Top 7 Red Army Myths - World War 2 

Want to support 16 Days in Berlin? You can do it here: realtimehistory.net/indiegogo »» TIMESTAMPS «« 03:00 - Battle of Kursk - Tactics: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-IxGKhGLUpNI.html 03:24 - Guderian - Myth & Reality: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-UTgf3UHMBjY.html 05:32 - Winter War Tactics: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-yHrndb0oZEc.html 07:16 - Stalingrad Tactics: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-BEhkkzIenr0.html 12:31 - Tactics - Operations - Strategy: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-4yk0gROTHnI.html 22:39 - Why Barbarossa failed - German Blunders: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-A_3R-Rkn_98.html 23:44 - Why Lend-Lease is so complicated: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-IJ9PiDvI4pY.html

The Red Army was not actually red. It was usually either brown or green and occasionally white depending on the time of year. The more you know

As a Russian, seeing a German guy destorying anti-Russian myths is such a pleasure for my soul. Thank you! Subscribed

I've always been confused by the "endless Russians" myth in general. Their population isn't exactly sky-high, it's their vast territory that's effectively endless.

Just found out Russian soldiers do not in fact have British accents. Enemy at the gates lied to me!

Next you'll be telling me the Japanese infantry didn't charge into battle surfing on tankettes and cutting machine gun barrels with katanas.))

Wow, learned a lot from this. This kind of critical analysis of WW2 myths is more relevant than ever and the Battle of Berlin is an event that needs to be analyzed this way too. Also: Enemy at the Gates is a movie that aged like milk.

You mean the entire soviet army wasn’t bears on unicycles?

You know the guy is German when he says **SCHTALIN**

You mean to tell me Enemy at the gates isn't accurate?

What do you mean Enemy at The Gates & Company of Heroes 2 are not documentaries?

I've asked my grandpa if he has killed any Germans in the war. He has said to me - I don't know, but for sure I've killed a soviet political officer. His answer made my eyebrows rise so he told me that he and his friend were pinned down by German machine gun fire. As they were hiding behind a pile of rubble suddenly someone started to shoot from the behind. They were either lucky, the shooter was rubbish or this were only a "warning shots" to make them stand up and charge German pillbox. They never figure out what was the reason because they turned around and shot that bastard dead and then retreated.

Thanks for video! From Russia with great respect

So: 1) The Soviets couldn't throw more soldiers than there were bullets at the Germans, but rather, faced heavy losses during the first half of the war, due to disorganization - an aftereffect of the purge. 2) It wasn't the failure of Operation "Citadel" that devastated the German tank forces - rather, it was the effect of consecutive, steady losses throughout the summer of 1943. 3) The commissars didn't just shoot any soldier they saw retreating - some did, but they were an exception. 4) The Soviets didn't use "Human wave attacks" - they fought with very simple tactics, while their operations and overall strategy was far more complex. 5) Operation "Barbarossa" was not a preemptive attack - the Soviets were in no shape for an offensive war, and even if they were, German military intelligence was far too lacking to determine it. 6) It wasn't "Genera Winter" who stopped the Wehrmacht - it was their heavy losses in 1941, that affected the army when it was in it's peak condition, that would eventually halt their advances. 7) Lend-Lease did't "Save" the Soviet Union, but it was still very important for its war effort.

I must point out that NKVD was not a 'predecessor' to KGB per se. KGB was intelligence service (both domestic and foreign) while NKVD was essentially a ministry of internal affairs.

I know there's no other way to reach Russian archives for western historical researchers, as to find russian historian and try to collaborate. And the main couse of it - language - too many russian documents, which avalible for russian history is in "fog of language" for western history... BUT! I'm really surprised here and now, cause when i finish to watch this video I feel like a have a great conversation with my friend historian with nearly same opinion . Great thanks for your work, guys! And let's try to make our countries to live in peace. With best regargs, an ordinary russian guy.

I think one important aspect of lend-lease that often gets overlooked is the psychological impact that having foreign arms would have on local forces - it's a concrete, tangible demonstration that you are not alone in the fight, and that even if you cannot see your allies, they are there and you are supported by them. Much easier to fight on in a desperate situation if you feel are not isolated or abandoned.

Almost 27 minutes?! Christmas came early this year!

We can all agree, T34s speeding at full throttle on the battlefield and ramming Tigers sounds badass asf

the myth about soviet unlimited manpower was one of two the biggest myths that came from german military commanders. another one was about winter that beat the germans.

I am really surprised, that someone out from Russia decided to speak about myths about Soviet Union Thanks for such a video)

True, about Soviet Union recruiting from the liberated- occupied territories. My grandfather has been recruited in octomber 44 afted Romania switched sides, till september heve been in 10th Romanian inf. Division, 38 inf. reg. then after the switching all Romanians from Bassarabia and Bucovina were send back home. Most were properly trained, that helped them to survive the war and many of them been awarded by Soviets with medals for courage and high valor in battle, like my Grandfather who been awarded with Order of Glory 3rd grade and some more, i remember only this one.

Also, about the last point - Boris Sokolov is not well regarded in Russian historical community because of his unsavory practices like plagiarism and outright usage of fake sources.

Just as an aside about the Lend Lease, my grandfather (the one who survived the war, despite being wounded once and receiving contusions twice) had always sworn by Lend Lease, and so did one of my grandmothers who was still a young girl during the war. My grandfather repeatedly said how without the Willis jeep he could not possibly do his job (he was an officer in self-propelled artillery towards the end of the war), or without the American trucks or American petrol the army couldn't have possibly advanced as fast as it did. My grandmother recalls the American spam (what the Russians call tushyonka - I still enjoy the stuff even now! It's very popular in Russia but was virtually unknown before the war) that reached the home front. Soldiers from the front lines got dibs on the good American canned goods but would send home packages - the soldiers in general were actually fairly well-fed, another common myth about the Red Army in WW2. That spam along with all the other food that Americans had sent (I don't remember for example just how many millions of bushels wheat and buckwheat were sent as well) was what saved millions of civilian lives and kept the Soviet home front going. Whatever I feel about the modern U.S.A., I cannot but feel a deep gratitude to the American people and administration and their help in WW2.

With regard to the "General Winter" myth. A few years ago I took a look at the monthly distribution of German casualties using the data of Rüdiger Overmans. For the period June 1941 - May 1944. I chose this peridod to examine because Overmans has total figures that are not broken down by front. However, during this period German losses where overwhelmingly on the Eastern front. The only other place where there was action was Africa, but the German contingent there was never more than 7 1/2 divisions. The monthly distirbution of losses does not vary widely across the years. Summing casualties in these years for the months October - March (calling it winter), we get 1,237,000 and for April - September (calling it summer), we get 1,410,000. Another way of looking at this is by noting that while the month in which the highest casulties fall is January with 320,000, the second is June with 266,000. Another interesting statistic, given that you quoted July, 1941 casualties as being particularly high. Overmans has these as 67,000. But for June he cites 29,000. As the invasion began on the 22nd, this is for 9 days. Extrapolating to 30 days we get 97,000. No month in the perido examined exceeds this number except January 1943 (wtih 185,000), which is of course the final month of the battle of Stalingrad.

Been recently in Belarus (Weißrussland) and visited the Great Patriotic War Museum there Was incredibly interesting and well worth the time Gave a totally different perspective on the war as one would usually find in a western museum This video really challenged some of my ideas about the Red Army, and in conjunction with the museum, gave me a new perspective on it Thank you MHV!

This is one of the best history channels out there. The constant presentation of sources, using them to draw conclusions that are never presented as the whole truth make every episode more a scientific essay than just entertainment. I love it when small, independently produced formats top everything available in TV. I reminds me how passion always beats profit-oriented bs.

If you were Russian, male and born in 1923 you had a 20% chance of reaching your 20th birthday My great grandad was born in 1923....

I am Russian, and I wnat to say Thank You for help in busting those ugly myths across the border. Do svidanya.

Yes, 27 minutes of summarized glorious informative myth debunking. Am so glad to be a patron and see you have the same views on those "documentaries" as I do. I look forward to what you have in store for 16 Days in Berlin. I know my money in that will be well spent.

What really annoys me about the whole 'Barbarossa as a Preemptive Strike' argument is that it's plainly clear that Hitler had every intention of invading the USSR regardless of Soviet actions, thanks to the ideology and desire for Lebensraum. Besides, if Stalin had serious intentions for a Pre-emptive strike, he lost his one big opportunity in the Spring/Summer of 1940, when the Western Europe campaign was raging. Even with the major problems the Red Army was facing at the time (recovering from Purges and high losses in the Winter War), with the bulk of the best German forces in France and the Low Countries, a westward assault toward Germany would have been challenging to counter.

Pretty accurate, but one more thing with Winters - people who lived in USSR was not resistant to cold. They freezed the damn same way. And you forgot the myth of a weapon shortage AKA 'one rifle for 5 men'

Well - that is close to what our top modern WW2 historians ( Alexey Isaev and Valeriy Zamulin to name some) say. I was pleasantly surprised to see such a quality video from the Western authors who do care to make research and understand the real picture ( after watching other western stuff like "oversimplified" series etc - where they say that Soviet losses in WW2 were mainly inflicted by Stalin himself ). Thank you very much, gentlemen!

I think the manpower myth also has some roots in the figures of divisions. Some may see, say for example, 20 German Divisions vs 40 Soviet Divisions, as the Soviets having a 2-1 advantage. Well, Soviet organization actually had it where the Soviet Division was smaller than a Western Division, with the approximate Soviet equivalent to the latter being a Soviet Corps. So it is more likely that in my hypothetical example, the match up may actually be closer to a 1-1 ratio in numbers of men.

Blocking detachment and manpower crisis: actually, one of the rather important role of the blocking detachment (or NKVD security, your pick), in the later stage of the war when the Red Army started to recapture the land, was to go into liberated area and sweep up any able-bodied men they could find and chain-gang press them into services. They weren't completely untrained before being pressed into combat; each division has a training battalion that handle these types of training, but you can see the desperate situation that they had to throw people into formations without any regards to things like: loyalty, security risk, language barriers, etc ... One of the thing that may explain why the Red Army was for a period of time, could not have much more sophisticated tactics but instead had to focus on operational arts was because they lost many experienced officers, first to the Purge and second to the Germans in the first few months of the war. Some of the practices in the early days were disastrous: a division reduced to 300 mostly staff and officers were ordered to counterattack into oblivion; they really should not have done it that way and at least try to evacuate them. They had to very quickly, in a hurry, train a lot of lieutenants and promote the surviving ones into captains and majors. Any good commanders had to be quickly promoted upwards to serve in higher units. David Glantz noted, in When Titans Clashed, that around late 1941, early 1942, the STAVKA had to put out orders instructing unit commanders on very simple, rudimentary tasks like "have a plan for artillery fire before an infantry assault". This was evident that the low-level unit commanders were very inexperienced. Also, if you compare a German division with a Russian division, you can see that the Russian divisions generally had fewer men, and fewer artillery assets. The indirect fire assets were mostly mortars. Yet the impression of the war was that the Russian used a lot of artillery to batter the enemy. How and why? Coordinating indirect fire with infantry assaults were a tricky task so at lower levels, with lower-skilled officers, it was relegated to mortars and direct-fire 76.2mm guns, which are mostly an infantry weapon: close to the front and directly attached to the infantry units conducting the assault. The Red Army pooled their large caliber howitzers and Katyusha launchers (called Guards Mortar) at Corps (the Rifle Corps level of command was actually eliminated soon after the start of Barbarossa and was reintroduced around Kursk, 1943) and Front level in prepared fire plans against static positions for penetration assaults. Another effect that you can see in the Red Army hurried efforts to train new officers and promoting the good ones were how fast some of the commanders rose through the ranks. Ivan Chernyakhovsky was probably the best example: he commanded a Tank Corp in June 1942, a month later, he commanded an Army. By June 1944, he commanded a Front. At the same time, old or bad senior commanders were quickly "promoted" to desk positions and sent away from the front (examples included Budyonny and Timoshenko, both initally trusted by Stalin but after a few disastrous battles, they were quietly "promoted" into honorary positions and shoved aside). Rosmistrov, commander of 5th Guards Tank army; the guy whose Corps were battered in Prokhorovka, performed another ultimately successful but costly attack in Misnk and was removed from frontline command and promoted to "Marshall of Armoured troops". He did not command a Tank Army again. The "good" operation commanders definitely had an effect down to the tactical battles. One of the reason the Leningrad area campaign dragged on for so long and many offensives there just grind to a halt was two folds: first, it had lower priority for manpower and equipment; second, the senior commanders there weren't as good and as experienced as the better ones in the Central and Ukrainian sectors (people like Konev, Vatutin, and Rokossovsky). We all know the battle of Kursk was over the Kursk salient, but the reason why that salient existed was interesting. It was the result of a series general offensives a few months before that. The majority of fronts did badly, except for Rokossovsky's, which went quite well, but eventually also ran out of steam. His advance created the bulge. The maturation of Russian tactical and operational arts can be seen in the Manchurian offensive against Japan. There, the division received additional support unit tailored to the terrain the unit had to fight on and advance over. Fortification-busting divisions received heavy tanks and artillery, the ones going over plains get medium tanks, etc ... The theatre command went one step further and match the terrain with the units' experience fighting in Europe: armies with experience fighting in mountains are relegated to attacks across Manchurian mountains and armies with experience fighting in urban areas were tasked with assaulting fortifications.

I feel like the whole "human wave tactic" thing is just a buzzword with no real meaning. Any attack in human history can be described as this. Same goes for the "frontal assault" thing. You call any attack that you don't like (because you don't like those who were attacking or because it was not successful) a human wave attack or a frontal assault and that's it, you seemingly explained why the attackers were stupid and failed. Just say it since almost no one knows that all attacks need groups of people, usually consist of "waves" (reserve can be called a second wave if you want to play with words) and is kinda frontal anyway after enemy soldiers turn to your direction. Look, it even worked on Bernhard - he did not think of the real point behind these figures of speech and just assumed that soviet tactic IRL was bad. I have finished reading soviet guide to squad leaders and soldiers of airborne forces published in 1942 and it was pretty boring because it is insanely similar to modern Russian field manuals (I've read the one published in 2005). When attacking run from no longer than 5 seconds, jump on the ground 20 meters away from cover, crawl to it, observe the battlefield shooting spotted enemies and digging in, some time later run again and repeat until you are close, then attack. The same procedure is explained in Russian "Sergeant's manual" of 2005. I bet there were a lot of completely incompetent commanders and soldiers but attacking flanks, using cover and shooting with your rifle is so obvious that it was prioritised in the middle of 19th century. The hard thing that people fail at is everything else - planning, coordinating simultaneous frontal attack (or else the enemy won'e let you flank him) and flanking manoeuvre, controlling dispersed troops using cover (if you don't they will probably stay in cover instead of charging) and choosing the right position and battle formation to fire at the enemy effectively. The "oh they attacked the front instead of just teleporting behind their backs they are so stupid" is insanely lazy and primitive way of explaining military failures (but only in hindsight) and sometimes it's just a way to say that you don't like someone. People should either go deeper than this or stop using these terms entirely and just say that they don't like someone or that someone was defeated.

We in Russia say that if General Frost had a rank in the Russian army he should have been shot for fire on his own. And this saying did not go from the Second World War, but from the Napoleonic War of 1812. General Frost indiscriminately uses his weapons and the troops of the Soviet Union suffered from it just like the German. Regarding lendlize. I will not delve into the numbers, but the veterans greatly appreciated the canned American stew. It was even called the "second front", which already characterizes the attitude of the soldiers towards it. Comrade Stalin highly valued Lend-Lease and never denied its importance for the defense of the USSR, as Soviet historians did not deny later. While the supply of tanks, planes, etc. as a percentage did not have a significant impact, the supply of materials for the production of gunpowder, fuel, canned food, equipment can hardly be overestimated. Would the Soviet Union win a war without lendlize? I think yes, but at the cost of heavy losses and even more difficult work of the civilian population. In any case, in spite of the political games of Stalin, Churchill, etc., in Russia we greatly appreciate the feat of those American, English sailors who provided this landlise in the cold waters of the Atlantic under the fire of German submarines.

Great video! Your German accent becomes even more charming when you misspronounce Russian names.

Useful video for both the western viewer and the Russian. I would even say that especially for the Russian one in view of certain internal reasons. It is a curious coincidence that today I watched a lecture by the Russian military historian Aleksei Valerievich Isaev. The topic of the lecture was Blau's operation. So the famous order number 227 was announced in view of the breakthrough of German troops in the south of the Soviet Union, to the Caucasian oil. This breakthrough was a complete surprise to the Soviet command, because it was assumed that the Germans would establish a bridgehead for an attack on Moscow. After the battle of Voronezh, German troops moved immediately south, and not further east, as the Soviet troops suggested. As a result, the German tank corps simply went without encountering resistance in view of the fact that there was no one to stop them. As a result, 62 and 63 armies were formed to stop the further advance of tank corps.

An interesting fact is that the Red Army started the 2nd World War together with the Wehrmacht.

So did John Rambo push the Soviets out of Afghanistan?

"Practically aaaaarrrrrggggggggg" is one of my favorite pop-up captions to date.

Wehraboos about to launch their summer offensive on this channel

0:15 Unlimited Manpower 2:50 Kursk Graveyard of Panzer 4:48 Blocking Detachments 10:55 Human Wave Tactics 15:30 Preemptive War Thesis 20:22 Winter Stopped the Germans 22:50 The Lend-Lease was Negligible/Won the War

In general, I like this video. However, there is a couple of points I'd like to clarify. 1. Human resources. By June 1941 USSR had 194 million of population against 104 million of Germany and Austria (we should also add Germany's allies) - roughly speaking 2:1. A good advantage, but definitely not enough to speak about "endless resources" and "human waves". Moreover, by the end of 1942 more than 70 million of Soviet citizens remained under Germans occupation. Thus, before the territory of the USSR was liberated, the Red Army had LESS human resources, than Wehrmacht. 2. Rezun (Suvorov) and Sokolov are not historians. They are journalists, writes, who seek hype and profit by making scandals around painful themes. They have been caught many times on direct and deliberate lies and complete ignorance in their books. They should not be mrntioned in any serious review or article.

NKVD was the predessor of MVD (Ministry Internal Affairs), not KGB. Predessors of KGB were NKGB (People's Commissariat of State Security) and later MGB (Ministry of State Security), which was somewhat downgraded from a ministry of their own to mere Commitee of State Security under the Council of Ministers (e.g. soviet goverment).

I have read analyses that suggest that the Soviet Union never really recovered from the loss of manpower from the war.

Nice video! In a few places I thought it would have been nice to get the actual number of military losses, or the amount of equipment provided in lend-lease. That would help put things into perspective a bit better. I really enjoy these videos and have learned a lot from them, keep up the great work!

17:58 They were actually in the middle of a reequipment plan that was to end in early 1942 replacing the older BTs with the newer T-34/76 and KV-1, but by June 1941 only a fraction of those tanks had been introduced.

I studied in a Russian officer school. As my specialization was as a military lawyer, we only studied the basic ("classic") combat tactics, from the late Cold war (1980s) combat manuals. The Soviet soldiers (and Russian soldiers up to this day) are still taught that in case of a large scale war (read: "war to conquer West Europe through Germany"), our infantry would attack the enemy trenches in a "riflemen chain". Essentially, the infantry dismounts from their APC/IFVs a few hundred meters before the enemy line, deploy into a straight line, 6-8 meters between soldiers, march forward at a fast pace (5-6 km/h), shooting their AKs forward, without aiming, then within 30-40 meters of the trench throw grenades, shout "Hooray!" and run into the damned enemy trench. Only the light-machinegunner of the section is supposed to run&shoot, covering the section's advance. Of course, a chain of infantry is usually preceded by tanks, but the tank/infantry coordination is usually the task of the company/battalion level. The lightly armoured APC/IFVs follow in zigzags behind the infantry line. All Russian soldiers still practice forming into such a "chain of death" during their basic training. Of course, such an unsophisticated tactic would cause us huge casualties, but we were told that this is still the fastest and the most efficient way to achieve a breakthrough in a modern large-scale war. In the modern assymetrical conflict (Afghanistan, Chechnya, Georgia, etc.) the more "subtle" and less wasteful tactics were used, like advancing under the cover of a tank, and so on, but the frontal "chain" assault is still considered the main doctrine for a war against NATO.

>TFW when Coh2 wasn’t a documentary

This is a great channel. Not only did i get some of my own questions answered, but i got some good book recommendations out of it. Thank you, sir.

You could’ve add to it myth that great purge did destroyed most of officer staff . And instead point out that number of red army significantly increased after war with Finland dew to start of army conscription system (before soviet army were professional one) , and with it increasing slightly , there was not enough of well trained low rank officers which decreased battle capability of units

Lend Lease also provided with such basic things such as field ration for every Soviet soldier for one year, tons of boots. Also the Trucks proofed to be decisive.

26:13 that burn towards edgy teenagers though

I read the "Victor Suvarov" book in the 1980s. I read another book about the same subject and came to the conclusion the Suvarov book was disinformation or conservative propaganda.

I got a subtitled Asian ad for a menstrual pain tea watching this video about “the red army”.... I laughed.

Thanks for debunking the "cranberry" (клюква) [hollywoodlike stereotypes about Russia/Soviet Union] flavored myths! Much respect from Russia!

This was the best and unaligned explanation of the Lend Lease I have ever heard. Thanks!

My favorite "myth" was that T34s were sometimes being driven straight off of the factory floor where they were built and immediately went into combat - on at least one occasion IN the city where they were produced from the factory to the battle front just blocks away. This always seemed like a fantastic claim but it would be interesting if it was true. Can you address this?

Fantastic video. Always learn a lot here. TY and keep up the great work.

Germany is playing Men of War Assault Squad 2, while Soviet is playing Hearts of Iron III, yes HOI3 not HOI4

Amazing job on the lend lease section! A great video as always and while there are some times I may disagree I found this video to possibly be your best! Again fantastic job.

These "myths" largely came from the memoirs of German generals who fought in the eastern front. When the western people (especially during cold war) read about these many just took it as facts without more researched. Also, Hollywood and video games largely contributed to these myths as well.

0:57 Komsomol was (and is) the name for the Communist Party Youth in Russia, they were very loyal to the party though were not part of the military. They were eager to be drafted, though. 1:27 Data: During 1941 the Soviets lost around 2-3 million soldiers (and a lot of equipment) during the encirclements of Barbarrossa and later on the battles of Smolensk, Vyazma, Kiev and Moscow. In 1942 they suffered lesser but still really big losses on the battles of Rzhev and Stalingrad (around 2 million). This is not counting POWs taken by the Germans, if counting POWs the figure gets even bigger. As general data: The USSR in 1940 had a population of around 150 millions. The US had -more than 200 millions- around 130 millions (corrected, thanks to the comment below). 2:01 Women in the Soviet army were everywhere (yes, infantry too), though the biggest numbers of women were in support units. Around 1 million women joined the Red Army (partly from conscription and partly volunteers) during WW2, with a bigger number joining the armament industries. 2:22 Some Polish formations were already under training in 1941, and saw action during the whole war, but since Operation Bagration, the Soviet-trained Polish units raised considerably. 2:32 It could be said that everybody had issues with manpower: industrial war requires a lot of manpower and is like two guys pushing each other until one of them collapses. 10:17 In the USSR it wasn't rare to have a death sentence later conmuted into a prision sentence. Zemskov noted that around half of those people sentenced to death were later conmuted into 10 years hard labour (second maximum penalty on the Soviet system). List of penalties in the Soviet Union during WW2 (from lesser to bigger): -Fine (usually as penalty on the salary for those working on state-owned enterprises). -5 years prision [penal colony]. -5 years hard labor [GULag]. -5 years hard labor + 5 years prision. -10 years hard labor. -Death penalty. (Only for the following crimes: Murder, espionage, treason and terrorism [treason includes desertion and incompetence]) 11:06 This myth deserves its own video or post by itself, so yes, it's complicated since the Soviets used the "deep operation doctrine" and this included both having a lot of soldiers and knowing how to use them. 11:45 So, what's basically called "atrittional warfare"... 12:01 They were simple but effective. And not *so* simple, I mean, they were more organised than one would think, basically it was that "fire and maneuvre" you explained for the German tanks, but for squads instead of tanks. Also, the first think every soldier learned in the Soviet army was how to take cover, even prior to learning how to shoot. 12:40 Yeah, they were like totally basic on the tactical level, but knowing what they need to archieve on the grand scheme of things. 12:50 Only one breakthrough? At least several, their main goal was to completely collapse the enemy front. They though of battle as two phases: Breaking and encirclement. On the breaking phase, the heavy armor units and the infantry are to break the line so the mobile units and the lighter tanks can penetrate through there dividing the enemy. On the encirclement phase, the reserves fill all those breakthroughs encircling and destroying the enemy. And during all of that, artillery makes its dirty job.

Speaking about human resources you may just look into statistics. In 1941 USSR had population around 200 million, but Germany with its satellites who took part in the invasion all together had 190 million. More of that, the territory occupied by Wehrmacht by 1942 was populated by around 70 million of Soviet people. This means that during the Stalingrad the actual population of USSR was LESS than population of the axis countries involved in the war! It was really a crucial point in the war! And the subsequent recruitment on recently liberated territory was just a necessity.

Not only did Lend/Lease happen, but due to the level of Soviet penetration in various departments, but especially the Roosevelt WH, it became lucrative. The man placed in charge of sourcing/distributing L/L material was very keen to please Stalin, who benefited greatly from this.

"yet as so many Guderian' statements in his memoirs, this is wrong." I'm so agree with this! I think Guderian wrote memoirs to fool and trick allies. The similar cases also include Manstein and Manteuffel.

I come here for mispronounciation 3 seconds in: "There are some mirths about the red armee" I love this channel

They were both planning to backstab each other, though I don't think Stalin was nearly ready enough for the attack to be considered "Imminent"

That’s still an insane number of soldiers shot for refusing to fight

What a level of study and understanding of the topic! Thank you a lot! That’s a brilliant video 👍🏻

Didn't really expect anything different than Western propaganda. But you really surprised me. Thank you for bringing the truth

B-BUT MUH ASIATIC HORDES

Winter existed in WWI. Didn‘t stop Ludendorff from crushing the Russian Imperial Army so badly that it basically dissolved by Summer of 1917.

Before winter arrived in '41, the Germans had already taken 400,000 casualties. Their supply lines were threadbare, stretching along appalling Russian roads that had turned to mud in the autumn rains and like Napoleon a hundred years before, the majority of their supplies were carried on horse-drawn wagons and the majority of the infantry marched on foot. The USSR used a different railway gauge to Germany, so they had rebuild the tracks or rely on captured Soviet locomotives which were few in number as the Soviets blew them up as they retreated. Meanwhile, partisans were blowing up the tracks all over the place. The situation for the Germans before the cold arrived was appalling. But it makes for a good visual, the notion of them being defeated by the winter. Just as it did with Napoleon, except Napoleon lost more men during the advance on Moscow than the retreat from it. He lost a sixth of his army just crossing Lithuania, nearly a hundred thousand men dying from heatstroke and disease. But that doesn't make for a good story whereas French infantry sleeping on their knees in huddles in a white wasteland, eating horses that had frozen to death and swathed in every blanket and rag they can get hold of... Well, it's the same as the visual of German vehicles bogged down in the snow, the engines frozen solid, German infantry huddled around pools of burning petrol and once again eating horse meat. Except the German vehicles had already bogged down in the mud from the autumn rains. Tanks, lorries, infantrymen, horses and wagons all stuck in the quagmire. When the ground froze, they were grateful because it meant they could get moving again. Except it kept getting colder and colder. Winter took its toll but it only exacerbated an already bad situation. The Wehrmacht was overstretched and exhausted from travelling the seven hundred miles from Poland to Moscow and even if the winter had been mild, it wouldn't have changed the fact that the front was not getting adequate supplies, that those front line units had suffered appalling attrition on the campaign so far and that the Soviets had brought up fresh divisions from Siberia, experienced and well-supplied and motivated to defend the capital.

Definitely some of the most *intelligent content* on YT, both *your video and in many comments.* Another (albeit imperfect) way to defeat the idea that it was winter that stopped the Germans would be to compare the effects on the most northern vs. southern axis troops. There were *more losses in the south than in the north* (even considering relative troop numbers and battles), exactly *the opposite of what you'd expect if cold was the major reason for the Soviet comeback.*

So basically people don't give the Red Army enough credit.

Als deutscher und italienischer Militärspezialist hat mir dieses Kurzdokumentar die strategische Sicht des Krieges verändert: es has auch sehr persönliche Konsequenzen. Vielen, vielen Dank

Wonderfully researched video. Hats off to you.

So Enemy at Gates is not a documentary? /s

Thanks for all the great content! You and other history RU-vidrs inspired me to start my own channel! I visited the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in Vienna this summer, it's now one of my favourite military museums!

Barbarossa being a pre-emptive attack makes a lot more sense if you consider that the soviet attack wasn't supposed to happen at the same time but a year or so later. Which seems incredibly obvious, so I really wonder why it wasn't brought up at all.

I love how much effort i can tell you put into these videos

I remember being told that after Kursk, the German army was never able to take the strategic initiative. But that was due to the greater growth in quality and quantity of the Red Army

Point number seven commonly overlooks one thing. Food. An army, especially as large as the Soviet one, needs a lot of food. The Soviet union would have seen major issues had it not received the huge amounts of SPAM. They depleted their manpower pool and had to conscript people from their collectivized farms which reduced their ability to feed their population and more critically, their army.

Thank you for making this video! Many of the listed facts are in line with my grandfather's memoires, such as the troop shortage issue (he was recruited into the infantry while training at the airforce academy during the battle of Stalingrad) and the mixed opinion of the troops regarding some of their generals (he served under general Rodimtsev, whom he greatly admired and referred to as "their father figure" because he would be at the front encouraging the troops under heavy fire, while he referred to Marshall Zhukov as "the butcher" because of the tactical decisions as described by yourself). Looking forward to seeing more of your videos, keep up the good work!

It's interesting that Kursk and The Somme have almost the exact inverse problem. Kursk is seen as "the great turning point" when, it wasn't. Neither side took losses that were terminal. The Somme meanwhile, is seen as "Oh it was pointless, the British soldiers walked towards the enemy and were wiped out, nothing was gained" when that is a completely incorrect assessment of the battle, and the German Army ultimately took losses from which they could not recover. It was, despite popular opinion, a victory for the British and French.

"Fun" fact - sometimes blocking detachments recruited from the same people they detained

I don't know how accurate some of this information truly is. During and after WW2, it wasn't uncommon for Soviet leaders to exaggerate successes and embellish their losses.

Brother, you are amazing. Don’t stop the content. Keep bringing history to life

All of my grandpas fought in WW2. Like almost anyone else in post-soviet states. Because of the well mentioned high casualties and shortage of manpower. I just wanted to point out two things: 1) About 'Blocking Detachments' - not to all extend but during the human force shortage period Soviets did allow to conscript convicted criminals (not all of them but with a certain crimes history), so that they could earn they freedom by blood in combat instead of sitting in prison. So there was specific officers assigned to this type of units. In order to control convicts as sort of a mix - probation officer + blocking detachment shooter. Main objective of which was to look out for them so they would not commit crimes or run. 2) Lend-Lease has another effect on all post-soviet states vocabulary and brand recognition, as we still call all of the all-terrain passenger cars - Jeep. And I remember my grandpa's warm memoires about Willys. It just carved into hearts of our people so that Jeep become a word for a vehicle class.

Barbarossa was a preemptive strike but for the reason stated, Hitler and his generals came to the conclusion that by mid 1942 UK, USA, and USSR would all be at full strength. An they could not fight them all at once so one had to be removed.

My only critique is that you spoke quite explicitly on why the German army had been crippled in 1941 before Winter even set in, then went on to give an inconclusive answer on whether the Soviets could have won without Lend-Lease. Barbarossa had already failed and the German Army crippled before the US had even entered the war in December. Higher losses? Yes. Taken longer? Absolutely. But was it possible for Germany to win after Barbarossa had failed so completely? I think not. The moment the USSR refused to surrender at the Battle of Moscow, the war was decided. It was just a matter of time and lives while everyone waited for it to play out.

I have watched several of your high-quality videos now, and I enjoy your refreshing objectivity. Additionally, your German perspective presents a point of view and information that my English-speaking sources lack. Too many war videos and books repeat the same stories and myths. Glad to see you are on a better path. Keep up the great work.

thanks dude! great analysis work done)

dude your channel is great, I really appreciate the constant citing of sources. keep up the great work!

Thank you - Thank you ❤ Finally someone debunks some of all the myths.

thank you for making these kind of vids. pls keep making them.

manpower shortage was after the war which was really visual in some region even in the 70s/80s that woman were working in positions intended for men , my grandfather told me this when he was travelling through the soviet union