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If we are gonna have any historians left in the future, you guys needs to do an re-evaluation of the Vaxx! We have our fourth vaxx damaged in the family now. My step-father had a Vaxx-related myocarditis and just came back from the ER. Check the independent studies on this poison. I now this is a bit out of context but I hope you do not force your employees to be injected?
@@Melchersson yeah asking whether someone chooses to be vaccinated or not is absolutely out of context at a History Channel's site and you know what else it is? Absolutely none of your friggin business. The whole antivax crowd comes along with "everyone should choose whether or not to get vaccinated" and then there you are, discrediting even that dumb argument... I applaud you. If you had even a shred of one of those qualities you advertise, you would stop lying to yourself and those around you and accept the fact that the Covid vaccines have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Stop spreading lies.
"The failure of Barbarossa outside of Moscow concluded they couldn't win the war on their initial terms, while the failure of Fall Blau at Stalingrad and the Caucasus concluded they couldn't win the war on any terms. The failure of Operation Citadel at Kursk concluded their defeat in the war would be total." Glantz & House make a statement like that at the end of their Stalingrad trilogy, and that thought kind of stitched together the whole Eastern Front for me.
@@Tramseskumbanan and Germany still decided to attack. Doesn’t shine a better light on them even if the Red Army’s tactics were very brutally simplistic in their methods and resulting casualties/failed attacks.
Glantz is a US Army Sovietologist and an incredibly prolific writer. But he paints the Soviets in a very flattering light. His view is that the Soviets basically won WW2. They didn’t. And on a smaller scale, he depends on Soviet general staff reports far too much. Contrasting Glantz’ Kursk with Lawrence’s Prokhorovka, there’s really no reason to read Glantz.
One thing to notice is how downgraded each German summer offensive was. In 1941 we are talking about an attack along the whole front, 3.5 million men. In 1942, it is "just" the south, 1.5 million men. In 1943 we are talking about an objective similar in terms of geography to the sep-41 encirclement at kiev for about 800.000 men. There were no realistic expectations to continue another offensive after this.
Agreed. It's very noticeable how poorly the Nazis recover from their casualties even after sucess-the manpower just isn't there for them to make good many losses. To add insult to injury, the Kursk episode proper, following this, points out that Hitler was anticipating the imminent collapse of Italy and was scrambling to come up with 80 divisions to cover that front. The soviets would take back the Ukraine with some ugly, bloody hitches, but everything after that was almost at their leisure. AG South + Center utterly annihilated, AG North pocketed as an afterthought and largely left alone until after the war ended. Difficult to see how the Nazis could even hold the defense without men to replace casualties, fuel for their tanks and trucks, and even tanks and trucks in the first place. But especially without trained soldiers. In the end, all the Nazis have are some badly armed, badly trained children mixed with elderly men in militia and a few shattered remnants of divisions against 2.5 million Red Army, just at Berlin alone.
The Steppe Front is perhaps the most important part of Soviet deployments for this battle - _even if_ the Germans are able to encircle the much larger force that is prepared for an attack, the Germans are still going to have to contend with an entire extra Front built with the _express purpose_ of breaking the encirclement the Germans are going for. It really shows just how powerful the Soviets are by this point that they're able to do that, and how fruitless this attack really is. The Wehrmacht really should be playing defence-only by this point. (Edit: To everyone saying "They would have still lost" - yes, you're right. But playing defence makes some kind of miracle slightly more likely - think 0.01% instead of 0.001%.)
They were fucked either way. If they played offense, they ran the risk of wasting their best units on a futile attack (as they did here). If they played defense, the Soviets were just going to build up even more reserves, and then overwhelm them regardless. The whole German plan basically counted on the USSR collapsing within a few weeks or months. When that didn´t happen, the economics of the war were clearly against them.
"The Wehrmacht really should be playing defence-only by this point." That's the problem. The Wehrmacht was the heir to a military culture that knew no other way to fight other than to attack. They didn't want a repeat of 1914-18, where they bled to death.
"You don't enter the Soviet Union in 1941 to find a good defensive line and slug it out, that hadn't been the meaning of the enterprise from the very beginning." - Rob Citino
@@dpeasehead I don't entirely disagree, but to their point of view was to try and attack to secure the best terms; or better yet, await another 'Miracle of the House of Brandenburg.' Or they can sit back, let their enemies mass even more force against them and certainly lose.
So let me see if I have this clear 1.) The Defenders outnumber attackers 2:1 in men, equipment, big guns, tanks and Planes, 2.) And the defenders had ample time to dig up defenses and mines, with most up to date intelligence on when and where they are going to attack, 3) On top of it, the battle tactics of attackers are not suited for such battles, 4) And finally, the defenders have up to half million men in reserve in an entire front to avoid a worst case scenario. yeah, I mean, its really hard for see how the battle is going to turn out.
And this whole setup sure looks like an intentional Soviet trap for the Germans to fall into: On paper, from a long way away, it sure seems like the right thing to do is to bring the two sides of the salient together to encircle millions of Soviets, again. But it's actually a really stupid plan.
Well,.. I dont think that germans knew how superior was soviet war industry.. Especially when recently strength was pretty equal in the Stalingrad. Also there is a recording of Hitler and Mannerheim where Hitler cannot believe how much tanks were already destroyed on the soviet side - I guess they have expected that soviets arent able to replace the numbers that quickly..
I think the germans had to do something. If they are afraid to attack the soviets then they are admiting that the war is lost, that they cant do nothing to alter the course of the war. They choose the best spot to attack but it wasnt enough.
It's very possible that my Great-Grandfather died in this battle. We don't know for sure, since my Grandmother was born in 1941 and didn't remember him at all and her family never got any reports on his exact fate...but since he died in Summer 1943 on the Eastern Front, it is likely he fell at Kursk during Operation Citadel.
Love all the statistics on the number of men and military equipment on both sides being displayed here, simply shows the scale of Operation Citadel in 1943. Thanks for the video World War Two team!
The Germans really shot themselves in the foot with Operation Citadelle They should've played on the defense and let the Soviets come to them. With so many tanks in reserve they could've bleed the Soviets dry for the remaining of 1943, not saying they would win WW2, but they could've achieved a stalemate on the Eastern Front if they played their cards better imo
@@nikolajmadum8381 The sovietrs knew they were coming because of poor intelligence on the Germans side. If the soviets knew later they could of succeeded.
I've heard that the Soviets deployed sappers with anti tank mines with the objective being to place a mine directly in the paths of oncoming tanks. Specifically with regards to the battle of Kursk.
@@nikolajmadum8381 If the Germans wanted to win the war. They should have act like the "Liberators" of Belarus and Ukraine, Imagine how differently the war would have looked like? But thats what happens with dictators who are believing their own race is superior to other ones. The Germans wouldnt have needed to use so many soldiers domestically.
@@Melchersson I fully agree with you If the Germans had come as liberators or at least werent so harsh to the locals they could have won the war fairly quickly Millions of Ukrainians would have joined them as they hated Stalin and the bolsheviks from the famines
Meanwhile: “Hans, why are there boats outside the Italian coast?” “Well, they are going to Greece and Yogoslavia, obviously” “But what about Sicily?” “What about it, it’s clearly a diversion”
@@vaughanlloydjones3884 appart from his political stuff maybe but i am happy that indie and his team make deployment videos because you can trust them more then TIK
@@vaughanlloydjones3884 TIK is what happens when someone takes historical facts and twists them to present his own viewpoint as the entire and unequivocal truth. He is good at finding sources and showing stuff that are usually not easily found, but other than that, his most famous videos have a lot of gray areas and require a lot of narrative jumps to come to the conclusion he thinks is the truth. Indie (and the rest of the channel) are staying strictly to what the sources say and while their sources might be biased, they at least aknowledge it. It is more of a reporting of history through the eyes of someone else. TIK is just... not that
@@vaughanlloydjones3884 TIK has somehow convinced himself that Hitler was a socialist, and as far as I'm concerned that puts whatever else he says into question as far as historical accuracy is concerned.
@@vaughanlloydjones3884 Bull crap, he's one big revisionist, he had to take one board down for libel. Repeating bombast to get the rube Monty off of the hook for his many misadventures. Oh he's great at putting up maps and pictures his content is slippery at best
Hey Indy and team, Spoiler Alert! Since this series will end in 2024, you could do the Korean War week by week after WW2 starting in 2025 because it will be 75 years ago. Just a thought, you’re doing great!
I feel like throughout 1941 the main problem of the Soviet military was not knowing when to retreat or defend, leading to the massive encirclements numbering millions even. By 1942 they conducted a strategic retreat, and now by 1943 they're preparing a large defensive ring, and A LOT of reserves to respond to breakthrough attempts by the Germans. It really goes to show how this know-how changed in two years.
I am glad that you've caught up with the naming of Kempf as an "Army Detachment", which is basically the "officially accepted" translation of Armeeabteilung, instead of the erroneous "Army Group" that this unit was often named over the past episodes - well done!
Soviet Union, summer 1943? ✅ Tanks lined up in thousands? ✅ Ready for the onslaught? ✅ Axis marching into the trap? ✅ Mines placed in darkness? ✅ Imminent invasion, imminent attack?✅ Turning back? ❌ Oh yeah, it’s Panzerkampf time
Into the motherland, the German army march! Comrades stand side by side, to stop the Nazi charge Panzers on Russian soil, a thunder in the east One million men at war, the Soviet wrath unleashed!
in the book "Tanks turned to the West" General Shalin, Chief of Staff of the 1st Tank Army comments on the position when Hoth broke through the first line "There are 6. army in the first line, and in the second echelon is the 1st Tank Army, dug in and waiting 1st Tank army has a deployment depth of 36 km and the Germans think they have broken into the operative space Germans will have a nice surprise
I'm going to be off the Internet (hopefully only for a short time), but wanted to state how much I've enjoyed your WW2 in Real Time videos. Based on the numbers in this video, I don't think I'll have to look in history books to see how the Battle of Kursk turned out. If ever I have the financial resources to do so, I shall gladly contribute to the TimeGhost Army.
Thank you for making a speciel episode, Indy! Kursk was too big of a battle and too big in build up not to have a special episode about imo :) The two armies facing each other was massive, especially on the Soviet side. Which makes it even more impressive the Germans managed to penetrate as much as they did in the South. Looking forward to the weekly episode coming out today, have a great day!
coincidentaly, I've just finished Guy Sajers book, " The Forgotten Soldier" a Franco-German from Alsace who served with the Gross Deutschlands Division from 1942
As for German artillery, Model had a little over 1,000 pieces, including roughly 160 Nebelwerfers. Manstein had something like 800 pieces, including about 200 Nebelwerfrrs. All German artillery systems had problems with much shorter range than their Soviet counterparts, meaning they couldn’t do counterbattery fire, nor reach reserves. Also, the vast majority of German artillery was still horse drawn.
That probably explains why they were omitted from the breakdown of forces - short range horse-drawn artillery on the offense is rather less relevant than the Soviet's defending longer ranged artillery which are, presumably, already well positioned.
@@rashkavar Also, the type breakdown of German artillery is really sparse in sources. This was the first battle where the Germans started using self-propelled howitzers, but there weren't very many of them. Most were still the 10.5cm horse drawn howitzers that had gone into Poland four years before.
@@kristianfischer9814 That fits the theme for Germany with a lot of its fancy high tech weapons that went on to see great success in future wars: too few, too late. Thankfully! (Referring to stuff like jet fighters and cruise missiles, which are now pretty foundational to major military powers around the world.)
At the start of the war, the German panzer divisions had 350-400 tanks and very little infantry each. They'd become proper combined arms formations by 1941. The US Army did the same with its armored divisions.
As Kristian noted, every power began the war with tank divisions that had far too many tanks and far too little of everything else, particularly infantry and communications. Having only 60 or so tanks per division was partially a consequence of German inefficiency in production, but was also a testament to how well rounded a mid-war panzer formation was, and they are poised to wreak enormous losses on their Soviet adversaries in the coming months.
Each German panzer division typically has two tank battalions. At Kursk, there were 15 armored divisions, but 10 of them fielded only one battalion. The missing battalions were in Germany training on the new tank in the German arsenal, the Panther.
@@kristianfischer9814 The same is true of the early Soviet tank formations: I think everyone underestimated just how much infantry support tanks need to work at their best.
I love these episodes. They really help me to understand the difference in force between the two sides. Telling me about the number of divisions is great, but knowing the number of troops and armor is fantastic.
Thank you very much for this video! I had commented on a video a couple months back if you were planning to do a special in Kursk. You had said that time constraints and budget wouldn't make that possible. I totally understand but thank you for this video!!! I really appreciate your efforts as it paints the grandiose of Kursk. Thank you so much for all you do.
I'm glad you guys used Glantz and House's numbers on the battle. They are 2 of the very few Western historians who had access to the Soviet/Russian WW2 archives before Putin cut their access off to anyone who wasn't going to just only praise the Soviet forces. Every historian prior to Glantz and House has had to cover WW2 on the Eastern front just from the German sources. Which is really the primary cause of why the Eastern front was so neglected in the West for so long. I still think it is crazy that Russia is the only country that keeps their records on WW2 as secret from the public. For the US you can access every single piece of WW2 info online at this point and I am pretty sure most of the other Western countries have uploaded all of their WW2 records online now at this point as well. And then at least China and Japan have the excuse that most of their WW2 records from during the war were destroyed. The CCP uses this to make it out that they did much more in WW2 then they actually did. When in reality it was Chang Kai-Shek's Nationalist forces that did most of the fighting in mainland China.
Thanks for doing this, guys. A lot of people seem to think this is "beneath them" or "not important" but for those of us interested in the units of the war, how they fought and where they fought, it's super interesting.
I certainly don't. But my interest is in a broad way not down to regiments and brigades. The breakdown given is just right for me but I am sure it might not be adequate for others. I am most interested in the strategic and operational levels and not tactical.
My grandfather was killed at tomorovka on the 4th of July, one day before kickoff of Kursk, so probing and skirmishing was constant. He was in the 2nd fusilier of the GD, a recon unit.
This would be an amazing series for a Time Ghost "Shorts" TH-cam Series. Each "short" would simply be each of Indy's Line of Battle descriptions for each section of the operational theatre. Love the series folks. No better coverage of the war than this. I wish I could work on this amazing project. My entire life I have loved learning history and longed to become a steward of mankind's pivotal moments as a historian such as you have done. It must be such a solemn honor for each of you to aid in the pristine preservation of this dark period in history! Your commitment to said preservation for the sake of mankind's collective memory is so deeply admirable and indeed your reverence for the more delicate topics of horror and human suffering both respectful and praiseworthy; especially Spartacus' handling of the gravity of the "WAH" series. I salute you and thank you for performing this sacred task.
Thank you for your very generous praise. We could not do it without our amazing, thoughtful, loyal viewers like you in the TimeGhost Army. Please do stay tuned
The thing that never ceases to amaze me is the difference in production capacity of the axis and the allies/USSR, can't understand why is that way, manpower , different polices, wartime destruction?
Looking at a globe provides a clue. The three main Axis nations are tiny in area, although Germany and Japan are densely populated and industrialized, with Italy less so. On the Allied side, the British Empire is the largest in the world. The USSR is the largest single nation by land area. The USA and China occupy the next two spots. The USA has the world's largest economy, and the Axis nations cannot attack the US mainland in any significant way. Population sizes also favor the Allies. On the Allied side you have more people, more land area, and more economic output. The only real hope for an Axis victory is that the Allies tire of fighting and choose to quit. As to why some nations are larger than other nations, in terms of land area, population, and/or economic output, people have debated about that for about as long as people have noticed that nations differ. The "how" questions tend to be more straightforward - the historical record tells us how countries got to be their current sizes.
Also take note that from 1928 soviet union is constantly increasing its heavy industry, sacrificing everything to become a massive industrial country. Also they are producing almost the same equipment from 1940 to this battle, with just minor changes, so production is incredibly optimized, I have once seen that production cost of a t34 decrease in three times from 1940 to 1945 for example. Germany, on the other hand, have just shifted focus to a total war of massive production in favor of anything else, they were producing plenty of different tanks from 1940 to 1943, with just pz3 and 4 and stugs being in production for a long time, also extreme centralization in soviet union helps to overcome factories' concurrention and make them to produce similar goods, while in Germany you have several companies producing their own staff, not the best items chosen by a government
They didn't know of the Soviet numbers, they presumed the defense will be strong but not close to what expected them. Maskirovka was already a doctrine.
Well, it's their leader who thought the Soviet Union was a "rotten carcass." And to be fair, field commanders like Walter Model knew beforehand how futile this whole operation was going to be.
A tendency to under-estimate Soviet numbers and resources has been shown by them as far back as Barbarossa. The Germans had had setbacks, such as Moscow in December 1941 and the Stalingrad disaster, but may have been inclined to blame them on the winter conditions and they thought that an offensive at the height of summer would go well.
It is highly probable that the German High command was still under the delusion that they could somehow pull off the unlikely victory based on an erroneous belief that ultimately the Soviets were weaker, even if they had the numbers on their side, even after the destruction of 6th Army. This illusion, no doubt, was a hangover from the delirious early days of Barbarossa when 2 million men were captured and entire armies destroyed in weeks.
God this was an amazing video, what will I do when this coverage of the war is over. You have been apart of my life since 2016 when your ww1 show was my favourite thing to watch in university
Yes, and what about Panthers, there were 200 tanks in "Panther brigade" at the south. I think it's crucial to note that the Germans prepared to surprise their enemies at that time, and not only with Panthers...)
This week is calm before the storm. This storm every one did know about. With just about all the details but it is still a storm. Sicily/Kursk. only time will tell. One a side note, could you do a episode about the Chaplains during the war. Something I think is often left out, like Germans Uriah Law and some of the efforts done by Chaplains during the Pacific campaign. Very heroic.
Half the soviet army is packed into the Kurst Salient. The whole point of the blitzkreig is to attack the enemy's weakest point. The germans forgot their own doctrine.
The size and scope of the combatants on the Eastern front still boggle my mind. Divisions and Corp's are are thrown around like battalions and regiments, I doubt the world will ever see that many soldiers in the field ever again
Into the motherland The German army march In the Soviet Union summer 1943 Tanks line up in thousands as far the eye can see Ready for the onslaught Ready for the fight Waiting for the axis to march into a trap Mines are placed in darkness In the cover of the night Waiting to be triggered When the time is right Imminent invasion, imminent attack Once the battle started There's no turning back The end of the third Reich draws near It's time has come to an end The end of an era is here It's time to attack! Into the motherland the German army march Comrades stand side by side to stop the Nazi charge Panzers on Russian soil a thunder in the east One million men at war Soviet wrath unleashed! Fields of Prokhorovka Where the heat of battle burned Suffered heavy losses And the tide of war was turned Driving back the Germans Fighting on four fronts Hunt them out of Russia Out of Soviet land Reinforce the front line Force the axis to retreat Send in all the reserves Securing their defeat Soldiers of the Union Broke the citadel Ruins of an army Axis rest in hell
I wish Indy would have gone into detail about the Kursk defenses and their checkerboard like layout. It's really interesting subject which will play a pivotal role in bring the panzers to a screeching halt. 😋
I hope the new weekly episode helps to dispel some of the long-held Kursk myths, like the causes for the Ferdinand Panzerjaeger losses, and the stories of tank-ramming. Thanks for the deployment breakdown and look forward to your future work
Tank ramming was mostly because the T-34 had a terrible transmission that was difficult to quickly shift at the best of times, and frequently impossible if the tank was at all damaged.
How the hell, in two years, did the Soviets manage to come up with these huge numbers of men and material all the while battling the Germans??? It blows my mind.
The Soviet factories in 1941 were evacuated +2800 factories which were evacuated behind Moscow and to Siberia The Soviet factories had damaged production numbers in 1941 and were recovering in 1942 but in 1943 the soviet factories were unimaginably efficient. This is where the soviet factories started to basically start shitting equipment out in eye watering numbers
And so starts the 2nd of 3 months that changed the war in Europe. 1st, November 42. El Alamein + Uranus+ torch + mars. 2nd, July 43. Kursk and husky. 3rd, June 44. Overlord and bagration.
Even though HOI4 has been out for many years, I'm pretty new, and feel excited that I'm making "X" number of tanks, planes, etc...and then I see videos like this and wow, I'm not 1/10th of one army group of one side of this most epic of battles. Amazing...
If attacking against a numerically superior enemy that has had plenty of time to dig in and prepare defenses doesn't work, what does? This violates a core principle of warfare - attack where the enemy is weak, not where he is strong.
You must remember, the idea for this operation came immediately after Manstein's 'Blow on the Backhand' at Kharkov. Everyone saw the utility, so they started planning; but over a month later... things have changed. But you can't just throw away the results of weeks of the entire General Staff's psychic energies and start from scratch, when your enemy has had time to replenish and plan too.
@@emisat8970 Ironically, if they did throw it all away and managed to achieve Mars II Backhand Edition results once Soviets got around to their own offensive against Orel salient, Eastern Front could have lasted quite longer. The question is what would it take - intelligence reporting massive Soviet numbers concentrated around Kursk could be easily discounted. Allies had no business launching Husky earlier. So, uh, "Hitler wakes up and tells his generals he changed his mind, Untergang style" seems to be the only solution. That or random, massive rains going on for weeks.
Your work is exceptionnal, bringing loads of the most accurate information we can hope for, but constantly rememoring the lives and humanity of soldiers living this nightmare. Never forget
The sheer number of men and equipment the Soviets are able to deploy compared to the Germans is absolutely insane. This may not be popular, but I can’t help but think they may have been able to achieve their objectives in the war as quickly as they did without a quite so staggering butchers bill.
During the first years of the war, the Soviet units simply weren´t equal to the German ones. Their training in any advanced military skills (map reading, heavy weapons etc.) was often very short or nonexistent. Their equipment, while numerous and of good quality on paper, often had glaring weaknesses that reduced their effectiveness. As an example, there was an extreme shortage of reliable radios for the Soviets. This was true for tanks, artillery crews, or even regular soldiers. As a result, the Soviets were often not capable of effective communication, so their huge numbers of men, stretched over vast open spaces, were very difficult to coordinate. The result of all this was that the Soviet commanders were often forced to use brute force, simply because their units were not capable of anything else. This improved considerably later in the war, as the Soviets got more experienced. As for the losses, it was mainly the soldiers that were the problem. Much of the equipment lost in the early years of the war, especially tanks and planes, was obsolete anyway.
I mean... that's a little off base. You have to look at the wider picture. The Soviet Union started their war in a horrific place, halfway through a re-organization (which is why you had stuff like divisions with outmoded tank models, no gas and little ammunition, no radios etc); and forced to commit to constant attacks and counter-attacks just to slow the Germans down. Which due to the aforementioned issues (not least of all compromised radios even when they did have them) meant they went in piecemeal and uncoordinated. All this against a military at the peak of its powers. Then you had the slaughterhouse at Stalingrad, where Chuikov was hanging on by his fingernails with little aircover; scant and sporadic reinforcements etc. Now finally, at Kursk, the entire operational plan is to let the Germans batter themselves to exhaustion *before* committing to a counterattack. I could talk a little about Soviet doctrine focusing more on the operational and strategic spheres than the tactical one, also, but there's no need. The loss of life wasn't pretty, but, it had to be done. And I can't think of a finer testament to the quality of the Red Army's rankers and officers that they built one of the greatest military machines in history from such a poor start.
@@emisat8970 But when you look at the losses both sides took at Kursk it was staggering. The Germans lost around 200,000 men, while the Russians lost somewhere between 700,000 and 1,000,000! Even today the Russians probably don't know how many men they lost at Kursk. I watched a documentary featuring Russian teens searching for the mass graves all around Kursk, about 10 or 15 years back, and the Russian government would not even help them find where the graves were located. The conclusion the Russian teens and young twenty-somethings reached was that their government did not want anyone to find out the true total. They were afraid that the country would not be able to cope with how costly it had been and how bad the leadership of Stalin & Co. was. 🤷♂😮😥 The Germans who could do math, and knew the losses, concluded _that_ was _it_ for the Nazis. They simply could not take losses like that and win the war. They remained on their heels all the way back to Berlin. The Russians _could_ take those kind of losses but it hurt them dearly! To this very day they are suffering for it. After WW2 Russians only had about 1.6 children per couple, which is far below the 2.1 replacement ratio needed simply to maintain their population. Today, with them fighting in Ukraine, the number of children being born to couples is no better--eighty years later! Putin sees himself with his back against the wall and figures if he does not take back the land routes from the West into Russia proper right now, he will never be able to do it because the demographics dictate that in another five years or so they will simply not have enough young men to fight a war of expansion. Kursk and WW2 are still hindering Russia to this day! It is too bad Putin won't dummy up and decide to get along with his neighbours and put the mafioso style leadership the Russians have traditionally enjoyed behind them.
@@aleksazunjic9672 no things dont get even at all… Kursk was an unbelievable slaughter of ill prepared, badly trained, stupidly equipped (massive waves of T-34 that were not effective anymore until the upgrade to the t-34 85 with little other support) soviet troops. The Germans couldnt win but the soviet losses were as staggering as in 1941. The absolute horrific costs in life of 43 finally triggered a lot of changes in the soviet army again and brought much better tanks, better doctrine and some regards for the lives of the troops leading to the large successes in 44.
Thank God they started the war so dismally. Otherwise the Russians would have claimed all of Germany and perhaps some of the western countries as well. The lands "liberated" by Stalin and added to his empire had a disastrous 45 years ahead.
the Soviets also have over 1,000,000 mines and the intel from the British about when and where and generally at what strength the Germans will attack - courtesy of the broken enigma codes
Indy: "All we know for certain looking at these deployments today, is there will be 10's of thousands of dead soldiers on both sides" ... (Deja Vu to "The Great War" series)
The channel said that they would not do an entire special for any specific battle. I think they try to cover the war in a much broader scale and leave battles for regular episodes.
No, because Prokhorovkha is a sham, hyped up out of all proportion by the memoirs of the Soviet officer (Rotsmistrov iirc) who lost his entire command due to his poor handling. If you want a grand tank battle on the Eastern Front, look into the Battle of Dubno.
What happened to your weekly show? Just a deployment episode? There is the Sicily Invasion, the huge Kursk offensive , the campaign in New Georgia in the Solomons and action in Burma!
For what it's worth, in reading Christer Bergström's Black Cross+*Red Star Vol. 5, in preparation for your take on Kursk, I offer a few things of possible interest: * In April, the VVS struck Luftwaffe Ost airfields and destroyed a significant number of recon airplanes. The Germans began to switch from recon planes to re-purposed Bf-109s and Bf-110s but lost 29 in May and 54 in June severely reducing a key element which had always featured prominently prior to German ground assaults. * In early June, OKL launched operation Carmen, a massed air assault on the marshaling yards at Kursk. The Luftwaffe took heavy losses from this attack and afterwards never made a large air assault during daylight on the eastern front. As a consequence, Zitadelle was not preceded with large scale attacks on VVS airfields. * In sharp contrast to the previous two years, Soviet air recon in the Kursk area was extensive, 6000 sorties in the weeks leading up to Zitadelle. * In the belief that German attack at Kursk was imminent, the VVS launched a preemptive strike in early May against Luftwaffe airfields but took significant losses for little gain. Another attempt at these airfields in early June also took heavy losses, possibly in part because some forward Soviet fighter airfields became unusable because of rain. * Soviet air and partisan attacks against supply railway targets caused delays and destroyed locomotives, not enough to stop Zitadelle from launching, but causing a tension of fuel between panzers and aircraft resulting in not all Luftwaffe support requests from ground troops being fulfilled. * Finally, an interesting note is that the Germans concentrated tanks and aircraft at Kursk comparable to what they had at the beginning of Barbarossa but on a front 1/8th as long.
👍👍🏻👍 for the smart move to cover the deployments before the weekly news even though I had been waiting for that episode yesterday not being aware being postponed to today. Now I got both of them but I can only give 👍👍🏻👍
That the Germans were able to make any progress at all against such a superior defender speaks to their professional levels of training. The fact that they tried, though, speaks to the critical intransigence of the little corporal. It had no chance of success. The German intelligence failures were constant throughout the war predicting the end of Soviet manpower reserves.
Actually the Soviets were pretty depleted in manpower by the time the Battle of Berlin ended. At least as far as more reserves to draw on. Didn't do the German's much good though.
Usually one wants to have a 3-1 advantage in troop deployments against fortified positions ,may vary for less altitudes, though 1-3 odds are somehow preposterous in attacking ? unless you actually believe that your flesh -bone-metal is different than your opponent ,Madness!. Though the SS Pnzer Korps will perform with great elan and zeal,with ,a relentless pursuit,and excessive will and unbounded courage,though at the end of the day will tell themselves in a quiet moment murmuring softly ''Das ist Wahnsinn''
There may be a lot of relatively 'dry' statistics in this video, but we must take the time to absorb them. I contend that Kursk was the largest ground battle in history, in number of committed assets from both sides. I'm discounting operations like the invasion of Okinawa, which was huge, but had a very large number of naval forces involved. That is my informed contention. I think this video backed my conclusion. SPOILER -- Patton had 90,000 troops under his command during operation Husky. At the height of the 3rd Army, Patton had about 240,000 men under his command. China has about 1,000,000 personnel in ground forces [ true numbers are impossible to obtain, because, well - China ]. I put these numbers out there to indicate the incredible forces that opposed each other during this pivotal and game-changing battle. So...I await the detailed description of this battle with bated breath, even though, being history, I already know how it turns out. But the details from the WWII channel videos will be remarkably detailed, and amazingly accurate, as they always are. I'm looking forward to them.
Bagration was a big “nothing” as a battle**, though. This is much more interesting. I’m restraining myself from refreshing my memory - I KNOW this battle, but happily I’m old enough I’ll forget the details after a few years. (Also, every few years they uncover new Soviet material, so the battle “changes” lol) ** - Bagration: there wasn’t much on the German side. Not much more than the integral AT complement of type ‘44 Inf divisions for armor, 40 functional fighters in Luftflotte 6, etc. all spread out on a 1,000 mile front. Kursk is high intensity combat, like Normandy.
Operation Zitadelle is such sheer folly. The attackers are badly outnumbered and the defenders not only have the numbers, but they're very well entrenched. As for the idea of this style of battle not what the German army is built for, that was already given up with the assault on Stalingrad. Also against the Germans is that the Red Army had gotten smarter compared to their debacles earlier, particularly the start of Barbarossa. This is June 1943. The Red Army has learned its lessons and they have more competent commanders now. Even when you look at the names involved for leaders in Operation Uranus to surround Sixth Army at Stalingrad, those dudes would be the eventual big name leaders of the army at war's end. Here for Kursk in 1943, lots of familiar names if one takes sneak peaks in 1945. A stronger, better built, better supported Red Army led by more competent officers, coupled with an air force that the Luftwaffe can no longer bully, being on the defense with plenty of time to prepare. This was never going to end well for the Germans. And off into the Mediterranean Theater, the Western Allies will soon make it far worse when the party out East is at its height.
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Axis offensive? Shouldn’t you be saying “white man offensive” seeing how you like to be racist.
If we are gonna have any historians left in the future, you guys needs to do an re-evaluation of the Vaxx! We have our fourth vaxx damaged in the family now. My step-father had a Vaxx-related myocarditis and just came back from the ER. Check the independent studies on this poison. I now this is a bit out of context but I hope you do not force your employees to be injected?
@@NDSMD Is the Time-Ghost crew into this woke bs?
@@Melchersson yeah asking whether someone chooses to be vaccinated or not is absolutely out of context at a History Channel's site and you know what else it is? Absolutely none of your friggin business.
The whole antivax crowd comes along with "everyone should choose whether or not to get vaccinated" and then there you are, discrediting even that dumb argument... I applaud you.
If you had even a shred of one of those qualities you advertise, you would stop lying to yourself and those around you and accept the fact that the Covid vaccines have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
Stop spreading lies.
when is the weekly episode >?
"The failure of Barbarossa outside of Moscow concluded they couldn't win the war on their initial terms, while the failure of Fall Blau at Stalingrad and the Caucasus concluded they couldn't win the war on any terms. The failure of Operation Citadel at Kursk concluded their defeat in the war would be total."
Glantz & House make a statement like that at the end of their Stalingrad trilogy, and that thought kind of stitched together the whole Eastern Front for me.
What it did confirm was that the Soviet Union couldn’t win anything at all without having vastly outnumbered their enemy in both men and materiel.
Nice quote
To that can be added that failure of Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein concluded that Nazis finally turned back on their initial victims.
@@Tramseskumbanan and Germany still decided to attack. Doesn’t shine a better light on them even if the Red Army’s tactics were very brutally simplistic in their methods and resulting casualties/failed attacks.
Glantz is a US Army Sovietologist and an incredibly prolific writer. But he paints the Soviets in a very flattering light. His view is that the Soviets basically won WW2. They didn’t. And on a smaller scale, he depends on Soviet general staff reports far too much.
Contrasting Glantz’ Kursk with Lawrence’s Prokhorovka, there’s really no reason to read Glantz.
One thing to notice is how downgraded each German summer offensive was. In 1941 we are talking about an attack along the whole front, 3.5 million men. In 1942, it is "just" the south, 1.5 million men. In 1943 we are talking about an objective similar in terms of geography to the sep-41 encirclement at kiev for about 800.000 men. There were no realistic expectations to continue another offensive after this.
Even a successful encirclement, plus a defeat of Konev's counter-attack. would probably not be a decisive victory.
@@stevekaczynski3793 Yeah, it just would have extended the war longer.
/me looks at Ukraine
Did you expect them to get larger.
Agreed. It's very noticeable how poorly the Nazis recover from their casualties even after sucess-the manpower just isn't there for them to make good many losses. To add insult to injury, the Kursk episode proper, following this, points out that Hitler was anticipating the imminent collapse of Italy and was scrambling to come up with 80 divisions to cover that front.
The soviets would take back the Ukraine with some ugly, bloody hitches, but everything after that was almost at their leisure. AG South + Center utterly annihilated, AG North pocketed as an afterthought and largely left alone until after the war ended. Difficult to see how the Nazis could even hold the defense without men to replace casualties, fuel for their tanks and trucks, and even tanks and trucks in the first place. But especially without trained soldiers.
In the end, all the Nazis have are some badly armed, badly trained children mixed with elderly men in militia and a few shattered remnants of divisions against 2.5 million Red Army, just at Berlin alone.
The Steppe Front is perhaps the most important part of Soviet deployments for this battle - _even if_ the Germans are able to encircle the much larger force that is prepared for an attack, the Germans are still going to have to contend with an entire extra Front built with the _express purpose_ of breaking the encirclement the Germans are going for.
It really shows just how powerful the Soviets are by this point that they're able to do that, and how fruitless this attack really is. The Wehrmacht really should be playing defence-only by this point.
(Edit: To everyone saying "They would have still lost" - yes, you're right. But playing defence makes some kind of miracle slightly more likely - think 0.01% instead of 0.001%.)
They were fucked either way. If they played offense, they ran the risk of wasting their best units on a futile attack (as they did here). If they played defense, the Soviets were just going to build up even more reserves, and then overwhelm them regardless. The whole German plan basically counted on the USSR collapsing within a few weeks or months. When that didn´t happen, the economics of the war were clearly against them.
"The Wehrmacht really should be playing defence-only by this point."
That's the problem. The Wehrmacht was the heir to a military culture that knew no other way to fight other than to attack. They didn't want a repeat of 1914-18, where they bled to death.
"You don't enter the Soviet Union in 1941 to find a good defensive line and slug it out, that hadn't been the meaning of the enterprise from the very beginning." - Rob Citino
@@emisat8970 It was their insistence on launching counterattacks and making last ditch offensives are what bled them to death in both wars.
@@dpeasehead I don't entirely disagree, but to their point of view was to try and attack to secure the best terms; or better yet, await another 'Miracle of the House of Brandenburg.'
Or they can sit back, let their enemies mass even more force against them and certainly lose.
This is just incomprehensible. The numbers are so hard to imagine. every single man has their own life and own story but that means nothing in war.
*"The avalanche has already begun. It is too late for the pebbles to vote."*
-Kosh, "Babylon 5"
I think it was Stalin who said "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic"
That's on you, if you have anything more than millions, you certainly think one of them is meaningless.
@@JGD185 There's actually no evidence Stalin ever said that.
Means nothing to your employer either.
So let me see if I have this clear
1.) The Defenders outnumber attackers 2:1 in men, equipment, big guns, tanks and Planes,
2.) And the defenders had ample time to dig up defenses and mines, with most up to date intelligence on when and where they are going to attack,
3) On top of it, the battle tactics of attackers are not suited for such battles,
4) And finally, the defenders have up to half million men in reserve in an entire front to avoid a worst case scenario.
yeah, I mean, its really hard for see how the battle is going to turn out.
And this whole setup sure looks like an intentional Soviet trap for the Germans to fall into: On paper, from a long way away, it sure seems like the right thing to do is to bring the two sides of the salient together to encircle millions of Soviets, again. But it's actually a really stupid plan.
Well,.. I dont think that germans knew how superior was soviet war industry.. Especially when recently strength was pretty equal in the Stalingrad. Also there is a recording of Hitler and Mannerheim where Hitler cannot believe how much tanks were already destroyed on the soviet side - I guess they have expected that soviets arent able to replace the numbers that quickly..
@@Kenny442626166 Yeah, Hitler mentions in that if someone had told him one state could line up 35k tanks he would have said "you have gone mad."
I think the germans had to do something. If they are afraid to attack the soviets then they are admiting that the war is lost, that they cant do nothing to alter the course of the war. They choose the best spot to attack but it wasnt enough.
It's very possible that my Great-Grandfather died in this battle.
We don't know for sure, since my Grandmother was born in 1941 and didn't remember him at all and her family never got any reports on his exact fate...but since he died in Summer 1943 on the Eastern Front, it is likely he fell at Kursk during Operation Citadel.
Do you know him?
@@blugaledoh2669 He died when my Grandma was two years old.
So, no.
Thankfully your grandmother would have provided some comfort to him, knowing a piece of him would live on.
@@alexandersturnn4530 I meant documents
@@blugaledoh2669 Nothing except a Picture of him in his Uniform.
Love all the statistics on the number of men and military equipment on both sides being displayed here, simply shows the scale of Operation Citadel in 1943. Thanks for the video World War Two team!
The Germans really shot themselves in the foot with Operation Citadelle
They should've played on the defense and let the Soviets come to them. With so many tanks in reserve they could've bleed the Soviets dry for the remaining of 1943, not saying they would win WW2, but they could've achieved a stalemate on the Eastern Front if they played their cards better imo
@@nikolajmadum8381 The sovietrs knew they were coming because of poor intelligence on the Germans side. If the soviets knew later they could of succeeded.
I've heard that the Soviets deployed sappers with anti tank mines with the objective being to place a mine directly in the paths of oncoming tanks. Specifically with regards to the battle of Kursk.
@@nikolajmadum8381 If the Germans wanted to win the war. They should have act like the "Liberators" of Belarus and Ukraine, Imagine how differently the war would have looked like? But thats what happens with dictators who are believing their own race is superior to other ones. The Germans wouldnt have needed to use so many soldiers domestically.
@@Melchersson
I fully agree with you
If the Germans had come as liberators or at least werent so harsh to the locals they could have won the war fairly quickly
Millions of Ukrainians would have joined them as they hated Stalin and the bolsheviks from the famines
Between this channel and WW1 it’s absolutely staggering how massive these battles actually were.
"Blunt force" is usually accompanied by "trauma". Excellent breakdown, and superb job on the graphics!
Thank you!
Meanwhile: “Hans, why are there boats outside the Italian coast?” “Well, they are going to Greece and Yogoslavia, obviously” “But what about Sicily?” “What about it, it’s clearly a diversion”
Indy is the TH-cam historian I look up to. What a king!
TIK is the true king!
@@vaughanlloydjones3884 appart from his political stuff maybe but i
am happy that indie and his team make deployment videos because you can trust them more then TIK
@@vaughanlloydjones3884 TIK is what happens when someone takes historical facts and twists them to present his own viewpoint as the entire and unequivocal truth. He is good at finding sources and showing stuff that are usually not easily found, but other than that, his most famous videos have a lot of gray areas and require a lot of narrative jumps to come to the conclusion he thinks is the truth.
Indie (and the rest of the channel) are staying strictly to what the sources say and while their sources might be biased, they at least aknowledge it. It is more of a reporting of history through the eyes of someone else. TIK is just... not that
@@vaughanlloydjones3884 TIK has somehow convinced himself that Hitler was a socialist, and as far as I'm concerned that puts whatever else he says into question as far as historical accuracy is concerned.
@@vaughanlloydjones3884 Bull crap, he's one big revisionist, he had to take one board down for libel. Repeating bombast to get the rube Monty off of the hook for his many misadventures. Oh he's great at putting up maps and pictures his content is slippery at best
Hey Indy and team, Spoiler Alert! Since this series will end in 2024, you could do the Korean War week by week after WW2 starting in 2025 because it will be 75 years ago. Just a thought, you’re doing great!
That would be absolutely fascinating.
I think they talked about it in a q&a on time ghost channel some time ago.
The Cold War guys could do that.
If they keep going, Vietnam will be interesting.
And Ukraine 2022-2030?
I feel like throughout 1941 the main problem of the Soviet military was not knowing when to retreat or defend, leading to the massive encirclements numbering millions even. By 1942 they conducted a strategic retreat, and now by 1943 they're preparing a large defensive ring, and A LOT of reserves to respond to breakthrough attempts by the Germans. It really goes to show how this know-how changed in two years.
this battle is so big its almost impossible to comprehend.
Yet photos and film of it often suggest a largely empty battlefield. Just because those millions were spread over a lot of territory.
Things are only gonna get bigger from here. Bagration next summer, the battle of Berlin...
(Gandalf) So it begins. The great battle of our times. (Gandalf)
*soviets when they see the Germans prepping for the attack* “send these fowl beasts into the abyss!”
"Quantity has a quality all of its own..."
I am glad that you've caught up with the naming of Kempf as an "Army Detachment", which is basically the "officially accepted" translation of Armeeabteilung, instead of the erroneous "Army Group" that this unit was often named over the past episodes - well done!
Thank you for watching
Soviet Union, summer 1943? ✅
Tanks lined up in thousands? ✅
Ready for the onslaught? ✅
Axis marching into the trap? ✅
Mines placed in darkness? ✅
Imminent invasion, imminent attack?✅
Turning back? ❌
Oh yeah, it’s Panzerkampf time
Into the motherland, the German army march!
Comrades stand side by side, to stop the Nazi charge
Panzers on Russian soil, a thunder in the east
One million men at war, the Soviet wrath unleashed!
Those soviet artillery numbers are scary...
in the book "Tanks turned to the West"
General Shalin, Chief of Staff of the 1st Tank Army
comments on the position when Hoth broke through the first line
"There are 6. army in the first line, and in the second echelon is the 1st Tank Army, dug in and waiting
1st Tank army has a deployment depth of 36 km
and the Germans think they have broken into the operative space
Germans will have a nice surprise
@@tihomirrasperic Yeah three defensive lines is not to be expected... Plus the whole Reserve front waiting to unleash hell when this is over....
I'm going to be off the Internet (hopefully only for a short time), but wanted to state how much I've enjoyed your WW2 in Real Time videos. Based on the numbers in this video,
I don't think I'll have to look in history books to see how the Battle of Kursk turned out. If ever I have the financial resources to do so, I shall gladly contribute to the TimeGhost Army.
We appreciate any support you can give! Just by watching, liking, and sharing, you do our channel a great service. Thank you & stay tuned my friend
Thank you for making a speciel episode, Indy!
Kursk was too big of a battle and too big in build up not to have a special episode about imo :)
The two armies facing each other was massive, especially on the Soviet side. Which makes it even more impressive the Germans managed to penetrate as much as they did in the South.
Looking forward to the weekly episode coming out today, have a great day!
coincidentaly, I've just finished Guy Sajers book, " The Forgotten Soldier" a Franco-German from Alsace who served with the Gross Deutschlands Division from 1942
I also read it a out a month ago , it was the best depiction of ww2 eastern front I ever read couldn't put it down , hope you felt the same ,
@@user-hm4cd8eh1i yes, I read it for the 1st time quite a few years ago, its very different from most other books of 2nd WW.
@@keithskelhorne3993 never heard of it, I'll check it out
@@JGD185 its not a "gung ho" account , but I hope you enjoy it
As for German artillery, Model had a little over 1,000 pieces, including roughly 160 Nebelwerfers. Manstein had something like 800 pieces, including about 200 Nebelwerfrrs. All German artillery systems had problems with much shorter range than their Soviet counterparts, meaning they couldn’t do counterbattery fire, nor reach reserves. Also, the vast majority of German artillery was still horse drawn.
That probably explains why they were omitted from the breakdown of forces - short range horse-drawn artillery on the offense is rather less relevant than the Soviet's defending longer ranged artillery which are, presumably, already well positioned.
@@rashkavar Also, the type breakdown of German artillery is really sparse in sources. This was the first battle where the Germans started using self-propelled howitzers, but there weren't very many of them. Most were still the 10.5cm horse drawn howitzers that had gone into Poland four years before.
@@kristianfischer9814 That fits the theme for Germany with a lot of its fancy high tech weapons that went on to see great success in future wars: too few, too late. Thankfully!
(Referring to stuff like jet fighters and cruise missiles, which are now pretty foundational to major military powers around the world.)
and yet german artillery managed to outshoot the soviets at kursk by a ratio of 3:1
@@interstella5555 Nope, sure didn't.
Always surprising (to me at least) how few German tanks were in each Panzer Division
At the start of the war, the German panzer divisions had 350-400 tanks and very little infantry each. They'd become proper combined arms formations by 1941. The US Army did the same with its armored divisions.
As Kristian noted, every power began the war with tank divisions that had far too many tanks and far too little of everything else, particularly infantry and communications. Having only 60 or so tanks per division was partially a consequence of German inefficiency in production, but was also a testament to how well rounded a mid-war panzer formation was, and they are poised to wreak enormous losses on their Soviet adversaries in the coming months.
They prefered to create more and more divisions even at the cost of reducing the number of tanks for each one
Each German panzer division typically has two tank battalions. At Kursk, there were 15 armored divisions, but 10 of them fielded only one battalion. The missing battalions were in Germany training on the new tank in the German arsenal, the Panther.
@@kristianfischer9814 The same is true of the early Soviet tank formations: I think everyone underestimated just how much infantry support tanks need to work at their best.
I love these episodes. They really help me to understand the difference in force between the two sides. Telling me about the number of divisions is great, but knowing the number of troops and armor is fantastic.
Thanks for watching, John
Thank you very much for this video! I had commented on a video a couple months back if you were planning to do a special in Kursk. You had said that time constraints and budget wouldn't make that possible. I totally understand but thank you for this video!!! I really appreciate your efforts as it paints the grandiose of Kursk. Thank you so much for all you do.
Thank you Jay, we really appreciate your kind words of support
as a bit of a tank nut i have always really enjoyed reading/watching videos about kursk so looking forward to this coming episode
Thank you, stay tuned
Nice opening, I have a friend who fought in this battle, tank commander 2nd Panzer Division.
His 99th birthday is July 25th.
I'm glad you guys used Glantz and House's numbers on the battle. They are 2 of the very few Western historians who had access to the Soviet/Russian WW2 archives before Putin cut their access off to anyone who wasn't going to just only praise the Soviet forces. Every historian prior to Glantz and House has had to cover WW2 on the Eastern front just from the German sources. Which is really the primary cause of why the Eastern front was so neglected in the West for so long.
I still think it is crazy that Russia is the only country that keeps their records on WW2 as secret from the public. For the US you can access every single piece of WW2 info online at this point and I am pretty sure most of the other Western countries have uploaded all of their WW2 records online now at this point as well. And then at least China and Japan have the excuse that most of their WW2 records from during the war were destroyed. The CCP uses this to make it out that they did much more in WW2 then they actually did. When in reality it was Chang Kai-Shek's Nationalist forces that did most of the fighting in mainland China.
Goddamn Indy that is one tasty tie! A special piece for a special episode. 4.5/5
My relative missing in action in Kursk 1943. He was from guards rifle division, and from Kyrgyz SSR. This battle was a real hell
Thank you for sharing about him. May he rest in peace.
Thanks for doing this, guys. A lot of people seem to think this is "beneath them" or "not important" but for those of us interested in the units of the war, how they fought and where they fought, it's super interesting.
I certainly don't. But my interest is in a broad way not down to regiments and brigades. The breakdown given is just right for me but I am sure it might not be adequate for others. I am most interested in the strategic and operational levels and not tactical.
Thank you for watching
Why is there no weekly episode about ww2?
A master class in defence in depth and an All arms offensive/defensive operation..... there will be blood.
The largest tank battle in history, one one of the greatest battles on Earth has begun
Not the largest tank battle. Brody (Dubno) was the largest.
@@caryblack5985 Lol true, largest modern tank battle
My grandfather was killed at tomorovka on the 4th of July, one day before kickoff of Kursk, so probing and skirmishing was constant. He was in the 2nd fusilier of the GD, a recon unit.
curt Thank you for sharing about him. May he rest in peace.
Are we not getting a 'normal' update this week?
Those are such crazy numbers. Hard to imagine the scale of the forthcoming battle. Keep it up TimeGhost, awesome work as always :))
Thank you. We'll keep it up as long as you stay tuned
This would be an amazing series for a Time Ghost "Shorts" TH-cam Series. Each "short" would simply be each of Indy's Line of Battle descriptions for each section of the operational theatre. Love the series folks. No better coverage of the war than this. I wish I could work on this amazing project. My entire life I have loved learning history and longed to become a steward of mankind's pivotal moments as a historian such as you have done. It must be such a solemn honor for each of you to aid in the pristine preservation of this dark period in history! Your commitment to said preservation for the sake of mankind's collective memory is so deeply admirable and indeed your reverence for the more delicate topics of horror and human suffering both respectful and praiseworthy; especially Spartacus' handling of the gravity of the "WAH" series. I salute you and thank you for performing this sacred task.
Be good PR for a reputable university to give them Doctorates and professorships for this .
Thank you for your very generous praise. We could not do it without our amazing, thoughtful, loyal viewers like you in the TimeGhost Army. Please do stay tuned
The thing that never ceases to amaze me is the difference in production capacity of the axis and the allies/USSR, can't understand why is that way, manpower , different polices, wartime destruction?
Looking at a globe provides a clue. The three main Axis nations are tiny in area, although Germany and Japan are densely populated and industrialized, with Italy less so. On the Allied side, the British Empire is the largest in the world. The USSR is the largest single nation by land area. The USA and China occupy the next two spots. The USA has the world's largest economy, and the Axis nations cannot attack the US mainland in any significant way. Population sizes also favor the Allies. On the Allied side you have more people, more land area, and more economic output. The only real hope for an Axis victory is that the Allies tire of fighting and choose to quit.
As to why some nations are larger than other nations, in terms of land area, population, and/or economic output, people have debated about that for about as long as people have noticed that nations differ. The "how" questions tend to be more straightforward - the historical record tells us how countries got to be their current sizes.
Canada alone produced 4 times as many trucks as germany
@@danielmocsny5066 thanks for the exhaustive answer!
@@monicsperryn8497 And also produced and supplied tons of wheat which fed the allied armies.
Also take note that from 1928 soviet union is constantly increasing its heavy industry, sacrificing everything to become a massive industrial country. Also they are producing almost the same equipment from 1940 to this battle, with just minor changes, so production is incredibly optimized, I have once seen that production cost of a t34 decrease in three times from 1940 to 1945 for example. Germany, on the other hand, have just shifted focus to a total war of massive production in favor of anything else, they were producing plenty of different tanks from 1940 to 1943, with just pz3 and 4 and stugs being in production for a long time, also extreme centralization in soviet union helps to overcome factories' concurrention and make them to produce similar goods, while in Germany you have several companies producing their own staff, not the best items chosen by a government
Damn. Seeing these numbers, it's hard to imagine how the Nazis thought they could succeed with a frontal assault against these armies.
They didn't know of the Soviet numbers, they presumed the defense will be strong but not close to what expected them. Maskirovka was already a doctrine.
Well, it's their leader who thought the Soviet Union was a "rotten carcass." And to be fair, field commanders like Walter Model knew beforehand how futile this whole operation was going to be.
A tendency to under-estimate Soviet numbers and resources has been shown by them as far back as Barbarossa. The Germans had had setbacks, such as Moscow in December 1941 and the Stalingrad disaster, but may have been inclined to blame them on the winter conditions and they thought that an offensive at the height of summer would go well.
@@piarpeggio Manstein, too.
It is highly probable that the German High command was still under the delusion that they could somehow pull off the unlikely victory based on an erroneous belief that ultimately the Soviets were weaker, even if they had the numbers on their side, even after the destruction of 6th Army. This illusion, no doubt, was a hangover from the delirious early days of Barbarossa when 2 million men were captured and entire armies destroyed in weeks.
No new weekly episode today👀🥺?
I'm reminded when Lawrence Oliver called the Battle of El Alamein "a WW1 battle fought with WW2 weapons" Kursk feels like this on steroids.
God this was an amazing video, what will I do when this coverage of the war is over. You have been apart of my life since 2016 when your ww1 show was my favourite thing to watch in university
Thank you for watching all these years tom
When does the regular episode come out?
It's out now, there was a production delay.
Regular episode?
It was delayed, out now.
@@WorldWarTwo thank you guys so much episodes have been amazing
Yes, and what about Panthers, there were 200 tanks in "Panther brigade" at the south. I think it's crucial to note that the Germans prepared to surprise their enemies at that time, and not only with Panthers...)
You are very good at this.
This week is calm before the storm. This storm every one did know about. With just about all the details but it is still a storm. Sicily/Kursk. only time will tell. One a side note, could you do a episode about the Chaplains during the war. Something I think is often left out, like Germans Uriah Law and some of the efforts done by Chaplains during the Pacific campaign. Very heroic.
Half the soviet army is packed into the Kurst Salient. The whole point of the blitzkreig is to attack the enemy's weakest point. The germans forgot their own doctrine.
Zee German intelligence agency didn't have this inormation at the time as they definitely would have planned for a counteroffensive
Ok, can we talk about the map scale legend changing length with the zoom? That's clean as hell.
Thank you Carter. The maps team works their butts off.
Are they not adding a week by week episode this week?
It was delayed, now it's up.
Thanks to the whole WW2 team for doing a special episode about Kursk.
Thank you zoll z
The size and scope of the combatants on the Eastern front still boggle my mind. Divisions and Corp's are are thrown around like battalions and regiments, I doubt the world will ever see that many soldiers in the field ever again
I sure hope we don't.
The deployment for this campaign is awesome. Thank you for this well organized presentation.
Thank you for watching, Eleanor
Into the motherland
The German army march
In the Soviet Union summer 1943
Tanks line up in thousands as far the eye can see
Ready for the onslaught
Ready for the fight
Waiting for the axis to march into a trap
Mines are placed in darkness
In the cover of the night
Waiting to be triggered
When the time is right
Imminent invasion, imminent attack
Once the battle started
There's no turning back
The end of the third Reich draws near
It's time has come to an end
The end of an era is here
It's time to attack!
Into the motherland the German army march
Comrades stand side by side to stop the Nazi charge
Panzers on Russian soil a thunder in the east
One million men at war
Soviet wrath unleashed!
Fields of Prokhorovka
Where the heat of battle burned
Suffered heavy losses
And the tide of war was turned
Driving back the Germans
Fighting on four fronts
Hunt them out of Russia
Out of Soviet land
Reinforce the front line
Force the axis to retreat
Send in all the reserves
Securing their defeat
Soldiers of the Union
Broke the citadel
Ruins of an army
Axis rest in hell
Kursk and Husky all in the same week. You guys must be unbelievably busy ❤
I wish Indy would have gone into detail about the Kursk defenses and their checkerboard like layout. It's really interesting subject which will play a pivotal role in bring the panzers to a screeching halt. 😋
Where is the regular weekly episode ?
Gone, reduced to atoms
The battle of Kursk is looking like a practical implementation of a classic line:
"This is where an unstoppable force meets an immovable object."
Pretty much now we see what the Soviets have learned in the past 2 years.
I hope the new weekly episode helps to dispel some of the long-held Kursk myths, like the causes for the Ferdinand Panzerjaeger losses, and the stories of tank-ramming. Thanks for the deployment breakdown and look forward to your future work
Tank ramming was mostly because the T-34 had a terrible transmission that was difficult to quickly shift at the best of times, and frequently impossible if the tank was at all damaged.
@@coryhall7074 actually, they mostly just didn’t happen. :/
Thank you for watching, Maus
THAT was really the "Mother of all Battles."
How the hell, in two years, did the Soviets manage to come up with these huge numbers of men and material all the while battling the Germans???
It blows my mind.
The Soviet factories in 1941 were evacuated +2800 factories which were evacuated behind Moscow and to Siberia
The Soviet factories had damaged production numbers in 1941 and were recovering in 1942 but in 1943 the soviet factories were unimaginably efficient.
This is where the soviet factories started to basically start shitting equipment out in eye watering numbers
And so starts the 2nd of 3 months that changed the war in Europe.
1st, November 42. El Alamein + Uranus+ torch + mars.
2nd, July 43. Kursk and husky.
3rd, June 44. Overlord and bagration.
Yes, let's get nerdy with lots of details!
Even though HOI4 has been out for many years, I'm pretty new, and feel excited that I'm making "X" number of tanks, planes, etc...and then I see videos like this and wow, I'm not 1/10th of one army group of one side of this most epic of battles. Amazing...
Thanls for thinking of the deployment nerds.
That map greatly enhanced the explanation. Very good to understand the deployment and the forces involved.
Thank you, the maps team works hard every week
If attacking against a numerically superior enemy that has had plenty of time to dig in and prepare defenses doesn't work, what does? This violates a core principle of warfare - attack where the enemy is weak, not where he is strong.
You must remember, the idea for this operation came immediately after Manstein's 'Blow on the Backhand' at Kharkov. Everyone saw the utility, so they started planning; but over a month later... things have changed.
But you can't just throw away the results of weeks of the entire General Staff's psychic energies and start from scratch, when your enemy has had time to replenish and plan too.
@@emisat8970 Ironically, if they did throw it all away and managed to achieve Mars II Backhand Edition results once Soviets got around to their own offensive against Orel salient, Eastern Front could have lasted quite longer.
The question is what would it take - intelligence reporting massive Soviet numbers concentrated around Kursk could be easily discounted. Allies had no business launching Husky earlier. So, uh, "Hitler wakes up and tells his generals he changed his mind, Untergang style" seems to be the only solution. That or random, massive rains going on for weeks.
@@emisat8970 Sounds like sunk cost fallacy. If you think you're going to lose you most certainly can throw it away.
I love watching this content while i play Hell let loose.
Thank you for watching
Your work is exceptionnal, bringing loads of the most accurate information we can hope for, but constantly rememoring the lives and humanity of soldiers living this nightmare. Never forget
Thank you Léo. Never forget
The sheer number of men and equipment the Soviets are able to deploy compared to the Germans is absolutely insane. This may not be popular, but I can’t help but think they may have been able to achieve their objectives in the war as quickly as they did without a quite so staggering butchers bill.
During the first years of the war, the Soviet units simply weren´t equal to the German ones. Their training in any advanced military skills (map reading, heavy weapons etc.) was often very short or nonexistent. Their equipment, while numerous and of good quality on paper, often had glaring weaknesses that reduced their effectiveness. As an example, there was an extreme shortage of reliable radios for the Soviets. This was true for tanks, artillery crews, or even regular soldiers. As a result, the Soviets were often not capable of effective communication, so their huge numbers of men, stretched over vast open spaces, were very difficult to coordinate.
The result of all this was that the Soviet commanders were often forced to use brute force, simply because their units were not capable of anything else. This improved considerably later in the war, as the Soviets got more experienced. As for the losses, it was mainly the soldiers that were the problem. Much of the equipment lost in the early years of the war, especially tanks and planes, was obsolete anyway.
I mean... that's a little off base. You have to look at the wider picture. The Soviet Union started their war in a horrific place, halfway through a re-organization (which is why you had stuff like divisions with outmoded tank models, no gas and little ammunition, no radios etc); and forced to commit to constant attacks and counter-attacks just to slow the Germans down. Which due to the aforementioned issues (not least of all compromised radios even when they did have them) meant they went in piecemeal and uncoordinated. All this against a military at the peak of its powers.
Then you had the slaughterhouse at Stalingrad, where Chuikov was hanging on by his fingernails with little aircover; scant and sporadic reinforcements etc. Now finally, at Kursk, the entire operational plan is to let the Germans batter themselves to exhaustion *before* committing to a counterattack.
I could talk a little about Soviet doctrine focusing more on the operational and strategic spheres than the tactical one, also, but there's no need. The loss of life wasn't pretty, but, it had to be done. And I can't think of a finer testament to the quality of the Red Army's rankers and officers that they built one of the greatest military machines in history from such a poor start.
@@emisat8970 But when you look at the losses both sides took at Kursk it was staggering. The Germans lost around 200,000 men, while the Russians lost somewhere between 700,000 and 1,000,000!
Even today the Russians probably don't know how many men they lost at Kursk. I watched a documentary featuring Russian teens searching for the mass graves all around Kursk, about 10 or 15 years back, and the Russian government would not even help them find where the graves were located. The conclusion the Russian teens and young twenty-somethings reached was that their government did not want anyone to find out the true total. They were afraid that the country would not be able to cope with how costly it had been and how bad the leadership of Stalin & Co. was. 🤷♂😮😥
The Germans who could do math, and knew the losses, concluded _that_ was _it_ for the Nazis. They simply could not take losses like that and win the war. They remained on their heels all the way back to Berlin.
The Russians _could_ take those kind of losses but it hurt them dearly! To this very day they are suffering for it. After WW2 Russians only had about 1.6 children per couple, which is far below the 2.1 replacement ratio needed simply to maintain their population. Today, with them fighting in Ukraine, the number of children being born to couples is no better--eighty years later! Putin sees himself with his back against the wall and figures if he does not take back the land routes from the West into Russia proper right now, he will never be able to do it because the demographics dictate that in another five years or so they will simply not have enough young men to fight a war of expansion. Kursk and WW2 are still hindering Russia to this day! It is too bad Putin won't dummy up and decide to get along with his neighbours and put the mafioso style leadership the Russians have traditionally enjoyed behind them.
@@aleksazunjic9672 no things dont get even at all…
Kursk was an unbelievable slaughter of ill prepared, badly trained, stupidly equipped (massive waves of T-34 that were not effective anymore until the upgrade to the t-34 85 with little other support) soviet troops.
The Germans couldnt win but the soviet losses were as staggering as in 1941.
The absolute horrific costs in life of 43 finally triggered a lot of changes in the soviet army again and brought much better tanks, better doctrine and some regards for the lives of the troops leading to the large successes in 44.
Thank God they started the war so dismally. Otherwise the Russians would have claimed all of Germany and perhaps some of the western countries as well.
The lands "liberated" by Stalin and added to his empire had a disastrous 45 years ahead.
the Soviets also have over 1,000,000 mines and the intel from the British about when and where and generally at what strength the Germans will attack - courtesy of the broken enigma codes
Indy is a history beast!!
Indy: "All we know for certain looking at these deployments today, is there will be 10's of thousands of dead soldiers on both sides" ... (Deja Vu to "The Great War" series)
Will Battle of Prokhorovka have its own special?
The channel said that they would not do an entire special for any specific battle. I think they try to cover the war in a much broader scale and leave battles for regular episodes.
No, because Prokhorovkha is a sham, hyped up out of all proportion by the memoirs of the Soviet officer (Rotsmistrov iirc) who lost his entire command due to his poor handling. If you want a grand tank battle on the Eastern Front, look into the Battle of Dubno.
I can still see from the shadow of the He.177 that the starboard engine is lost.
Bring on more bloopers to those are always fun entertaining and hilarious
Holy smoke, some insane numbers
What happened to your weekly show? Just a deployment episode? There is the Sicily Invasion, the huge Kursk offensive , the campaign in New Georgia in the Solomons and action in Burma!
For what it's worth, in reading Christer Bergström's Black Cross+*Red Star Vol. 5, in preparation for your take on Kursk, I offer a few things of possible interest:
* In April, the VVS struck Luftwaffe Ost airfields and destroyed a significant number of recon airplanes. The Germans began to switch from recon planes to re-purposed Bf-109s and Bf-110s but lost 29 in May and 54 in June severely reducing a key element which had always featured prominently prior to German ground assaults.
* In early June, OKL launched operation Carmen, a massed air assault on the marshaling yards at Kursk. The Luftwaffe took heavy losses from this attack and afterwards never made a large air assault during daylight on the eastern front. As a consequence, Zitadelle was not preceded with large scale attacks on VVS airfields.
* In sharp contrast to the previous two years, Soviet air recon in the Kursk area was extensive, 6000 sorties in the weeks leading up to Zitadelle.
* In the belief that German attack at Kursk was imminent, the VVS launched a preemptive strike in early May against Luftwaffe airfields but took significant losses for little gain. Another attempt at these airfields in early June also took heavy losses, possibly in part because some forward Soviet fighter airfields became unusable because of rain.
* Soviet air and partisan attacks against supply railway targets caused delays and destroyed locomotives, not enough to stop Zitadelle from launching, but causing a tension of fuel between panzers and aircraft resulting in not all Luftwaffe support requests from ground troops being fulfilled.
* Finally, an interesting note is that the Germans concentrated tanks and aircraft at Kursk comparable to what they had at the beginning of Barbarossa but on a front 1/8th as long.
Thanks Steve, very intersting.
Whose here after the 2024 Battle of Kursk?
Excellent overview and visualization. Makes everything much clearer
👍👍🏻👍 for the smart move to cover the deployments before the weekly news even though I had been waiting for that episode yesterday not being aware being postponed to today.
Now I got both of them but I can only give 👍👍🏻👍
Thank you for watching
Its finally here. The Ostheer's last major offensive in the east...been waiting for this!
That the Germans were able to make any progress at all against such a superior defender speaks to their professional levels of training. The fact that they tried, though, speaks to the critical intransigence of the little corporal. It had no chance of success. The German intelligence failures were constant throughout the war predicting the end of Soviet manpower reserves.
Yeah, my question is: what kind of numbers did the Germans THINK the Soviets had to field against them?
Actually the Soviets were pretty depleted in manpower by the time the Battle of Berlin ended. At least as far as more reserves to draw on. Didn't do the German's much good though.
Superior defender? How were the soviets superior ?
Sounds like this Citadel thing might actually be of importance.
Stay tuned to find out
Deployment enthusiasts have never been deployed or they wouldn't be enthusiastic.
Thanks, as always, for the outstanding information. I appreciate all the research and presentations of the research.
Thank you Joe. We appreciate your kind words
Usually one wants to have a 3-1 advantage in troop deployments against fortified positions ,may vary for less altitudes, though 1-3 odds are somehow preposterous in attacking ? unless you actually believe that your flesh -bone-metal is different than your opponent ,Madness!. Though the SS Pnzer Korps will perform with great elan and zeal,with ,a relentless pursuit,and excessive will and unbounded courage,though at the end of the day will tell themselves in a quiet moment murmuring softly ''Das ist Wahnsinn''
Good stuff Indy. Thank you!
Thank you Viking friend
Looking forward to seeing Operation Husky kick off. 😀
Also looking forward to seeing it mess with Hitler's plans for Citadel.
Excellent video
Brilliant knowledge and research
Thank you Beach Boy. Great having so many familiar names in the comments every week
Thanks for the pre battle situation Indy. Great work.
great video
Thank you Lewis
There may be a lot of relatively 'dry' statistics in this video, but we must take the time to absorb them.
I contend that Kursk was the largest ground battle in history, in number of committed assets from both sides. I'm discounting operations like the invasion of Okinawa, which was huge, but had a very large number of naval forces involved. That is my informed contention. I think this video backed my conclusion.
SPOILER -- Patton had 90,000 troops under his command during operation Husky. At the height of the 3rd Army, Patton had about 240,000 men under his command. China has about 1,000,000 personnel in ground forces [ true numbers are impossible to obtain, because, well - China ]. I put these numbers out there to indicate the incredible forces that opposed each other during this pivotal and game-changing battle.
So...I await the detailed description of this battle with bated breath, even though, being history, I already know how it turns out. But the details from the WWII channel videos will be remarkably detailed, and amazingly accurate, as they always are. I'm looking forward to them.
I would look into Bagration. I think there were larger numbers
Bagration was a big “nothing” as a battle**, though. This is much more interesting. I’m restraining myself from refreshing my memory - I KNOW this battle, but happily I’m old enough I’ll forget the details after a few years. (Also, every few years they uncover new Soviet material, so the battle “changes” lol)
** - Bagration: there wasn’t much on the German side. Not much more than the integral AT complement of type ‘44 Inf divisions for armor, 40 functional fighters in Luftflotte 6, etc. all spread out on a 1,000 mile front. Kursk is high intensity combat, like Normandy.
@@randallturner9094 Everybody has his own favorites. Bagration is very interesting to me.
Thank you for watching as always. Much more to come
Operation Zitadelle is such sheer folly. The attackers are badly outnumbered and the defenders not only have the numbers, but they're very well entrenched. As for the idea of this style of battle not what the German army is built for, that was already given up with the assault on Stalingrad.
Also against the Germans is that the Red Army had gotten smarter compared to their debacles earlier, particularly the start of Barbarossa. This is June 1943. The Red Army has learned its lessons and they have more competent commanders now. Even when you look at the names involved for leaders in Operation Uranus to surround Sixth Army at Stalingrad, those dudes would be the eventual big name leaders of the army at war's end. Here for Kursk in 1943, lots of familiar names if one takes sneak peaks in 1945.
A stronger, better built, better supported Red Army led by more competent officers, coupled with an air force that the Luftwaffe can no longer bully, being on the defense with plenty of time to prepare. This was never going to end well for the Germans.
And off into the Mediterranean Theater, the Western Allies will soon make it far worse when the party out East is at its height.
9 out of 10 doctors are sponsored by The Time Ghost Army
Excellent stuff bro
Thank you Clarence