The Soviet Tormosin Offensive | BATTLESTORM STALINGRAD E42 

Next Monday is Boxing Day, so to allow me to actually have a day off for Christmas, I'm going to do a behind-the-scenes video showing you all how I do my Battlestorm animations etc. This is actually answering two Patreon questions from like 4 years ago which I've delayed answering... But if you've got any questions regarding the scripting, editing or animation process, ask me below and I'll see if I can fit in some answers for you in that video. Cheers!

I know it's been said a thousand times before but this is quite literally the best documentary series on the battle of Stalingrad ever made. That is no small feat, exceptional work TIK. Thanks for all the work you put into this.

30k being frontline troops out of 300k troops is astounding, didnt realise it was so unbalanced.

I have to say, being a kid, born in Ukraine, former part of USSR and thus grown and educated under heavy influence of soviet historical narrative, this series and channel overall had really pushed me into revising my knowledge of WWII (and history of the first half of XX century as well), which I gain by reading soviet era books, 'cause in 90s and early 2000's we didn't have any other sources. Thanks for your efforts, man.

One of the things I love about TIK’s vids, there isn’t 2 minutes of ads or 5 mins of schlepping 1 square foot of land in Scotland. Come to think of it tho, it is very sad that YT doesn’t believe his work is worthy of sponsorship. Merry Christmas TIK, and a very blessed New Year!

Never forget: Many of the soldiers at Stalingrad were tankers on foot defending air fields while cold, hungry, and afraid but nothing really happened for months at a time. That's the type of battle you should really be afraid of.

I wish some of the historians that Tik uses as his sources would give him a lot more shout out and attention which he deserves. It would be amazing to see something like this series actually getting mass promotion for its dedication to history, fact chasing and story telling

Insane levels of detail over months and months of videos - and I can only imagine how much work! I don't know how you do it, but surely your channel is the most comprehensive account of all things Stalingrad?!

You sir are a great historian. You have given us the most detailed information possible for this event. Thank you.

Honestly the best thing in the series so far is the small puns and dad jokes sprinkled all throughout. I'm living for them

I dont understanding why I never see your new video in my recommendation. Thank you for the great series

Yesterday we win the world cup. Today a new stalingrad video, exelent.

Nice timing for the episode. Almost 80 years ago to the day. It's been well below freezing in Scotland which underlines narrative very nicely.

Another round of applause for the great content TIK! You've more than earned some days off for the holidays. Best wishes for you and your family. Extra ration of bread and delicious horse flesh soup for everyone!

Thanks TIK .You continue to open my eyes to WW2 and history in general.

Over the years I have read a lot of books on Stalingrad including Glantz's may books. However none are able to communicate what happened as effectively as this series. Part of the problem of reading a book is that it will narrate a series of complex events. The advantage of this type of series is that you can see better how each event is time specific and ties into other events. It is a great way of explaining history. Your various videos (with the exceptions of the slightly eccentric political ones) are of the highest quality I have seen on You tube and are a real break though in explaining the complexity of history

Doing the math: 300,000 Germans inside the pocket. 0.2kg of flour per day (to be baked into bread inside the pocket) each. That equals 60,000 kg / day of flour. 2.2 kg / lb = 132,000 pounds. Or 66 short tons of flour per day....for only ~200 grams of bread per person per day. Or in a 10 short ton (20,000 lbs) unit of flour, that would be enough for the 200 gram daily ration for about 45,500 men, give or take (about 15% of the pocket). Never mind meat, butter, beans and vegetables. As for fuel - a 55 gallon steel drum weighs (depending on what the Google says) about 50 lbs. Gasoline is about 6 lbs / US gallon. So, a 55 gallon drum full of gasoline weighs about 380 lbs. Each 10 tons of lift (20,000 lbs) would therefore yield about 52 1/2 drums of fuel. Or about 2888 US gallons (~10,930 liters). A Panzer 3 takes 300-320 liters to fill per Wiki (yeah, yeah, yeah.....). So for each 10 tons of lift devoted to fuel, that would yield about 36 or 37 full tanks of fuel for a Panzer 3, give or take. Near as I can make out from the Google, 2 complete 105mm howitzer rounds (not WW2 German, but modern, shell and brass case with powder, but it provides a rough order of magnitude estimate) weigh about 50kg, packed in a wooden crate. Using our 10 ton unit of supply, that would be about 181 boxes (or 362 rounds). Near as I can make out, 7.62 NATO is about 7 lbs / 100 round belt. Close enough to SWAG for the 8MM Mauser which will be a bit heavier, so somewhat less rounds per unit of weight. Assuming 10% packaging weight (fiber boxes, metal cans, wooden crates) yields about 1,300 rounds per 100 lbs, or about 26,000 rounds per 2,000 lb ton. At our 10 ton unit of cargo, that would be about 260,000 rounds of rifle / machine gun ammo. Or about 8 2/3 rounds for each of the 30,000 infantry for each 10 tons brought in. So, what would a 300 ton load of supplies look like, if 1/3 to flour, 1/3 to gasoline and 1/3 to ammo (half 105 arty rounds and half rifle / machine gun ammo)? 100 tons of flour would be enough to provide about 2/3 lb / person. Sounds ok, but a pound of flour has about 1650 calories (give or take). So that's a bit under 1,100 calories, or starvation levels. 100 tons of fuel in 55 gallon drums would be about 525 drums, or 28,875 US gallons (~109,300 liters). That would be enough to fill up 360 or so Panzers. Not bad, but there are also trucks and ambulances and generators and whatever else is using up the gasoline. 100 tons of ammo would be 1810 105mm artillery rounds and 1.3 million rifle / machine gun rounds (~43 rounds for each of the 30,000 infantry). That's not a lot of ammo. As for the arty, lets put it this way: With 30,000 infantry, if they were in 500 man battalions, then there would be 60 such battalions. If the arty support was spread out equally to these 60 units, that's about 30 rounds each, per day. Given how much front each such unit would need to cover, that's a pretty thin spread of arty support over each 24 hour period. And we're ignoring the multitude of other ammo types needed, like for the above mentioned Panzers that got the fuel....and MG belts for them as well, and mortars, and 20, 37 and 88mm guns. And Paks. And 75 and 150mm arty. Yeah, the German logistic situation was doomed.

This series is just awesome. I can only imagine what all those young men were thinking in this situation. Even through the maps and the writing you can feel and see the desperation they had, what little they could hold on. It was no longer about fighting for a cause, it was about survival at that point. With resources so scarce, one could only think death was a relief from the freezing hell.

Why do I always start watching these videos at night when I am half asleep? Oh right, to have a good reason to watch it again!

You are REALLY GOOD at keeping us wanting and coming back for more TIK 😂. The episode flies by so fast talking about the relief operation and just when you think it’s about to happen, “We’ll find out, next time…” 😜

Thank you for this great series! Too bad this series's stopped. Chuikov is stuck in Stalingrad forever, no more almost dead counter going up..."bye for now"

Please take a rest. Even if it takes years. We love this, and will wait as long as it takes.

It's been a while since ive watched a Stalingrad video and I have 2 thoughts. 1. The Germans are sure in a much worse position - shocker 2. I really like how Tik highlights the unit he is refuring to. Much easier than looking around at the various units trying to find it.

Excellent detail and statistics. You're the best TIK!

I love this. I work 6 days a week, but I always find the time to watch these. On Christmas, I am planning to rewatch the whole series to remind myself how far it come. Your work is amazing.

I’m almost caught up now and I’ll echo everyone else’s sentiments and say TIK thank you so much for all the work that you’ve put into this series. I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed it and I’ll be following your links to help support your work. I enjoy the presentation style very much it contrasts well with some of the more local and personal accounts I’ve read/heard over the years. The quality of the series is beyond top tier. You have really out done yourself TIK thank you once again.

You always hype me up for the next episode with your suspenseful questions at the end of each episode even though there is absolutely 0 suspense at all, great work :p The latest episodes focus a lot on the logistical nightmare faced by the german forces for obvious reasons by when I see the soviet army kicking off Little Saturn shortly after the enormous Operation Uranus, the soviet logistics must have been absolutely insane. Hats off to the comrades in charge of it, they probably had very short nights.

Looking at Manstein’s forces on the map is all you really need to show just how hopeless the situation really was for the German Army. Then take into account the Luftwaffe was barely even available to support the effort. All the while the Allies are making big gains in North Africa

Keep up the good work!

TIK - another great episode in a brilliant series - thanks again :)

There is a consistent theme about TIKs coverage of the airlift: "all these transports in general yet why such a low % seem to fly into the pocket daily? " The Soviets have timed their original offensive to perfection.19th Nov 1942 is perfect since any relief of Stalingrad via the ground is at best going to take a month. A months time is around Dec 21st 1942 - the day with the shortest period of daylight. The Luftwaffe is a DAYLIGHT airforce in 1942. This is combined with the immense depth of the encirclement forcing the Luftwaffe to flee from there best closer airfields to ad-hoc Soviet installations that are just too far away to mount effective coordinated fighter CAP from. The days in December have such fleeting daylight - so trying to coordinate transport flights with available fighter support (often from a completely different airfield or multiple fighter airfields) is difficult at best. These Soviet airfields are primitive and only recently flooded with newly arrived transports and their crews. Not all of the new ground crew know the Eastern front winter start procedures and therefore the pilots cannot always start the cold engines. Delays tend to cascade forward causing an avalanche of logistical SNAFU. The transports are not fully loaded because of the basic impossibility of sustaining an entire axis army group on two separate single rail lines - the chances of having enough of the prioritised cargo ready for the exact time window is not high. If the Axis fighters don't make the meeting point with the transports then these obsolete Ju-52's rumble ahead at 100-150 mph depending on tail or headwind. That is a sitting duck to the VVS who get warned by the soviet ground observers who by now have set up a ground cable telephone network (Soviets have no RADAR) Even in low visibility they can still hear the transport engines because the flightpaths are predictable. That same integrated air defence also makes Soviet FLAK much more dangerous. Moral for the transport crews is low. So if the engines can't be started, surely we can just go back to that nice safe, warm & dry prefabricated hut for rest and a hot drink. Its also terrible for the ground crews and mechanics who have only those same huts to get organized into rotating work parties because cold hands lose all strength and dexterity beyond a certain point. And yes TIK it is colder during the much longer night, yet you still only quote the milder daytime temperatures and never refer to windchill at all. Yes I know the soviets face the same winter conditions - but they have the "Battle of Britain effect" of being on defence flying from airbases much closer to the combat area. There is no Heathrow Airport with immense heated hangers and giant Runways of perfect smooth materials, with friendly airport landing and take off electronic aids. This is the Eastern Front and 62nd army has cancelled the summer picnic, its winter baby.

Thanks mate. Have been really anticipating this episode! 🙂 Have a great Christmas and New Year!!

Dear TIK history viewers. I am having a grand time with my own Stalingrad reenactment in my backyard. When I woke up this morning it was 7 C out and winds had died down. The night before the winds were gusting from 60 to 70 kph. I am sitting in a hole I dug in the back yard, wearing my summer clothes with only a blanket for additional warmth. Once in a while I pour some gasoline on the ground and light it. I am limiting myself to one frozen dinner a day to recreate the feeling of starvation. I am having great difficulty recreating the terror, it is quiet difficult when there are children playing in the yard next door. Happy Holidays from Frozen North America

Im reading Glantz, mainly because of this series but also Kotkin recommended too. In the middle of Stalingrad by Glantz and House, I don't want to go past chapter 14 right now...👍

This is one of the best series in RU-vid, period. Please take as long break as you need, and continue with the same excellent quality when you feel like it. We can wait for years, because we know this is so well done.

What a Christmas gift!

thank you for this awesome battlestorm series!

Can you give us a breakdown of the non-combat troops in the 6th Army? I've always wondered how it could be that such small detachments were fighting in the city itself, and yet such a huge number were encircled. This explains it, I guess, but I would like to know more about what their various roles and functions were.

Thanks a lot. Very well told.

Even being the Caucasus' oil as important as it was at the time, I do think that taking as many troops as possible form army group A to help Manstein's relief attempt would have been more beneficial to the Germans. With enough divisions pulled from army group A, even if they lost the Caucasus momentarily, they would have had a better shot at relieving the pocket and stabilizing the front. With the hope of achieving such a big victory in Stalingrad being crushed, this would have demoralized Soviet moral even further. If we assume the Germans would have succeeded in their relief attempt in the first place. Remember that if Hitler lost Stalingrad he wouldn't have been able to secure the Caucasus anyway, so why not prioritize Stalingrad? Without Stalingrad the Germans couldn't have had control of the main railway, reaching Astrakhan was necessary and, for that matter, Stalingrad as well.

I had been looking forward to a break to the Stalingrad campaign... but you had to leave it on a cliffhanger :D

Tonnage shipped doesn't necessarily show the whole picture. Just because the planes on one day average 1.6 tons it doesn't mean the planes weren't filled to capacity. Mass is not consistent. So for example and only as an example, you can have a plane filled with styrofoam and the freight might only weigh 1 ton or less. Then another plane might be half filled by volume, but weigh over 2 tons because it's full of bullets. So tonnage as such doesn't show the whole picture and can be a bit misleading. A plane full of food (volume wise) would probably weigh less than a plane filled to its weight limit capacity with ammunition.

Hey TiK! Wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas to you and yours brother!! Thanks for the holiday stalingrad episode, this series never fails to captivate my attention! See ya in the new year!

This is excellent work!

31:00 -- RE: The Battered Butkov Brigades; gee, but the alliteration alone is suggestive, TIK. ; )

Amazing quality, this was amazing! It's interesting to watch this with the Ukraine conflict still going on. The fighting here isn't very far away from where the Ukraine/Russian fighting is occurring again today. This time, Ukraine is one of the good guys!

Good episode. Cliffhanger questions at the end 😅

Paulus.. for being called an exemplary staff officer and "expert" on logistics... was so overwhelmed and over his head, it is amazing they lasted as long as they did. 300k ration strength / 30k combat strength. Sums up his incompetence. Remember... this guy had never even commanded a single division, yet alone an army before given the command of the 6th army.

Thank you for another great video TIK, happy holidays!

top notch content as usual thx for the vids!

Tik, appreciate all your work... Happy new year!

Please, please, please publish this series as a series of books! A generation of History students and scholars will thank you!

Thanks TIK, more great work!🙏🙏

appreciate your work m8

New graphics are great smoother more attractive your delivery is smoother too Excellent work!!! 👍😃🐕

What many of the 6th army soldiers that perish in Stalingrad did was as tik said 'living off the land'. Like I said, my non-German relative was there with SS-Wiking. He said that Germans ate so much that he could even see Ukrainian civilians around him slowly starving to death.

Thanks, once again, for the subtitles! I wish some RU-vid-channels would take example of this! Fine work for the rest too! Regards, Thomsa

Hello TIK, nice video as always. But at 14:00 your picture left shows a La-5FN and not a regular La-5.The FN-variant was deployed later. The Yak-7B is correct though

Spectacular docu-series….as always. Top notch quality vid delivered in a very neutral way…meaning you don’t put your own “spin” on it…just the facts as much as is possible and you even point out the glaring disparity in the statistics from various primary sources. Bravo Zulu !

11 hours old video yet theres over 300 comments. Truly a tour deforce channel and viewership.

Amazing work!!!!!!!!

WHAT A GREAT POINT ABOUT IMPORTANCE OF STALINGRAD TO HITLER AND WHAT A GREAT EPISODE! THANK YOU MATE!

Merry Christmas Tik - never change!

Thank you, TIKhistory.

Another fantastic episode. Just as usual. I do think Manstein's operation was just a last ditch attempt to show they tried to save 6th army as it could break overall moral. In practice, 6th army was already destroyed. With only 30k completely starved and frosted combat soldiers it was not a fighting force any more. Even if they managed to break out they would need to remake it from scratch as those poor men would need months to recover physically and mentally. Not even counting the deaths from the sally out attempt.

GREAT VIDEOS AS ALWAYS..KEEP CRACKING ON! I do want to point out that Manstein book writes in this particular case as a Army Group Commander, he was not responsible for the entire Eastern Front or the War itself on all fronts. Given that Hitler never agreed to him being the Chief of all forces in the East, I'm sure this Stalingrad debacle would have never happened if he was in charge of the entire offensive in the first place. Playing the game of chess requires in depth thinking and what your opponents next move might be so blaming Hitler was correct, he was also a National Leader and the Commander of Army group A..????? DUMB! Saving 6th Army was the focus this point not some ruined city itself I believe they just did not have the forces for the relief effort and hold all other front lines at the same time...something had to give.

I would love an other video on logistics: "there might be organization issues", but are the provisions are in the entrepots of the luftwaffe in the first place? We are far from the rear bases, is all the materials and ressources promised are delivered ready for airlifting at time?

Okay can we talk about how time consuming it must be to research, edit and put together all these videos? This is professional level editing. Meanwhile I can barely put 2 images together in MsPaint. Great job TIKhistory.

"that was the first time during the war that the Soviet airplanes got radios" - that's only a part of the story. Soviet pilots sometimes didn't turn radios on because of the heavy statics. And this was a reasult of just simply lack of shielded wires.

I'm reading about the battle of the Korsun Pocket in '44. The Soviets blanketed the pocket with flyers stating "Surrender, don't be a victim in another Stalingrad". And they were trying hard to create another Stalingrad. Manstein had seen it coming as the German salient had weakly held, porous flanks. Yet AH, again, would not allow a pullback and ordered a counterattack when the Soviets did attack with much larger forces.

>not enough winter uniforms had been delivered Hmmmmm… where have I heard that recently….

TIK, hi! Wasn't 2nd guard army originally assigned to Operation Jupiter (the follow up of Operation Mars). Since Mars was unsuccessful, Jupiter never launched, which freed up some important units that were then transferred to Stalingrad front and proved decisive in ensuring Little Saturn success. I think I read that in Glantz Operation Mars book but for some reason I can't find it. :)

He’s back!

Great episode. Thx TIKhistory.

At this point I have to object. "Retreating to Berlin" is propaganda from Himmler and Goebbels who hated Manstein. If Hitler was such a military genius he should have said to Manstein, "I cannot give you sufficient forces to relieve the 6th Army while maintaining all other efforts, so cancel the operation." Even without regard to their being unaware of the two Soviet armies, no major general or field marshal considered the war winnable at this point. (Outside of Hitler's fanboys.) Manstein understood that his army was taking on far too many objectives in relation to his forces and that of his enemy. I agree that quite a bit of Manstein's memoir run from falsehoods to fantasies, but some of it is also accurate. Manstein understands that, barring significant reinforcements, the forces he has cannot maintain all these objectives and that some must be sacrificed to achieve the others. (Sixth Army is the obvious sacrifice.) Hitler well knows they do not have these reinforcements. This dance will be repeated at Kursk where again the attack should have been called off but is not. Manstein's biggest contradiction in his memoirs is stating he lost some victories, but also wanted Hitler to peace out in the face of the inevitable Soviet victory. If the latter is true, then the former were not possible. Hitler lost when the USSR did not collapse in the fall/winter of 1941.

consider the chances of a breakout by looking through the eyes of a politician: they had to try even when failure was certain to ensure that nobody later can blame them for not trying. in this context a "no" from Hitler to take the Caucasus armies makes sense too: let them conquer the oil fields instead of "wasting them" in a lost cause ... so using just a token force is pure logic

Bruh…TIK…the amount of intellect required to research the texts while you direct your own video, design your own maps and dictate to an audience is insane. It’s impressive. You are the first to research the research and present it in such an organized and modernized way. This ain’t Wikipedia. Lol. Huge creds to your brain. Best of all, your English accent is pretty awesome. Love dialects. So much classier than American thug slang that operates on about a second grade level.

I'm relearning the battle of stalingtado. Impressive !

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the airlift delivery rates are off, at least partially, due to the airfields having to pilfer supplies.

love your work

First class Tik 👍 fantastic work

Hey TIK, love your videos! I pray that, someday, you can make a video about Brazil's role in WW2. Keep up with the good work

What could they do? a) Abandon Caucuses to save 6th army, but fail to get oil anytime soon - lose the war. b) Weaken Rostov defense for sake of giving better chance to Manstein, risking everything. c) Sacrifice 6th army in hope they can still continue to the south, somehow. Pretty easy choice, considering 6th army was hardly combat worthy and replenishment would take long time, even if they managed to save them. All choices were equally bad, just C was giving some hope.

HOW DARE YOU! ... Shut up Greta / 🤣 Thanks TIK for your work, and great sense of humor! (I can't stop laughing on that one... a sketch of Manstein with a grumpy face and Greta's plait 😂)

December just wasn't a good month for the axis was it ? 1939: Graf Spee sunk 1940: Operation Compass 1941: Winter counteroffensive and war with USA 1942: This 1943: Dnieper offensives 1944: everything

I am so glad that i got to take most of Glantz's history classes when I was a cadet

The WERMARCHT at Stalingrad,was doomed. They were at the end of a stretched supply line, the severe winter made it much worse.

I happened to be the 2,000th like. That's satisfying.

Hi TIK glad to see you back.

28:38 I quite enjoyed the Luftwaffles

You inspire me to work hard! Good luck TIK

Thank you

Great work, again and again and again!

If you have it in you it would be awesome to get your take on the “the road to Berlin.” The reported Soviet general competition would be interesting to see.

Excellent

Very interesting!

Quick question: What is the end of this battle storm series ? Somewhere like the surrender of the entire German pocket ?

Hi TIK, another great video, really well done! I think stats you showed demonstrate OKH made a big mistake by not rotating worn out units with fresher ones. A single infantry division with 15k men would have been probably more effective than 2 worn out units of 10k men each but very short of riflemen

11:59 "great bakers aren't born. They are bread". Love this humor🙂

I'm gonna have to say one thing here in Manstein's defense: you're glossing over the fact that relieving 6th Army is paramount at this point. It does no good to take Grozny if it can't be held because an entire army's been wiped out at Stalingrad - which itself is only important in terms of securing the Don, same as with Astrakhan! ALL of these areas have to be taken and held for Hitler's war plan to work! To argue "withdraw and lose the war" is to ignore that the alternative - which was the road actually taken - was "HOLD and lose the war".