown in the game at all).The "soviet blocks" as we have them in mind became nearly omnipresent starting from the 50's under Khrushchev and even more during the Brezhnev era, as part of big housing plans for the workers (still today many still refers to the soviet era apartment blocks as Khrushchevkas and Brezhnevkas). During the Stalin era the majority of the people lived in communal apartments (kommunalkas) which often where former big apartments in pre existing buildings, divided and shared by multiple families.

No one seems to recognize that this entire backstory with her fathers “old rifle” they keep referring to is actually a piece of state of the art military equipment at the time. That is a 91/30 Mosin Nagant with a PEM scope mounted on it. These were handpicked prime examples of 91/30 Mosins procured to be modified with lighter triggers, scope mounts, etc. These conversions started for the Mosins in the 1930s and the PEM scope on that gun seen in the game was made around 1937-1941. You can also tell it is a brand new (at the time) conversion from the bent bolt handle to allow operation with the scope. Far from the “old rifle” this game continues to call it. It’s not like this woman took her fathers 1891 WW1 Mosin and went to war with it. It is damn near a 0% chance a civilian would have this top of the line firearm, especially sitting in their house for years. They even say this woman hunted with this gun, which is obviously impossible since this firearm did not exist until atleast the mid to late 1930s and early 40s. Give me a fucking break. I remember when Call of Duty used to be able to teach you atleast a little bit about history. Now it’s just a cess pool of social justice and horrible gameplay mechanics and brokenness.

Somethings you missed. The stukas they portray are late war versions created for tank hunting during the Kursk build up. They removed the bombs and replaced them with 20mm autocannons. As for her brother. If he wasn’t apart of the military, he would have been recruited into the Stalingrad Militia/ Workers Militia units. These men were given weapons and helped to strengthen the line where primary units were being broken.

One thing about architecture, Stalingrad was previously known as Tsaritsyn. And before the war it had a lot of pre-soviet Imperial buildings. So you actually can compare him to Leningrad. And block houses were commonly used after war, to rebuild the cities faster.

1. I believe the developers went with the “Green Cross” to avoid any copyright issues with the real life Red Cross. With the amount of historical inaccuracies, you might as well just consider this game fiction that’s based on World War II. 2. Although the first Call of Duties were packed with more action, the Soviet campaigns were heavily propagandized. Perhaps it’s due to internet information not being that readily available back in the early 2,000’s, or it could’ve been intentional. Who knows. Either way, it’s ironic how it went from painting the Soviets with propaganda to romanticizing their lifestyle. (For those who are unsure to what I mean by propaganda in the first game, I’m referring to NKVD. The author of this video did mention the film Enemy at the Gate had historical inaccuracies, so I’m sure he’s aware of it. The Soviet NKVD squads did not mow down their own soldiers for retreating. They mostly apprehended deserters and would execute in very rare, specific cases. Their brutality is exaggerated in anti-Russian propaganda)

This channel is quickly becoming one of my favorite channels, keep up the excellent work!

Soviet generals: Alright men, the Germans are coming, heavily armed. Call of duty russians: alright. *Throws a bunch of sand bags against the wall and starts doing push ups

Stalingrad wasn't looking like a big grim factory, it was a fairly nice looking city full of beautiful stalinist architecture. By the way, some workers were actually living in VERY good flats with lots of luxury. In USSR there was a "stakhanovskoye dvizhenie" system for workers. Basically, this system worked like this: if you're good worker and loyal komsomol member, if you're enthusiastic, take part in different activities, work above norms, do pro-government stuff and etc. you could get certain things from Soviets, like new flat, car, better furniture, discounts, additional money and a lot of other bonuses. It was a method of stimulation for all workers of USSR at that time, so main character could've been living in family of such worker (or she was this worker). Commie blocks as we know them today (ugly grey boxes) , became a thing only after WW2 in late ~50's when Khruschev came to power and decided to significantly downgrade architecture to lower the price of building, that's why some people call commie blocks - "khruschevki" and old buildings of Stalin era are called "stalinki" . Pictures of Stalingrad before WW2: www.rbth.com/history/334621-what-did-stalingrad-look-like

I like the calmness in the beginning tbh, like the calm before the storm, I think its a really good way of introducing tragedy and chaos. I would imagine this happening somewhere in the war, everyone just hearing Jericho´s trumpets getting closer.

Honestly just wait till you get to the stalingrad mission in 1943 where apparently the women you played as inspired the whole Soviet army to attack against the germans. Also there is this really annoying mission where you face off against another sniper in complete silence like it would of been more believable if you heard a battlefield going on and artillery exploding because it felt just weird you never feel like you are part a battle just an empty place. The whole stalingrad mission is just feel underwhelming and very tamed compared to the actual battle

Something I liked about cod 2 is that the Soviets referred the germans as "fascists" or "fascist invaders"

In a WW2 game I want them to give us the option to pick which side we want to play as so that we can play the game from both perspectives of the war.

12:45 Something I noticed here. It is actually not historically inaccurate for the panzer lV’s, seeing as these are not J models but instead F2 models, (later renamed to G) which while still retaining the longer 75mm cannon did see use at Stalingrad. (Note the Lack of Shurtzen or Shurtzen Mountings, no zimmerit, and the grey coating only standard to German forces from Early to Mid War, all clear indications that this is F2/G, or an early up-gunned version of the Panzer IV.)

5:02 I don’t know if anyone already talked about it but there is actually a good reason why in all video games and stuff the cross for medics are not red. The Red Cross organization forbids the use of the Red Cross Symbol in any media depicted. Basically they forbid the use of it in anything that isn’t the real Red Cross. Once a band got in trouble for using the Red Cross on an album cover. The threat of a lawsuits would be to high, if call of duty would use the Red Cross in their games, even if that would be a historically accurate depiction. (Or I believe it’s actually because the game makers knew the game isn’t historical accurate, and that would have made the lawsuit even more likely, because you can’t argue with wanting a historical accurate setting, if the rest of the setting isn’t historical accurate). So I think it is important that people understand, this little detail isn’t a developers fuck up, but its actually a law to not use the Red Cross symbol. Not to defend vanguard, but so people have this knowledge, if this shows up again in another game or peace of media.

The song playing while chasing the german officer is sung by Leonid Kharitonov, who was like 9 at the time of Stalingrad battle

9:33 I am glad that someone gave the original Call Of Duty the shoutout it deserves.

I remember playing cod 1 and when you charge the germans in the buildings with MGs and all of your comrades start falling to the ground, but just before that you butchered the retreating germans with hundreds of your men with no guns just wackin them, chasing them about. Then the grueling mission right after where you meet the female sniper. I never thought cod could get so bad that thier first game trumps most of em. Except world at war. I want my ps2 again and the original cod. Also those weird secret rooms they had, man they were so strange.

I’d love to see him review the WaW Stalingrad mission to see a comparison

Don't expect Vanguard to be historical correct at all, it was made to make modern "political" statements, and other nonsense, but you are going to have a bunch of stuff talk about :)

For the beginning: Before the 2nd World War Stalingrad was a pretty nice city, it looked very well and many buildings seam like those, wich were there in 1938 onwards. But in 1942, the city was bombed very often and we all know, that the 6th Army went down between the ruins of Stalingrad. But his, what is shown, is definitly not in 1941/42 There were a few Blocks in the industrial district. Stalin tried to push Stalingrad to a beatyful city, because it had his name. And the famous soviet architechture was more from 1950 onwards To the tank: Due to the lack of weapons to fight the T34 in 1941, the germans equipped the Panzer IV with a longer 75mm gun, the 75mm KwK 40, wich proofed well as the cannon of the Pak 40. They begun with equipping it in April 1942, but the few tanks that got it back then were only in the Panzer Divisions (in this case the 4th panzer Army with it's Divisions and some more that fought in the outskirts and flanks of the Infantry fighting in the center. The older Pz. 3 and Pz. 4 with the shorter barrel were something used in the downtown of Stalingrad for Infantry Support against Machine Guns and Strongpoints, because they were way more accurat and don't had to fear other tanks

Man the original cod and cod 2 felt so grand scale for the time, I remember loving the games cause they felt like huge battles, whereas before in games like Medal of Honor you would be a one man army all alone. And it seems that’s what cod has now become.

the panzer 4 there was the F2 model which was the first one to get the long 75, it was created in 1941. I'm still not 100% sure though, if i could see the muzzle break a bit better it would be easier to recognize if it's actually the f2 or G, the f2 muzzle break was ball shaped. While the bombers you saw in the cutscene are HE 111, you can recognize it's that one by the shape of the wings, the tail and the cockpit, he 177's cockpit was a bit more rounded than that. edit:ok, got to see the muzzle break, it's the G model

The whole issue with the medical armband’s cross being green is due to the fact that the Red Cross symbolises health, nursing, hospitals, etc. So games have recently been banned from using it, as the game itself doesn’t provide health, nursing, or hospitals. Kinda stupid, i know, but thats why the armband had a green cross.

1. I want to note that in 1941 Stalingrad was considered the most beautiful city in the USSR. The city center looked exactly as shown in the game, and our historian is clearly overestimating his knowledge of history. In addition, his idea of ​​the USSR is largely shaped by propaganda. In reality, in the center of any Russian city built under Stalin, you will find very beautiful architecture. At the same time, even third-class residential buildings built under Stalin were often very beautiful, and these houses were considered third-class buildings not because of poor quality, but because each worker had to be content with only one small room in such a building. 2. When the German army approached Stalingrad, the city was not prepared for defense, there were no barricades on the streets. 3. An ordinary family could not live in a very luxurious apartment, but several families could live in a luxurious apartment, and each family had only one room. 4. During Stalin's time, it was allowed to do business in the USSR, so there were many shops under Stalin. The most sophisticated product produced by private companies during Stalin's rule was cathode ray tube televisions.

I'm glad you picked up on the He-177 later on. I picked up on it when she fell from the balcony. The actual bombers would have been Ju-88s and He-111s.

Remember when the most historical inaccuracy COD did was this? (Red Army enters Berlin on April 23 1945) "On the Fuhrer's birthday, a barage of Katyusha rockets will tear Berlin to pieces!" Hitler's birthday was April 20. And the Battle of Berlin started on April 16. I find myself actually missing these historical inaccuracies. Because at least they were few and far in between. In Vanguard, you'll be lucky to find anything accurate to history.

I might be more of a hobbyist historian, but what Arthur Kingsly or whatever his name is would of been wrong. Of course Stalingrad was a target to the Germans, but this one city would of never caused the Soviet Union to crumble. Yes the city had importance in the fact it was an industrial center, but the main mission of the 1942 summer offensive was to reach the oil rich Caucuses such as Baku.

3:02 Based on what I’m looking at it looks like a T-34/85, which doesn’t make sense as the T34/85 didn’t enter service until 1944. I believe during the Battle of Stalingrad, the Soviets were using the T34/76. Correct me if I’m wrong.

On a writing side, I love how the studio screws up their messaging. Again. By having the Sovvies milling about in their cozy socialist utopia, while in reality two whole army groups would be retreating through the city and the Germans are literally just down the street, the writers vaporise the real tension of the situation and make the 'heroes' of the soviet army look like absolute fuckwits. The fact that nobody present thought to install an air raid siren, after three months of intense bombing... You really get the impression that these characters couldn't be bothered with living and wanted to be out of the protagonists way as quickly as possible. Thematically, having spidergirl building sandbags around AA positions before going to actually fight would have also tied in with other characters in the story. Ie, the US labour unit finally getting to go on rescue missions at Bougainville. If we are going to sacrifice historical accuracy for thought provoking themes, then it would be nice to at least have some.

Actually, the city itself is not *that* inaccurate, for example 1:15 is most likely the central train station, where a soviet platoon led by Anton Dragan allegedly held out for days (but most likely actually held out in the nail factory) EDIT: there is no dome in actual pictures I can find but it generally looked like that 1:50 that's the fallen fighter's square, I don't know what the buildings on it are but i'd assume they are tents for medical purposes 1:55 is the Univermag Department Store which would become Paulus's command post in the future In fact this part of the city was actually quite nice looking, the commie blocks were a lot more common in the industrial areas However I am not sure why the city looks so perfect at this stage of the battle, i'd assume it's the 14th of september which i'll explain later. The sity is basically just concrete and rubble by late august because of all the bombing. On the other hand assuming this was before the bombing there would only be militia, instead of tons of military personnel and tanks swarming the city. Obviously later on we already see german troops, which is even more confusing for the timeline Pretty sure that on 14th september the germans actually take this part of the city just a day after they reach the outskirts but the 13th Guards crossed the Volga and stabilised the situation, However it is nowhere like what's depicted here (almost every building would just be hollow concrete structures by september)

19:11 those are heinkel he 111 and the heinkel he 177 was at the beginning of the mission when she started to climb on the wall and was looking at the sky and a easy way to see the difference is the heinkel he 111 has more of a pointed nose and the heinkel he 177 has more of a round or curved nose.

5:10 the red cross cant be used in games due to something in the geneva convention. not sure why, not sure when, but apparently its taboo to have that in any video game

18:15 Maybe that's Dmitry Petrenko from WaW.

In Band of Brothers, the battle of Caretan took 6 and a 1/2 minutes and was won alone by like 20 guys from easy company. In reality it took two days and several regiments with help from their massive superiority in artillery and armour to defeat the 2 battalions defending it in vicious non stop, back and forth fighting. All games/movies/TV shows make battles last 1/1000th the time they actually took, finishing it in time for the next commercial break. Games are the worst though. They're stupid

Man I got vanguard for Christmas and my grandmother was in Stalingrad as a medic and I was playing in living room and I was getting pissed at all the inaccuracies and all this stuff about this game right and she walked in sat down and just watch me play and when I made it to the part where it was talking about her inspiring the Soviets in taking back the city after that was done she is for went crazy about the game

Awesome channel. Good job.

Another inaccuracy is that Polina Petrova (the character that you play in the mission) is based on Lyudmila Paclichenko (Lady Death). The problem is that Lyudmila never fought on Stalingrad but she fought in Odessa and Sevastopol. It is a small detail but of course Poliva is based on Lyudmila, so it doesnt mean that they must have 100% resemblance but a again a small detail which might be an inaccuracy

What he's saying makes me even more angrier that they missed out on alot of potential opportunities for this mission. I can see building defenses somewhere near the outside of the city. Laying down sandbags and digging trenches and placing barbwire, then having to fall back to a AA position somewhere in the city and shooting down luftwaffe planes. So much potential wasted. Especially Pavlov house opportunity and grain elevator

A post wake up sniper stealth mission through stalingrad. It's like someone doing world at war from memory, but forgot the grittiness of the cold open in a fountain of bodies the russian front had from that game. Actually, any grit period.

The difference from WAW to Vanguard is astounding. They don’t even try to tell a story, they rewrite history.

This entire playlist is just him ranting on vanguard and I’m here for it

Some more innacuracies, Ju87 does not fly low to bomb, quite contrary they are high up and than dive down when bombing run commences, than they acutivate the brake and pull up. Also, nurses didn't wear army unifrms most of the time and especially in 1942, helmets most certainly were not worn at any point by nurses Bombers appear to be Ju 288 which were certainly never used on a mass scale and especially not in 1942, He111 is more plausible. 12:27, that's gotta be Panzer 4F , that thing wasn't really around in stalingard.

Technically long 75mm barreled Panzer IVs did exist from May 1942 (PzIVF2) but thats a G model with no skirts, so 1944 The majority of tanks seen in stalingrad were a mixture of short barelled STUGs (early variants) PzlllLs and PzIVF1s with the short 75mm infantry suppourt gun

At the 19.30 mark/ish the plane you are talking about look like HE 111 which where about at this time period, as they had played a major roll in the Battle of Britain in 1940/41. But love the videos, keep them up

5:46 notice the guy trying to shoot at the planes with his mosin lol

The green cross is green so they don’t gets sued for using it the wrong way. I think if you use the red cross in a wrong way you can get punished.

Interesting fact: it is said that some workers in the tank factory in Stalingrad, after completing a tank would climb straight into it and go out into the battle.

13:58 actually pavlov's house (if i am not mistaken) had been potrayed in the original COD or COD II (i forget which one), i still remember i had to fire a recoiless rifle to disable german tanks that is attacking the house (sorry if i bad at English)

At 3:02, the Russian soldier in front of the tank has a Mosin Nagant. The sniper model, the PU Mosin, had a bent bolt to make it able to reload with a scope directly on top of where you’d load the rifle. It doesn’t make sense here why it’s without a scope AND why it’s even the PU model anyway, like..😐

Theres also quite a few more inaccuracies, the belts that they are wearing are post war ones, and they are wearing shoulder boards on M35 which would almost never happen, and they are wearing the high rank version of the M35, and they have a red star on they’re helmets which is also very inaccurate. I hate vanguard for this

The latinized names of the shops at 12:54 are Damskij shlyapi (ladies hats) and Stolovaya (canteen) for anyone wondering

Also in that initial bombing run by the Stukas they also included Heinkel He 177 Greif's which saw limited service at Stalingrad dropping supplied to the surrounded 6th Army, but I don't think it was developed enough to take part on the first day of the bombing campaign.

Russian girl discovers French Parkour ahead by 50 years 😂

Boy I tell ya, this game looks better and better everyday (sarcasm). Case Blue was initially supposed to be AGS steamrolling all the way to Astrakhan and then parts would break off and go to get oil in the Caucasus Mountains. This never happened and so we had AG B going towards Stalingrad and AG A into the Caucasus region. Also, there were at least 3 Soviet armies; the 62nd, 63rd and 64th, though they were beat up badly at that time. The 6th army, from new research, was apparently over strength, so about 380K soldiers or so, plus you have the Germany 4th army (Hoth's Panzer Army) and Hungarian 2nd Army with Italian 8th Army with AG B. The battle is so damn interesting, and brutal, without all the stupid parkour and other historical inaccuracies this game has. The Red Army obviously knew the Germans were coming and besides the actual city fight; the 6th army fought like hell just to get to the city, so this game is 100% BS. AG B could not bypass such a city like Stalingrad on the way to Astrakhan. It was logical! The COD games used to have a lot more history that was decent, but not now. Modern day poorly implemented tomes on politics, incorrect history, game play gets worse.......on and on. This is one problem I had with the excellent movie Downfall. Where the fuck is Chuikov? They don't show him, but some other Russian general. Same for Enemy At The Gates........Though both are far better than this trash of game. Thanks for these videos HL. Been enjoying them.

19:01 These are He-111. You recognise them on the round cockpit and the "notch" of the wings. Also the Body of the He-177 is much longer and the Wing in the middle, not right behind the cockpit. But at 5:40, the first bombardment, are He-177.

Stalingrad was a very beautiful city before WW2 happened :) Just search online for images and photos of it. Very surprising really but it was named after Stalin so I would expect it to be very clean and organized.

hey, you should react to hell let loose, its a historically accurate ww2 shooter

Ah yes, i Remember hearing about the single woman with a sniper rifle who destroyed army group south inside Stalingrad. Zhukov must have been shocked!

I read somewhere that they put the green cross instead of the red cross to avoid being sued by the International Red Cross, lol

No clue if someone said this before me, but ill say it anyway. The bombers that attacked alongside the innacurate Ju-87 stuka models were He-177's. From what i remember, the He-177 had a non sloped in wing part near the end that connected the wing to the fuelsalage. The ones you pointed out at the end were actually He-111's, witch, correct me if im wrong, took part in the arieal bombardment of Stalingrad. If you look closely enough, you could see the sloped in wing parts that connect the whole wing structure to the fuelsalage. Ofcourse, i could be wrong about this, but this is what i think.

The reason the women’s cross is green is that the red cross symbol is a trademark of The Red Cross. To avoid getting sued the symbol is a different color, usually green.

The reason why games sometimes use green crosses is because the Red Cross organization sometimes sues them for misuse of the symbol I could be wrong but I don't see another reason

at 19:30 when you were talking about the planes those are actually He 111 at least the 2 we could see close up, but earlier in the mission when they bombed the tents you could see He 177 planes bombing.

YES!!! First ever TIK history name drop I've heard. Love you bro subbing right now cause you clearly know your shit 👍

5:52 I guess the guys who were in charge of the airraidsirens are also just chillin because can't be asked to turn them on or they just didn't saw the lowflying aircraft. The aircraft at 19:07 are "right type" because they are Heinkel He 111 the main bomber of the german airforce but they still fly way to low

The fact they called the game "vanguard" andhavr it play it out at the end of the war, kinda misses the point of "vanguard". The title would've made sense if you played as a US Naval Combat Demolition Units NCDU’s, as these guys along with their british and Canadian counterparts were the actual first ones coming ashore in normandy. Just to name one such a unit that would actually be considered a "vanguard" unit.

Those are He-111 you can tell by the wings when they meet the fuselage which where fist used in 1935.

This makes me love world at war so much more than I already did

Pretty sure the reason they made the medical cross green instead of red is because of legal reasons. Due to the Geneva convention on the Red Cross organization can use that symbol, and anyone outside of it that uses it technically committed a war crime. I know one band had to change one of their album covers, because it featured a nurse with a Red Cross on her hat.

19:25 I believe the planes in said point are actually Heinkel He 111's which did exist at the time but as also a person who doesn't know much about planes I wouldn't count on this.

12:48 it also can be F2 variant which was the first one to get longer 75mm cannon, and those were in service since middle (April) 1942. As far as I know they were made to fight off KV1s easier as they were big problem since beginning of the campaign And in 19:18 it's not Greif, but He111. Greif had longer wings placed closer to middle section of a plane, also wing had different more straight shape

They did the green cross to likely avoid breaching the Geneva convention, and yes, games have had to be notified about breaching the Geneva convention before

13:09 is nobody gonna mention the tanks driving up the thin planks as a ramp?

You sir have earned a subscriber!

The 177 planes you’re describing at 19:00 are actually He 111 Medium Bombers, they have a dead giveaway on their wing shape too

On the bright side Vanguard gave me a lot of extra opportunities to learn history from content creators and other learned people in the community

You should react to Call of Duty WWII missions. They are really enterteining and I think that historically accurated to, so you can make good videos. Great video, keep doing this, it is really funny and interesting

19:32 there is a church tower, religion in soviet union was forbidden, churches where adbandoned if not demolished

Funny thing about the bomer aircraft: the aircraft you thought of as he 177 were actually he 111 (you can tell by the wing shape) but the bombers at the start of this mossion looked like he 177s to me.

18:50 judging by the wing shape, those are actually HE-111, which were operational from the start of the war, though i think we see the HE-177 in the actual gameplay before the cutscene

19:03 I think we have here not the He 177, but He 111 :)

5:45 Anyone else notice the bomb models are falling perfectly horizontal, instead of vertically "nose" down. At first it looks pretty but really pay attention and you see how freakin lazy this is.

I love how there are Heinkel He 177's Just casually bombarding the city

The first model of panzer 4 to have the kwk 40 (long barrel 75mm or 7.5cm) was put in service not long after operation Barbarossa. The difficulty penetrating the t34 and kv1 led the Germans to develop the kwk40 for the panzer 4 So it is possible the long barrel panzer 4 could be in Stalingrad although not in large numbers

Good video as ussual, would be cool to see what you think of Red Orchestra 2 Heroes of Stalingrad. It has a SP Campaign for the Germans and Soviets, a MP Campaign, servers with single maps, etc but only the MP Campaign is alive and well today. For a game with 10 years it holds up well in the top in its genre, and i dare to day the best ww2 fps out there. The gritty and dark enviroment and amazing soundttrack add to the eastern front and especially Stalingrad´s enviroment. You have plenty of weapons, with several historic modifications available trough ranking up with only a couple out of time weapons, the maps are absolute chaos ranging from brutal close quarter combat to ranged combat with tanks involved to full only tank on tank servers. Its never recognized online but its a masterpiece of its own right. If you ever decide to react to it the MP is the main part of the game as the AI in SP campaign are not the brigthest

If you're wondering why the green instead of red cross, the actual Red Cross organization forbade the use of the red cross outside of their original use, and that would mean using red cross is a big no no in videogames. Hence why you'd see medics or medpacks, or any health item in a game in the recent decade used anything but red-colored cross lol

The German tank is a Panzer 4/f2 variant( later renamed panzer 4/g), which was introduced in 1942. It was used to directly counter t34 tanks before the Tiger and the Panther were introduced. So it would be around at this time, however it wouldn't be leading a charge up a contested street. They were still rare, so were only used when they knew enemy tanks were in a location, and it would have other tanks and a large infantry force protecting it.

No the medium bombers in the air at 19:06 are he 111 because of the slight dent when the wing reaches the fuselage. The 111 had pointed elevators and the 177 had square elevators.

What people don’t understand is that it makes zero sense for them to time researching and building accurate game models as long as children keep spending their dollars on this flaming heap of trash. Break the cycle and stop buying this trash for your kids and they’ll disband the new rushed title every 9 months cycle and make something better or just give up and focus on war zone or other spin offs with lessons learned.

The bombers you call out at the end are actually He-111s, so that's accurate (but flying way too low). The bombers at the beginning though are inaccurate, those were He-177s and Ju-188s which were not in service at the time of Stalingrad. Also the Panzer IVs are somewhat accurate, Panzer IV F-2s and some Panzer IV Gs with the long 75mm gun were used. The H and J variants were not used however. The Stukas are also the wrong type, they didn't have the 37 cannons by then and they were specifically used for Anti-Tank roles, not strafing. The Stukas would have been armed with bombs and would have been *diving* on their targets. They were dive-bombers after all.

The character I was most interested in was the character you played as in the start, but he was killed off

the panzers you see at 12:48 could be the F2 variant which unlike the F1 had the long barrel and seeming stalingrad took place in the summer of 42 it checks out as the p.IV F2 entered service that summer