We are currently working on a translation of the Sturmgewehr 44 Assault Platoon Tactics Manual from November 1944. For more information check out the campaign page: Get your copy here: igg.me/at/sturmzug
@@tedarcher9120 no, this would take around 2-4 hours per video at least. Even adding just the regular English subtitles - which I have as a complete script - takes around 15 minutes.
I disagree with you on much of what you say of the war on the Easter front. I am a Soviet immigrant living in the US since ‘88, have an East German stamp on my passport! Lol. I am a an Amateur Historian who has put 25 years into the study of history. Primarily European military history as a core field, and branching out to any and all necessary field of knowledge. An economist and political scientist by training. I served 4 years in the US Army SF before moving to work as a federal civilian in the Defense Department. I want you to know your doing great work. Between me and you. Thumbs ups buddy. Keep up the good work. From a Russian to a German. 👍
Solid logic, yet a weapon does not need to be efficient in the act of directly killing for it to be efficient in other means. Also if the threat was indeed so prominent (finding repeated success) from said weapon there would be firsthand and secondhand sources to support it.
There was a US soldier who escaped a POW camp and ended up fighting with a Soviet unit, and he did remark that Soviet soldiers would cheer when Katyushas were deployed, and wpuld frequently ask for Katyushas.
@@JacatackLP I can't remember the guys name but I have heard the story of that soldier as well. He was stuck in the Soviet Union and getting him home or even communicating the situation of one enlisted man was not a high priority for the Russians. Apparently he figured that killing Germans was killing Germans and actually joined the Soviet army some how and fought with them for some time and was even decorated for his actions in combat. Found it! Look up, The Screaming Eagle that fought with the Soviets.
It is said that the majority of casualties from the artillery come in first 30 seconds of the barrage, until the infantry has hidden or taken cover. Katyusha has a major advantage over barreled artillery in this regard, scince it can saturate an area with a big amount of explosives very quickly.
Artillery never operates below battery strength though, and time on target fire patterns were known in ww2. Katyushas advantage is that with a small number relatively cheap platforms it can simulate the effects of a regimental bombardment, at peast in terms of morale, if not accuracy range or destructive power, which is a tremendous tactical asset. A commander can seldom afford to have all seventy odd guns of his divisional artillery nuke one gridsquare, but a battery or two of katyushas can probably be spared for the porpouse, even if afterwards they will be reloading for half an hour.
@@ineednochannelyoutube5384 Even with time on target barreled artillery cannot achieve the level of initial destruction inflicted by MLRS. The advantage of the Barreled artillery is its penetrating power and ability to destroy enemy fortifications and defence structures.
@@ineednochannelyoutube5384 Actually that reminded me of an RFC trivia, during the WWI RFC observing planes had almost a literal nuke option in form of Zone Call, that meant that if called for, every single gun in range of the target would drop whatever it was they were doing and fire on a target, which could mean hundreds of guns (I have read about one crew getting court-martialed for calling Zone on an AA battery that scared them, if by chance anyone knows more about that, please let me know.
And the only reason to maintain barrages, especially without airburst fuses for longer than 30seconds is to allow flanking movements around supressed enemy positions. Such supresssion barrages usually combines smoke shells with airburst HE.
Two seemingly contradicting statements by veterans can easily both be true because theaters of war are rapidly evolving environments. During the 2010 surge in Afghanistan, a lot of unit which had previously been doing rotations to Iraq were sent because far more troops had previously been sent to Iraq and the mechanized and armored units were sent there, while the light infantry formations were sent to Afghanistan. These units suffered higher casualties than units which had done multiple rotations to Afghanistan already because having met with some success in Iraq, they were expecting a similar situation that turned out to be totally different. Even troops who had been to Afghanistan before were in for a rude awakening if they expected the situation to be similar to what they encountered previously. This applies locally as well. The tactical situation on the south bank of the Arghandab river was different from the tactical situation on the north bank because of the extensive coverage of pomegranate orchards in Arghandab district in particular. If you went to a new location, the soldiers in that area had to brief you on the tactics being employed against them there. Sharing information and adopting lessons learned in real time in order to adapt was critical. The moment you think you've mastered everything there is to know about warfare, you're done for. So a soldier in one place and time not prioritizing Katyusha rockets as a serious threat was probably right, and a soldier in another place and time prioritizing them as a threat was probably also right.
Perfect comment. Warfare is the most complex practice humans have ever engaged in, and people making generalisations about weapons often forget that context is usually the dominant factor in a weapons success, not some inherent strength. All you can do is look at case studies and evaluate them for what they are. Generalisations are doomed to fail.
@@ram2791 That's a useful expression but it isn't realistic either. If a plan is simple, competently executed and based on specific goals with enough leeway for local commanders to adapt to the situation, plans often survive contact with the enemy. They survive contact with the enemy so often that armed forces create battle drills, tactical standard operating procedures and doctrines that allow them to consistently apply the same principles to combat for extended periods of time. If a plan relies on a number of specific conditions being met at multiple stages, well yeah that plan is screwed.
My grandfather, who served in WW2 as a German infantry soldier, didn't talk much about his war experiences. The only weapons he mentioned were the katyusha and the acht-acht which meant the 88mm anti-aircraft gun. Those seem to have left a permanent impression on his mind.
@Henning Malland Seeing how many millions of german soldiers were willing to commit war crimes, and crimes against humanity (particularly extermination of other nations), rating these scum as nazis is essentially 95% right. If you were in the army in 39 or 40, there is almost 100% chance said soldier was enthusiastic nazi or fascist at least. The myth of "good army" and "I was just a cook/followed orders/blind and deaf" is one of the vilest lies in history of humanity and it's sad to see some people bought it...
@@KuK137 Could you please give a number to those vague description of those many millions of german soldiers willing to commit war crimes? At last I would like to see a solid estimation about this numbers on the fundation of facts.
It's alright saying 'it's not very accurate it's not too scary' but when you're being fired at by a dozen of these bloody things and you're under the rockets you ARE going to be terrified.
Awesome interdiction weapon. Keeps the enemy soldiers in the area passive for a while. I wouldn't want to get out of my little hole when that shit comes raining down, even if it rarely hit anyone.
The effect of weapons on morale is hard to measure accurately, and in a concrete fashion, which I guess is a large part of disputes about the effectivness of the early mlrs sytems.
@ We have body and helmet cams nowadays, and reactions of certainly trained soldiers to whistle of passing rocket grenade, suggest that they don't really care how inaccurate it is. Also, the way of modern infantry combat is not to kill them in head-on combat, but to pin them down and blow them up with whatever explosives you have available, be it 40mm grenade, 81mm mortar, or laser-guided bomb. Always cheat, always win. If you have 2 groups infantry facing each other in a showdown, something already went terribly wrong, because no competent commander would send his men to equal fight.
@ In WW1, if you took your time in your MG position to hit soldiers accurately, your trench is most likely overrun. And while snipers did demoralize troops, they weren't in the scale to impact much of the battle. Yeah, no way could this be simplistic, while it's stereotypical to think mass scale troops to just spray and pray. And if it was based on accuracy alone. Why did the Korean war end up like it was?
@ Not only are infantry small arms not a good comparison because of their lack of explosive effect, but you are also forgetting that ww2 was fought by conscript armies.
Considering the fact that the Soviets were able to halt numerous Wehrmacht advances by pinning them down with rapid rocket fire I’d say the Katyushas served their purpose pretty well.
Considering the fact that it took the Soviets about four years to take back the land the Germans stole in five months (while being attacked from everywhere at the same time), and historians boil in anger each time they hear this simple fact, I'd say it's pretty accurate to assume that in a couple decades, everyone will agree that WWII lasted for 2 months: the time it took Hitler to ride on horseback to Moscow, to get punched in the face by Stalin dressed as Superman. Or one of the Power Rangers, who knows, historians surprise us every day with something new. Oh and Hiltler's horse broke down every 30km, because it was badly designed and overengineered. /shrug.
@@hansvonmannschaft9062 Sounds like you're upset with the fact that the german military was filled with prissy prussians that had no idea how to handle logistics and maintenance.
@@smarterthanyoure You just made my point. Not only horses broke down every 30km, but also the German military was apparently filled with prissy prussians that didn't know how to handle logistics and maintenance. Yet the war lasted for over five years, the World, vs one Country that had bad military leadership, bad management, bad equipment, needed *five* years to defeat it. Now, did you get the irony in the first message, or did it go r/woooosh once again?
@@smarterthanyoure Just three lines're too long to read? Wow, I suppose it wouldn't be too far-fetched to presume you're a highschool dropout. And you also jumping to insults, the last resort of the mentally impotent, that's sad. Now I understand why you brought up the "crying" part. Don't worry, I don't care anyway. You're just another internet troll.
So essentially what the katiushia does it that it allows a relatively small and mobile unit of maybe 3-5 large calibre launchers to almost instantly lay down a barrage that is more or less equal in momentary volume of fire to the output of the heavy artillery of an entire division, or perhaps even army group/corps/front. And then they have to spend like an hour reloading. Yea I can see how that could give very different impressions depending on the situation. For well dug in and fortified troops it's probably slightly preferable to regular artillery, given the lack of both ground-penetration and air-burst. The likelihood that it will not be a sustained barrage probably helps it seem less scary as well. For soft troops advancing in the open though...... Yea, that's another matter, since every single rifle regiment could now potentially be capable of a momentary volume of supporting artillery fire that normally only comes with much bigger concentrations of troops. An infantry company advancing across a field that is suddenly caught in a torrential rain of large-calibre rockets will likely not forget that experience in a hurry.
Ok, so perhaps not just 3-5 to match a whole division of regular artillery, but certainly you would need only a fraction of the number of katiushas to achieve the same momentary volume as with regular guns
Divisional artillery strength varied wildly between nations, but it usually meant 50-100 tubes of 3-6", with rates of fire measired in seconds rather than minutes. The thing is, you will almost never get the whole artiplery regiment, and regimental heavy mortar batteries to all shoot at the same thing.
There is a trade-off in the system. In small numbers, its very mobile and can lay down heavy fire briefly. But its an inaccurate system and most effective against targets in the open. The inaccuracy and reload time can be mitigated by concentration of launchers & its use as an area fire weapon. But if its used in that way, its mobility advantages go away and the system becomes somewhat easy to attack with counter-battery fire. The nature of the rockets and the density of the fire makes it somewhat easy to do counter-battery fire if the launchers don't move.
@@Jim-Tuner On the contrary. You will never shoot more than one volley out of a rocketlauncher, without repositioning, exactly because it is a lot easier to move.
@@IVscythia They are also cheaper and easier to manufacture than cannons since essentially any truck/car/tractor factory can become a katyusha factory overnight, plus you can convert existing vehicles into them in any tool shop as long as there's a competent welder around. Cannon barrels need to be well made with decent enough quality so they don't explode in your hands, but the katyusha is just a frame in which to hold the rockets, you can even use railway tracks if you have some spare around. Same with their rockets, they're easier and cheaper to make compared to artillery shells. The katyushas allowed divisions that couldn't be supplied with standard artillery in enough quantities in time to at least have some form of artillery support
My granny (15 or 16 in 1944) during war moved from city to a country side with her older sister. Their house for a while happened to be exactly between Germans and Soviets, so she saw those rockers flying over her head from beyond forest and disappearing behind forest to the West, to her it looked like those things threw fire, she had no idea those were actually missiles. Anyway, when going to a field to milk cows, girls took two buckets with them - one for milk, the other as improvised helmet (like that would help!) Besides soldiers from both sides sometimes appeared at their house, sort of patrols, luckily, Germans never met Russians or vice versa. And when asked, if they had seen Germans/Russians, locals always denied they had. XD Soldiers of both sides were quite polite and never took anything by force. Except once one German took a straw hat, that's it.
@@markomarjanovic7643 Latvia, Latgale region. Except, here in Latvia it's mostly separate farms, not villages like in neighbouring Russia. I don't know the exact spot, as I've never been to that grannies family house, but I've spent many summers in grand-grandfathers farm, which is also in Latgale near Daugavpils. In Latgale (South-East of Latvia, next to Russia, Belarus and Lithuania) there are villages too, but those mostly belong to Russian Old Believers, who fled Russia in 18th century, due to religious persecution, and found refuge here.
Unfortunately Soviet post war propaganda liked the west to believe in the myth of overwhelming superiority of the Red army and it's weapons systems, when in reality most Soviet equipment was at best mediocre except in quantity. Fire enough shells you'll hit something eventually. Dies that make it an effective weapon? UN conscript forces in Korea had no trouble despatching Soviet made weapons used by the North Koreans and Chinese Communists, with US made WW2 era technology.
@@wasilijsaizev1 to be fair, there really was no chance of a South Korean victory. If the Americans and their allies started to reach the Chinese border (again) then China would just fight even harder until their border was secure from the foreign threat. I don't really know who had the number advantage though.
Yes. The whole point of MRL's is to saturate an area with fire in a short amount of time - to do that - you need a LOT of them. One additional effect of large scale bombardments is their effect on communications. Especially during WWII - there was a lot of Comm Wire used - and - given the way this was strung - it was vulnerable. At Corregidor, Wake Island and Tarawa one of the major effects of the pre-landing bombardments - and subsequent combat was the loss of communications and the resultant inability of the defenders to respond effectively. .
My grandfather, 42-45 in the foremoste line on the eastern front, experienced several times katyusha fire. He described it as the most terrifying experience during the war.
My grandmother was 8 years old child living in Ukraine when Germans attacked Soviet union. She had a lot of memories about the war time. One story was from the time when direction of German army changed for 180 degree and Wermacht was retreating back with occasional counterattacks here and there. Grandma's house was placed on a village "high street" which was going through village all along from bottom up to the hill. A couple of times during the war Grandma seen the street packed by Katyusha trucks patiently waiting up to the hill for the right time to rid of the deadly load. Up full / down empty when Germans started counterattack and were pushing Red army back really hard and situation begun desperate , then Night turned to day she said and then Germans always gave up she said... The following day everyone looked tired due to the terrible scary noise and impossibility to fall asleep she said. Many stories she remembered , such a impact it had on child's mind.
My granddad was operating one of those from 1941 till 1945 including war against Japan. Also i must say that any missile launch system is more uncomfortable to be under fire due to its having multiple explosions following one after another in a very quick succession.
My grand uncle Boris was a katyusha gunner, helped push the Nazis out of Ukraine all the way to Austria from 1942-1944 and then his regiment got transferred to Manchuria to fight the Kwangtung Army. Maybe they knew each other.
@@vladtheinhaler1450 Maybe yes but my grandad was never in Austria. He been to Konigsberg though. After that they were transferred to Macnchuria afair 36th divison it was.
A great example is the HBO "docu-series" Band of Brothers. For example, PFC Blithe was stated to have died of his wounds in 1948 when he actually died in 1967 from a perforated ulcer. Major Winters had stated he was disappointed with the way some of the events had been portrayed. Memoirs can be problematic since they can be a way of "polishing" a reputation and/or they can be filled with honest memory errors.
The other great problem talking to veterans is they often didn't really understand the bigger picture around them. There are likely many who will (for example) mentally translate every artillery barrage they encountered into a "Katyusha attack". And if you start asking veterans about something, its easy to feed them detail which they then feed right back to the interviewer. TV and movies also can over time distort peoples memories of what happened to them.
I get your point, but Band Of Brothers is *not* a "docu-series", it's a regular TV show adapted from a book based indeed on subjective memoirs, but it tried its hardest to find a balance between good storytelling and historical accuracy. One should never treat a dramatization like this, as well intended as it may be, as truth.
@@Phoenix-xn3sf What you say is true to a point, but the producers and Ambrose himself greatly encouraged the idea that the series was "truth". That opposed to other presentations of the war, somehow it was more true. They advertised it from the very beginning as "the true story of easy company.". Then there was the use of the living veterans to reinforce that point further. It did a great deal of harm (in my opinion) in replacing the real history of the war with a Steven Spielberg disney-fied overproduced fantasy version of the war. Alot of what the producers were reaching for in that series was a throwback to the presentation style of the wartime films of the 1940s with massively bigger budgets. And those who at the time called it out for doing what it was doing were constantly attacked for "disrespecting the veterans" or hating US soldiers. Yes, it was a dramatization and a drama should be cut a great deal of slack. But a great many people collectively tried at the time to present it as something other than a drama and truthfully they got away with it completely.
Katyushas aren't terrifying because they're accurate, nor because they're powerful. They're terrifying because they can cover nearly an entire grid square within a few seconds and be gone before counter-battery operations can take place. If you're already in a fox hole or bunker, you'll be fine if not a little shaken. But if you're a poor sap who's out and about with no cover, you will likely never wish to find yourself farther than a few meters from a hole at any given time. Katyushas also had the unique capability of being able to use most any stable platform as a base. And with materials such as railroad rails and rockets usually being cheaper and easier to produce than a singe heavy artillery gun and mount assembly, Katyushas could be quite literally built in a day.
im just imagining hans walking off to nearby woods to take a piss and suddenly the entire place just lit up. hans' definitely not going to forget that experience anytime soon
The you reasons you gave for the K to be terrifying was that their accurate and powerful (while saying it wasn't becaz they're accurate and powerful)......
True true, people like ascribing qualities to weapons that their designers never did. Ty hey we're meant to saturate an area not takeout Jerry's helmet
There's a documentary series about the 2nd Hungarian Army that was deployed (and mostly lost) around Voronezh. One survivor recalled a Katyusha attack that caught them on the move on the side of a hill. His men started digging holes in the frozen ground using their bare hands until their nails fell off and some's hair got grey during the barrage.
Documentaries are almost always done by journalists who want to pretend to be historians; credentialed historians don't do documentaries, though they are often inaccurately cited in them. This was the view of my university history department, and as a history major, I certainly agreed with the view.
If you only knew. Katyusha meaning kate, Katie, or Katharine. That is the one that got away for me. Katharine was the best woman I have ever met. But sorry to bug you with my dad memories. But at least you have a love for history. Take care man.
@@Circa88 not necessarily it’s more a ‘using the technically correct name instead of the more common name for two separate things’ or whatever Besides Katyusha is mini Stalin and Stalin is not lovely
When I was 16 I was on a reciving end of these Weapon a 107 or 122mm that the Hezbollah has. At first I didn't care much because I was a stupid kid who felt invincible, I could hear how they drop in cities nearby (a series of about 4 or 5 booms) and somtimes the Apartment would shake but it didn't scare me that much. One day a volley landed about 2Km from our aparment and it sounded like a Train falling from the sky and exploading, My heart fall to my pants and I thought it must have fallen on me or just side. Nearly crapped my Pants.
@@jurisprudens Israel, 2006 (second lebanon war) Their range was at the time up to Haifa - some 40 km from the border. I was 8 and not a northerner, so I don't have any memories of that war myself.
It's often underestimated, especially if your life used to be peaceful up to that moment. I witnessed a small explosion (accident, was supposed to be a giant sparkling fountain, more like a flashbang with no real fragmentation) and its effect was surprising. First many of us saw stars and then everyone looked to the guy closest to the explosion as if demanding answers, then they looked at each other and without a word said we all walked out of the hall as if punch drunk and our ears were still ringing... I can't remember anyone besides me who purposefully checked for injuries. If that metal pipe had been ripped apart, I bet bleeding people would have walked out without attempting to treat the wounds. It was as if it had switched off any capacity for higher thinking...
A bit of a survival effect as well. The men of the Wehrmacht best qualified to speak to the effectiveness of the Katyushas were unavailable to interviewers.
Military History, you are a great historian and you produce a lot of quotable material. It is the highest academical respect which I can think of when speaking of someone's work.
As it was so good from 1943 Katyusha launchers standard truck mount was the Studebaker 6X6 2.5ton US6k. Previous truck mountings had used various Soviet, Canadian, British and US trucks.
As for morale, I heard that Soviet commanders where often asking IL2's to do some more attacks on enemy positions even when they used all their bombs/rockets and ammo, just to scare enemy. Since they did it regularly, probably it worked well.
Yourself, Tik & History Hustle are my most favourite TH-cam channels. Nothing better to come home from a long days work and watch quality short videos of different aspects and views on WW2. Great stuff!!!
If you watch the captions at 1:43 they are supposed to say "crowd funding" but the caption apparently picked up a German accent and instead says "Krautfunding." Perhaps just as accurate, but definitely not politically correct.
I could see that cause it's pretty hard to be scared of a nuke instantly vaporizing you especially when you don't expect a weapon of that magnitude and considering it had just been developed
I think that the Katyusha psychological effect of its sound must be something alike the Stukas siren mounted on their wings. You know you about to blow when you hear its sound.
That was a good one. Thanks for the summary, this answered many questions for me. Maybe a more detailed look on the briefly mentioned rocket upgrade would have clarified things even more.
When my Grandfather was still alive he told me about an occasion in which he as a Luftwaffe Beobachter was as an outpost in the crown of a large Tree while a single Katjusha Rocket hit the sandy soil just 5 meters beneath "his" Tree without detonating.
One thing to remember is it could take up to an hour to reload the Katyusha. That means that you get one big barrage, and that's it. Gun artillery can usually fire several rounds per minute. So one massive bombardment, or sustained bombardment of lesser intensity. They both have their merits.
I worked with a really nice South African guy who'd been in Angola in the 70's during the war. He told me a few stories of his time there and one was getting shelled by Cuban BM21 batteries. The BM21 is one of the modern versions of the WW2 Katyushas. Unfortunately at that time due the embargoes against South Africa they didn't have any artillery that had the range for counter battery so they got hit very hard.
Lindyberg has a great video about artillery and bombardment where he goes through some of the data and finds that in actuality all forms of massed bombardment aren't that lethal. However, what they do provide according to the data is suppression and annihilation of enemy entrenchment, breaking of attacks, etc. He also notes that soldiers who are subjected to heavy bombardment are far more likely to surrender when confronted in an attack and act hesitantly in combat.
Princeofcups Poc Or maybe claimed Barbarossa would have been successful if only it had been done by the British because obviously they fought in the winter at some point so that makes them the best military for winter operations. smh The man doesn't "believe" in man made climate change. How could anyone even listen this guy on anything requiring scientific research?
My grandfather, who was wounded six times, was wounded at least once in Budapest by Katyusha. To this day, he carries a shard in his hip. He is 95 now.
Apple trees and pear trees were a flower River mist was rising all around. Young Katyusha went strolling by the hour On the steep banks, O’er the rocky ground.
I could imagine being in a pocket ,cut off or in static front , nowhere to hide or go and those things howling away ,demoralising would be an understatement.
Rocket artillery is pretty fascinating. Myth Busters recreated an ancient Chinese arrow launcher on their tv program. Also, famous actor David Niven wrote in one of his books that he'd never have joined the British Army if he had known about Nebelwerfers.
I read a quote once that came from a 19th century general being asked by a historian why accounts were so different between combatants in the same battle. I can't recall the quote exactly years later (there's a clue) but in effect he said, Imagine all the participants at an event in a grand ballroom. Everyone there had a different experience. No one saw everything at once and everyone probably remembers only what happened to them. Wish I could remember who said it!
This on the northern finland front, on many cases veterans of the finland army in the continution war, (1944) reported the katjushka rockets failed to explode, the "rings" that were supposed to blow did not, causing significantly minor damage.. a case of failed ammunition casing on russian munition
My late father in law, who fought in the Finnish army in ww2, first along with the Germans and later against them.He told the Katyushas only had a psychological effect. But later when they where driving the Germans out of the country, the precision of the German artillery put them in deep shit.
Good work as always! though you might want to consider moving the teleprompter and camera further as to make your eye scanning less noticeable, other than that I'm liking the new format.
Do visualised history please, I've got sick with bb (baldy beard) since...... 🤔......., 1978(ish) the visualised part is what made your vids so much more enjoyable 😉..., and (more important) more memorable. Greetings (and awaiting those awesome animations) bibia
Deliver high volume of fire in a short amount of time in exchange of sustained fire capabilities? Seems excellent offensive weapons to me. In fact thats how I use them in MOW, bombard an area just before beginning the assault
My greatgramps drove a munition truck basically from the start of the war in june 41 till mid 43 and I recall him saying that Katiushas packed a punch and that supply routes for Katiushas were the most dangerous. Luftwaffe would target their trucks more often when they'd run Katiusha resupply routes.
My grandpa once mentioned that they were shot at by Katjusha in the Festung Schneidemühl in Spring 1945 at the Eastern Front. His uniform was burning but he could put it out and had only some minor scars.
One of the major problems of the Red Army in the first half of the war was the lack of proper powerful explosives and nitroglycerine gunpowder. That affected hugely armament in general and Katusha in particular because it needed for its proper functioning those materials which were in such scarcity at the beginning of the war. Hence "surrogate" rockets with inadequate propellant and explosive which would shoot imprecise and explode weakly.
As my British plumber said: Everybody is doing the propaganda. You can understand it when it’s a war. But Americans have not stopped when the war was over.
I suppose in this sense you could consider it to be the LMG of artillery. It CAN be effective for point targets, but largely its capabilities are about: Ammo down range/suppression/halting advance/Killing morale
When people see conflicting reports by survivors, they often think at least one of them was lying. But why? the front lines were HUGE. A soldier fighting in one location might have had completely different experiences from another soldier fighting 50 km away on a different part of the front.
Or even on the same patch of ground, I would be crapping myself, while my fellow soldier 5 metres away might just shrug his shoulders and get on with it. Everyone handles/reacts to a situation in their own way.
One possible reason for massive use of rocket artillery by both sides on the eastern front is that originally it could be developed to carry chemical weapons, so they were produced in numbers but never used as originally intended.
Soviets were not able to produce a lot of ammo for Katyushas because they didn't have enough explosive materials especially for rockets in the beginning of war. Later they were supplied by lendlease, and the effectiveness massively increased.
Katyusha Oh you song! Little song of a maiden, Head for the bright sun. And reach for the soldier on the far-away border Along with greetings from Katyusha.
The German veterans I talked in my childhood mostly said, the Stalin-Orgel was terrifying not least for the noise that accompanied the multiple inpacts around one.
A big effect is probably whether or not the soldier that experiences being shot at by a Katyusha is used to it - for a green recruit it is probably a terrifying experience to have seemingly everything around you explode. A veteran will know what once you jump into a hole, you are fairly safe.
One thing i have learned from reading rather a lot of history is that people are all different. Soldiers memoirs can be from a field grade officer of a veteran formation or a private with a month in combat. Professional soldiers and activated reservists have much different perceptions of any given situation than a draftee. Even the individuals psychology is different from person to person. Look at the current pandemic for example. Some people are extremely concerned or unnerved over the random and invisible threat of the WuHan virus while others take it as just another thing in a dangerous world that is not worth worrying about. People are unique in small ways psychologically and in larger ways experientially. In any case a nicely done and very compact bit of history.
on the subject of veterans testimony , it should be pointed out that they are testimonies of survivors the testimony of soldiers killed by, or because of katiushas support is missing , they might have a different point of view
I always thought that they would be used in two ways. The first is to concentrate them before a advance against a enemy line. Then unleashing them along with artillery before your troops storm the enemies line. The second if you need to stop a attack on your position that is being overrun.
The Katyusha is very effective, not due to accuracy but as an effective means of bombardment. An artillery's purpose is most likely to push enemies back or an attack from afar
My father told me the Nebelwerfer or as he called it screaming meemies were quite disturbing and there inaccuracies caused a large area to keep down as you couldn't count where it would land unlike artillery where if you weren't on the receiving end you were ok
We are currently working on a translation of the Sturmgewehr 44 Assault Platoon Tactics Manual from November 1944.
For more information check out the campaign page: Get your copy here: igg.me/at/sturmzug
Can you also add German subs to your videos sometime?
@@tedarcher9120 no, this would take around 2-4 hours per video at least. Even adding just the regular English subtitles - which I have as a complete script - takes around 15 minutes.
Infantry are horrified tank crews say "meh...whatever". No suprise really.
@@MilitaryHistoryNotVisualized The 00:38 is not clear, is it 1942 or 43?
I disagree with you on much of what you say of the war on the Easter front.
I am a Soviet immigrant living in the US since ‘88, have an East German stamp on my passport! Lol. I am a an Amateur Historian who has put 25 years into the study of history. Primarily European military history as a core field, and branching out to any and all necessary field of knowledge. An economist and political scientist by training. I served 4 years in the US Army SF before moving to work as a federal civilian in the Defense Department.
I want you to know your doing great work. Between me and you. Thumbs ups buddy. Keep up the good work.
From a Russian to a German. 👍
Guys killed by a particuliar weapon don't get to testify about its efficiency...
Solid logic, yet a weapon does not need to be efficient in the act of directly killing for it to be efficient in other means. Also if the threat was indeed so prominent (finding repeated success) from said weapon there would be firsthand and secondhand sources to support it.
But the guy next to him does
Exactly, survivor bias
They do just as a statistics instead of a voice
@@EvilSmonker All you need to look at is a historical video to realize the awesome power of Katiusha. Then... watch the video of Tornado-S... hehe.
Also Katyushas probably boosted morale of Soviet soldiers considerably.
There was a US soldier who escaped a POW camp and ended up fighting with a Soviet unit, and he did remark that Soviet soldiers would cheer when Katyushas were deployed, and wpuld frequently ask for Katyushas.
Scott Slack source on this? Sounds like an interesting story
@@JacatackLP I can't remember the guys name but I have heard the story of that soldier as well. He was stuck in the Soviet Union and getting him home or even communicating the situation of one enlisted man was not a high priority for the Russians. Apparently he figured that killing Germans was killing Germans and actually joined the Soviet army some how and fought with them for some time and was even decorated for his actions in combat.
Found it! Look up, The Screaming Eagle that fought with the Soviets.
Drogo Baggins thanks!
I could see it having the same effect as when troops see an A-10
It is said that the majority of casualties from the artillery come in first 30 seconds of the barrage, until the infantry has hidden or taken cover.
Katyusha has a major advantage over barreled artillery in this regard, scince it can saturate an area with a big amount of explosives very quickly.
Artillery never operates below battery strength though, and time on target fire patterns were known in ww2.
Katyushas advantage is that with a small number relatively cheap platforms it can simulate the effects of a regimental bombardment, at peast in terms of morale, if not accuracy range or destructive power, which is a tremendous tactical asset.
A commander can seldom afford to have all seventy odd guns of his divisional artillery nuke one gridsquare, but a battery or two of katyushas can probably be spared for the porpouse, even if afterwards they will be reloading for half an hour.
@@ineednochannelyoutube5384 Even with time on target barreled artillery cannot achieve the level of initial destruction inflicted by MLRS. The advantage of the Barreled artillery is its penetrating power and ability to destroy enemy fortifications and defence structures.
@@alfa99121 Obviously. I woupdnt have said mlrs can stand in for twenty times their number in tubes if that wernt the case.
@@ineednochannelyoutube5384 Actually that reminded me of an RFC trivia, during the WWI RFC observing planes had almost a literal nuke option in form of Zone Call, that meant that if called for, every single gun in range of the target would drop whatever it was they were doing and fire on a target, which could mean hundreds of guns (I have read about one crew getting court-martialed for calling Zone on an AA battery that scared them, if by chance anyone knows more about that, please let me know.
And the only reason to maintain barrages, especially without airburst fuses for longer than 30seconds is to allow flanking movements around supressed enemy positions.
Such supresssion barrages usually combines smoke shells with airburst HE.
Two seemingly contradicting statements by veterans can easily both be true because theaters of war are rapidly evolving environments. During the 2010 surge in Afghanistan, a lot of unit which had previously been doing rotations to Iraq were sent because far more troops had previously been sent to Iraq and the mechanized and armored units were sent there, while the light infantry formations were sent to Afghanistan. These units suffered higher casualties than units which had done multiple rotations to Afghanistan already because having met with some success in Iraq, they were expecting a similar situation that turned out to be totally different.
Even troops who had been to Afghanistan before were in for a rude awakening if they expected the situation to be similar to what they encountered previously. This applies locally as well. The tactical situation on the south bank of the Arghandab river was different from the tactical situation on the north bank because of the extensive coverage of pomegranate orchards in Arghandab district in particular. If you went to a new location, the soldiers in that area had to brief you on the tactics being employed against them there. Sharing information and adopting lessons learned in real time in order to adapt was critical.
The moment you think you've mastered everything there is to know about warfare, you're done for. So a soldier in one place and time not prioritizing Katyusha rockets as a serious threat was probably right, and a soldier in another place and time prioritizing them as a threat was probably also right.
Perfect comment. Warfare is the most complex practice humans have ever engaged in, and people making generalisations about weapons often forget that context is usually the dominant factor in a weapons success, not some inherent strength.
All you can do is look at case studies and evaluate them for what they are. Generalisations are doomed to fail.
Or, Plans never survive contact with the enemy.
@@ram2791 That's a useful expression but it isn't realistic either. If a plan is simple, competently executed and based on specific goals with enough leeway for local commanders to adapt to the situation, plans often survive contact with the enemy. They survive contact with the enemy so often that armed forces create battle drills, tactical standard operating procedures and doctrines that allow them to consistently apply the same principles to combat for extended periods of time. If a plan relies on a number of specific conditions being met at multiple stages, well yeah that plan is screwed.
I'm extremely confused by how this was worded.
@@norlanderduwallis9074 Short version: "This ain't my first rodeo" ... Boom. Ded.
My grandfather, who served in WW2 as a German infantry soldier, didn't talk much about his war experiences. The only weapons he mentioned were the katyusha and the acht-acht which meant the 88mm anti-aircraft gun. Those seem to have left a permanent impression on his mind.
@Henning Malland Seeing how many millions of german soldiers were willing to commit war crimes, and crimes against humanity (particularly extermination of other nations), rating these scum as nazis is essentially 95% right. If you were in the army in 39 or 40, there is almost 100% chance said soldier was enthusiastic nazi or fascist at least. The myth of "good army" and "I was just a cook/followed orders/blind and deaf" is one of the vilest lies in history of humanity and it's sad to see some people bought it...
@@KuK137 bruh, the german army had conscription, so no, even the SS had conscription at occupied territories.
@@KuK137 Ah yes, being forced to fight a war you don't want to fight makes you a war criminal.
@@KuK137
Could you please give a number to those vague description of those many millions of german soldiers willing to commit war crimes?
At last I would like to see a solid estimation about this numbers on the fundation of facts.
Basically it's very complicated and anyone who would tell you otherwise has some kind of agenda.
Everyone should be anti fascist, but not blindly.
please note that stalin organ means the musical instrument, not Stalin's organ.
Katyusha..
They call it the Stalin's Organ...
.
.
.
NO THE MUSICAL ORGAN YOU IDIOT
@@sanguineaurora8765 I am missing a biscuit! Stealing is not the Soviet way comrades!
Lol as a native english speaker this is pretty funny cause I didn't think of the alternative to the musical instrument for even a second lmao
@@liamdoyle5363 the musical organ you idiot!
That part was as shriveled as his right hand was. =p
It's alright saying 'it's not very accurate it's not too scary' but when you're being fired at by a dozen of these bloody things and you're under the rockets you ARE going to be terrified.
It's always easy to downplay something until your actually on the receiving end.
Hearing the sounds of them launching can be terrifying
@@rewrew897 id be terrified of anyone says they wouldnt they're lying
It's not scary if the rockets are coming from your side.
Awesome interdiction weapon.
Keeps the enemy soldiers in the area passive for a while. I wouldn't want to get out of my little hole when that shit comes raining down, even if it rarely hit anyone.
If Katyusha were ineffective, there would be no reason to talk about a decline in morale.
The effect of weapons on morale is hard to measure accurately, and in a concrete fashion, which I guess is a large part of disputes about the effectivness of the early mlrs sytems.
Though just hearing the things probably gives you a good idea of their effect on morale
Grid ref removal machines. If nobody gets away then there is nobody to be scared of them :)
@ We have body and helmet cams nowadays, and reactions of certainly trained soldiers to whistle of passing rocket grenade, suggest that they don't really care how inaccurate it is.
Also, the way of modern infantry combat is not to kill them in head-on combat, but to pin them down and blow them up with whatever explosives you have available, be it 40mm grenade, 81mm mortar, or laser-guided bomb. Always cheat, always win. If you have 2 groups infantry facing each other in a showdown, something already went terribly wrong, because no competent commander would send his men to equal fight.
@ In WW1, if you took your time in your MG position to hit soldiers accurately, your trench is most likely overrun. And while snipers did demoralize troops, they weren't in the scale to impact much of the battle.
Yeah, no way could this be simplistic, while it's stereotypical to think mass scale troops to just spray and pray. And if it was based on accuracy alone. Why did the Korean war end up like it was?
@ Not only are infantry small arms not a good comparison because of their lack of explosive effect, but you are also forgetting that ww2 was fought by conscript armies.
Considering the fact that the Soviets were able to halt numerous Wehrmacht advances by pinning them down with rapid rocket fire I’d say the Katyushas served their purpose pretty well.
Considering the fact that it took the Soviets about four years to take back the land the Germans stole in five months (while being attacked from everywhere at the same time), and historians boil in anger each time they hear this simple fact, I'd say it's pretty accurate to assume that in a couple decades, everyone will agree that WWII lasted for 2 months: the time it took Hitler to ride on horseback to Moscow, to get punched in the face by Stalin dressed as Superman. Or one of the Power Rangers, who knows, historians surprise us every day with something new. Oh and Hiltler's horse broke down every 30km, because it was badly designed and overengineered. /shrug.
@@hansvonmannschaft9062 Sounds like you're upset with the fact that the german military was filled with prissy prussians that had no idea how to handle logistics and maintenance.
@@smarterthanyoure You just made my point. Not only horses broke down every 30km, but also the German military was apparently filled with prissy prussians that didn't know how to handle logistics and maintenance. Yet the war lasted for over five years, the World, vs one Country that had bad military leadership, bad management, bad equipment, needed *five* years to defeat it. Now, did you get the irony in the first message, or did it go r/woooosh once again?
@@hansvonmannschaft9062 tl;dr cry more wehraboo, worse than weebs tbh.
@@smarterthanyoure Just three lines're too long to read? Wow, I suppose it wouldn't be too far-fetched to presume you're a highschool dropout. And you also jumping to insults, the last resort of the mentally impotent, that's sad. Now I understand why you brought up the "crying" part. Don't worry, I don't care anyway. You're just another internet troll.
So essentially what the katiushia does it that it allows a relatively small and mobile unit of maybe 3-5 large calibre launchers to almost instantly lay down a barrage that is more or less equal in momentary volume of fire to the output of the heavy artillery of an entire division, or perhaps even army group/corps/front. And then they have to spend like an hour reloading.
Yea I can see how that could give very different impressions depending on the situation.
For well dug in and fortified troops it's probably slightly preferable to regular artillery, given the lack of both ground-penetration and air-burst. The likelihood that it will not be a sustained barrage probably helps it seem less scary as well.
For soft troops advancing in the open though...... Yea, that's another matter, since every single rifle regiment could now potentially be capable of a momentary volume of supporting artillery fire that normally only comes with much bigger concentrations of troops.
An infantry company advancing across a field that is suddenly caught in a torrential rain of large-calibre rockets will likely not forget that experience in a hurry.
Ok, so perhaps not just 3-5 to match a whole division of regular artillery, but certainly you would need only a fraction of the number of katiushas to achieve the same momentary volume as with regular guns
Divisional artillery strength varied wildly between nations, but it usually meant 50-100 tubes of 3-6", with rates of fire measired in seconds rather than minutes.
The thing is, you will almost never get the whole artiplery regiment, and regimental heavy mortar batteries to all shoot at the same thing.
There is a trade-off in the system. In small numbers, its very mobile and can lay down heavy fire briefly. But its an inaccurate system and most effective against targets in the open. The inaccuracy and reload time can be mitigated by concentration of launchers & its use as an area fire weapon. But if its used in that way, its mobility advantages go away and the system becomes somewhat easy to attack with counter-battery fire. The nature of the rockets and the density of the fire makes it somewhat easy to do counter-battery fire if the launchers don't move.
@@Jim-Tuner On the contrary. You will never shoot more than one volley out of a rocketlauncher, without repositioning, exactly because it is a lot easier to move.
@@IVscythia They are also cheaper and easier to manufacture than cannons since essentially any truck/car/tractor factory can become a katyusha factory overnight, plus you can convert existing vehicles into them in any tool shop as long as there's a competent welder around. Cannon barrels need to be well made with decent enough quality so they don't explode in your hands, but the katyusha is just a frame in which to hold the rockets, you can even use railway tracks if you have some spare around. Same with their rockets, they're easier and cheaper to make compared to artillery shells. The katyushas allowed divisions that couldn't be supplied with standard artillery in enough quantities in time to at least have some form of artillery support
I love how he says "Štalingrad" :)
Comrade Shtalin
My granny (15 or 16 in 1944) during war moved from city to a country side with her older sister. Their house for a while happened to be exactly between Germans and Soviets, so she saw those rockers flying over her head from beyond forest and disappearing behind forest to the West, to her it looked like those things threw fire, she had no idea those were actually missiles. Anyway, when going to a field to milk cows, girls took two buckets with them - one for milk, the other as improvised helmet (like that would help!)
Besides soldiers from both sides sometimes appeared at their house, sort of patrols, luckily, Germans never met Russians or vice versa. And when asked, if they had seen Germans/Russians, locals always denied they had. XD Soldiers of both sides were quite polite and never took anything by force. Except once one German took a straw hat, that's it.
@@markomarjanovic7643
Latvia, Latgale region. Except, here in Latvia it's mostly separate farms, not villages like in neighbouring Russia. I don't know the exact spot, as I've never been to that grannies family house, but I've spent many summers in grand-grandfathers farm, which is also in Latgale near Daugavpils.
In Latgale (South-East of Latvia, next to Russia, Belarus and Lithuania) there are villages too, but those mostly belong to Russian Old Believers, who fled Russia in 18th century, due to religious persecution, and found refuge here.
A german soldier taking a straw hat? Joseph Porta, is that you??
He had a penchant for hats xD
@@CRO_Bash95 Maybe he was being 'sun smart'?
Please consider, the people who could say: "Katyusha was a strong weapon, because it killed me" - this people are all dead.
Unfortunately Soviet post war propaganda liked the west to believe in the myth of overwhelming superiority of the Red army and it's weapons systems, when in reality most Soviet equipment was at best mediocre except in quantity. Fire enough shells you'll hit something eventually. Dies that make it an effective weapon? UN conscript forces in Korea had no trouble despatching Soviet made weapons used by the North Koreans and Chinese Communists, with US made WW2 era technology.
@@qbenalzaeen2052 you are right. Hence the South Korea won the war 😂😂😂
@@wasilijsaizev1 to be fair, there really was no chance of a South Korean victory. If the Americans and their allies started to reach the Chinese border (again) then China would just fight even harder until their border was secure from the foreign threat. I don't really know who had the number advantage though.
Yes. The whole point of MRL's is to saturate an area with fire in a short amount of time - to do that - you need a LOT of them.
One additional effect of large scale bombardments is their effect on communications. Especially during WWII - there was a lot of Comm Wire used - and - given the way this was strung - it was vulnerable. At Corregidor, Wake Island and Tarawa one of the major effects of the pre-landing bombardments - and subsequent combat was the loss of communications and the resultant inability of the defenders to respond effectively.
.
Yep, concentration of fire is the key. Just like in carpet bombing.
My grandfather, 42-45 in the foremoste line on the eastern front, experienced several times katyusha fire. He described it as the most terrifying experience during the war.
My grandmother was 8 years old child living in Ukraine when Germans attacked Soviet union.
She had a lot of memories about the war time.
One story was from the time when direction of German army changed for 180 degree and Wermacht was retreating back with occasional counterattacks here and there.
Grandma's house was placed on a village "high street" which was going through village all along from bottom up to the hill.
A couple of times during the war Grandma seen the street packed by Katyusha trucks patiently waiting up to the hill for the right time to rid of the deadly load.
Up full / down empty
when Germans started counterattack and were pushing Red army back really hard and situation begun desperate , then Night turned to day she said and then Germans always gave up she said...
The following day everyone looked tired due to the terrible scary noise and impossibility to fall asleep she said.
Many stories she remembered , such a impact it had on child's mind.
My granddad was operating one of those from 1941 till 1945 including war against Japan.
Also i must say that any missile launch system is more uncomfortable to be under fire due to its having multiple explosions following one after another in a very quick succession.
My grand uncle Boris was a katyusha gunner, helped push the Nazis out of Ukraine all the way to Austria from 1942-1944 and then his regiment got transferred to Manchuria to fight the Kwangtung Army. Maybe they knew each other.
@@vladtheinhaler1450 Maybe yes but my grandad was never in Austria. He been to Konigsberg though. After that they were transferred to Macnchuria afair 36th divison it was.
A great example is the HBO "docu-series" Band of Brothers. For example, PFC Blithe was stated to have died of his wounds in 1948 when he actually died in 1967 from a perforated ulcer. Major Winters had stated he was disappointed with the way some of the events had been portrayed. Memoirs can be problematic since they can be a way of "polishing" a reputation and/or they can be filled with honest memory errors.
The other great problem talking to veterans is they often didn't really understand the bigger picture around them. There are likely many who will (for example) mentally translate every artillery barrage they encountered into a "Katyusha attack". And if you start asking veterans about something, its easy to feed them detail which they then feed right back to the interviewer. TV and movies also can over time distort peoples memories of what happened to them.
Discrepancies could also be due to the 'Mandela Effect'
I get your point, but Band Of Brothers is *not* a "docu-series", it's a regular TV show adapted from a book based indeed on subjective memoirs, but it tried its hardest to find a balance between good storytelling and historical accuracy. One should never treat a dramatization like this, as well intended as it may be, as truth.
@@Phoenix-xn3sf What you say is true to a point, but the producers and Ambrose himself greatly encouraged the idea that the series was "truth". That opposed to other presentations of the war, somehow it was more true. They advertised it from the very beginning as "the true story of easy company.". Then there was the use of the living veterans to reinforce that point further. It did a great deal of harm (in my opinion) in replacing the real history of the war with a Steven Spielberg disney-fied overproduced fantasy version of the war. Alot of what the producers were reaching for in that series was a throwback to the presentation style of the wartime films of the 1940s with massively bigger budgets.
And those who at the time called it out for doing what it was doing were constantly attacked for "disrespecting the veterans" or hating US soldiers.
Yes, it was a dramatization and a drama should be cut a great deal of slack. But a great many people collectively tried at the time to present it as something other than a drama and truthfully they got away with it completely.
My grandfather was wounded by one and he said about them: "Die haben uns genervt" (They were annoying us)
Katyushas aren't terrifying because they're accurate, nor because they're powerful. They're terrifying because they can cover nearly an entire grid square within a few seconds and be gone before counter-battery operations can take place. If you're already in a fox hole or bunker, you'll be fine if not a little shaken. But if you're a poor sap who's out and about with no cover, you will likely never wish to find yourself farther than a few meters from a hole at any given time. Katyushas also had the unique capability of being able to use most any stable platform as a base. And with materials such as railroad rails and rockets usually being cheaper and easier to produce than a singe heavy artillery gun and mount assembly, Katyushas could be quite literally built in a day.
Very true!
im just imagining hans walking off to nearby woods to take a piss and suddenly the entire place just lit up. hans' definitely not going to forget that experience anytime soon
The you reasons you gave for the K to be terrifying was that their accurate and powerful (while saying it wasn't becaz they're accurate and powerful)......
@@edgargarred4319 *Godzilla had a stroke trying to read that and fucking DIED*
True true, people like ascribing qualities to weapons that their designers never did. Ty hey we're meant to saturate an area not takeout Jerry's helmet
There's a documentary series about the 2nd Hungarian Army that was deployed (and mostly lost) around Voronezh.
One survivor recalled a Katyusha attack that caught them on the move on the side of a hill.
His men started digging holes in the frozen ground using their bare hands until their nails fell off and some's hair got grey during the barrage.
Documentaries are almost always done by journalists who want to pretend to be historians; credentialed historians don't do documentaries, though they are often inaccurately cited in them. This was the view of my university history department, and as a history major, I certainly agreed with the view.
The English subtitles mentioned their krautfunding campaign, I hope it doesn’t go sauer.
Katyusha is such a lovely girl
The MLRS is pretty cool too
If you only knew. Katyusha meaning kate, Katie, or Katharine. That is the one that got away for me. Katharine was the best woman I have ever met. But sorry to bug you with my dad memories. But at least you have a love for history. Take care man.
Katy the Killer
Is that a Girls und Panzer reference?
@@Circa88 not necessarily it’s more a ‘using the technically correct name instead of the more common name for two separate things’ or whatever
Besides Katyusha is mini Stalin and Stalin is not lovely
@@johnloughner6572 yall talkin about Katyusha?
When I was 16 I was on a reciving end of these Weapon a 107 or 122mm that the Hezbollah has. At first I didn't care much because I was a stupid kid who felt invincible, I could hear how they drop in cities nearby (a series of about 4 or 5 booms) and somtimes the Apartment would shake but it didn't scare me that much. One day a volley landed about 2Km from our aparment and it sounded like a Train falling from the sky and exploading, My heart fall to my pants and I thought it must have fallen on me or just side. Nearly crapped my Pants.
Where was it, in Lebanon?
Cool Story, thanks for sharing 👍🏼
@@jurisprudens
Israel, 2006 (second lebanon war)
Their range was at the time up to Haifa - some 40 km from the border.
I was 8 and not a northerner, so I don't have any memories of that war myself.
It's often underestimated, especially if your life used to be peaceful up to that moment. I witnessed a small explosion (accident, was supposed to be a giant sparkling fountain, more like a flashbang with no real fragmentation) and its effect was surprising. First many of us saw stars and then everyone looked to the guy closest to the explosion as if demanding answers, then they looked at each other and without a word said we all walked out of the hall as if punch drunk and our ears were still ringing... I can't remember anyone besides me who purposefully checked for injuries. If that metal pipe had been ripped apart, I bet bleeding people would have walked out without attempting to treat the wounds. It was as if it had switched off any capacity for higher thinking...
@@jurisprudens No. Israel.
German Eastern Front frontline veterans with experience 41-43, that are alive after the war. Hmm, they must be rare
A bit of a survival effect as well. The men of the Wehrmacht best qualified to speak to the effectiveness of the Katyushas were unavailable to interviewers.
Men with severed legs and arms were still common in 70s. There were several seats reserved for them in trains and public transport.
Why? I guess Russia lost over 24 million people, not Germany....
@@absinth2k1 most civilis
@@Superhiknapada no. www.fallen.io/ there you can see the "strong" Russian soldier 😂
"The moral is to the physical as 10 is to one." - Napoleon (I think).
Meanwhile Suvorov trained his troops hard to run on hills fast in combat order. And as far as I know Napoleon lost.
@@heyhoe168 Well, let's face it, invading Russia is one of the classic mistakes in history.
Military History, you are a great historian and you produce a lot of quotable material. It is the highest academical respect which I can think of when speaking of someone's work.
I enjoy the shorter format! Most of the time I find your content too dry to watch for 20-30mins even though its of exelent educational quality
As it was so good from 1943 Katyusha launchers standard truck mount was the Studebaker 6X6 2.5ton US6k. Previous truck mountings had used various Soviet, Canadian, British and US trucks.
Most intresting video on a great, professional level. Thank you and greetings from Poland.
As for morale, I heard that Soviet commanders where often asking IL2's to do some more attacks on enemy positions even when they used all their bombs/rockets and ammo, just to scare enemy. Since they did it regularly, probably it worked well.
still used these days by SU25 sturmovik pilots. They call is fake approach. Infantry says pinned down anyway.
This chap is really interesting; his spoken English improves ballistically. Fascinating to learn about the other side.
th-cam.com/video/Bmc9NFfhx74/w-d-xo.html
6:04 Is A. Meyer some relative of Reichsmarschall Hermann Meyer?
I love this joke so freaking much
Göring never said that, it is a post-war quote.
Doesn't matter. It is still funny. Don't let truth get in the way of a good joke. Particularly when it is on account of a douchebag like Herman Meyer.
Hehe, der war gut! :p
@@bezahltersystemtroll5055 But he did say he was a Dutch man if any allied bombers reached germany,which is good enough for the joke to exist.
Yourself, Tik &
History Hustle are my most favourite TH-cam channels. Nothing better to come home from a long days work and watch quality short videos of different aspects and views on WW2. Great stuff!!!
If you watch the captions at 1:43 they are supposed to say "crowd funding" but the caption apparently picked up a German accent and instead says "Krautfunding." Perhaps just as accurate, but definitely not politically correct.
Nah they've been saying Krautfunding for some time now
@@reteip9 I'll take your word for it. Hope BLM funding doesn't follow this example.
the captions are done by me, so it is "krautfunding" as reteip9 stated, it was Bis' idea.
Well technically it is funding, for a Kraut. Haha MHV love your content man. Gute arbeit wie immer. Liebe aus Amerika.
Politically incorrect? How?
For me, the Katyusha is the scariest weapon I've seen in WWII footage.
I could see that cause it's pretty hard to be scared of a nuke instantly vaporizing you especially when you don't expect a weapon of that magnitude and considering it had just been developed
The Sounds!
I think that the Katyusha psychological effect of its sound must be something alike the Stukas siren mounted on their wings. You know you about to blow when you hear its sound.
Thank you for presenting a fully versed and honest discussion of the manifestations of the conflict known as World War 2.
I once told my intimidating boss he was a katyusha. When I told him what it was he laughed.
What song did the Stalin organ play?
One so well liked by Germany that they copied it to make the nebelwerfers.
it played the peopes war
Götterdämmerung
Nebelwerfer is from 1935. Wurfrahmen 40 ist from 1940, not post German Invasion. So the Russians copied it....
That was a good one. Thanks for the summary, this answered many questions for me. Maybe a more detailed look on the briefly mentioned rocket upgrade would have clarified things even more.
When my Grandfather was still alive he told me about an occasion in which he as a Luftwaffe Beobachter was as an outpost in the crown of a large Tree while a single Katjusha Rocket hit the sandy soil just 5 meters beneath "his" Tree without detonating.
It happens with all kinds of shells/rockets/bombs. Now imagine being 5 meters away and wandering will it detonate randomly while you are in range?
One thing to remember is it could take up to an hour to reload the Katyusha. That means that you get one big barrage, and that's it. Gun artillery can usually fire several rounds per minute. So one massive bombardment, or sustained bombardment of lesser intensity. They both have their merits.
Katyusha from Soviet perspective:
"Выходила на берег Катюша!"
From German perspective:
"OH MEIN STALINORGEL"
*explosion*
ору
Выходила на берег Катюша,
и перестреяла всех до одного!
(Note : It's from a certain song, and it exists)
@@groza8179 гадам нет пощады))))
Те кто могли сказать: "Катюша опасна, потому-что убила меня" - они все умерли.
stain orgy
I worked with a really nice South African guy who'd been in Angola in the 70's during the war. He told me a few stories of his time there and one was getting shelled by Cuban BM21 batteries. The BM21 is one of the modern versions of the WW2 Katyushas. Unfortunately at that time due the embargoes against South Africa they didn't have any artillery that had the range for counter battery so they got hit very hard.
Great primary source data with thoroughly interesting content
Awesome quality content! It was interesting to hear thoughts of survivors.
Lindyberg has a great video about artillery and bombardment where he goes through some of the data and finds that in actuality all forms of massed bombardment aren't that lethal. However, what they do provide according to the data is suppression and annihilation of enemy entrenchment, breaking of attacks, etc. He also notes that soldiers who are subjected to heavy bombardment are far more likely to surrender when confronted in an attack and act hesitantly in combat.
Lindybeige is a biased fraud. No one should take this guy as a source for anything.
And he probably explained that both the Katyusha and Neferwerfer were copied from British designs. Sigh.
Princeofcups Poc Or maybe claimed Barbarossa would have been successful if only it had been done by the British because obviously they fought in the winter at some point so that makes them the best military for winter operations. smh
The man doesn't "believe" in man made climate change. How could anyone even listen this guy on anything requiring scientific research?
Good stuff man. Excellent video. I would love to see this Veterans vs Historians turn into a series.
2:07
"I came across it only rarely"
I, mean - duh, he would not fear much of it because of that.
Love the concept of this channel.
My grandfather, who was wounded six times, was wounded at least once in Budapest by Katyusha. To this day, he carries a shard in his hip. He is 95 now.
Very well done, keep up the good work. Can't wait for the next manual to ship.
Apple trees and
pear trees were a flower
River mist
was rising all around.
Young Katyusha went
strolling by the hour
On the steep banks,
O’er the rocky ground.
I could imagine being in a pocket ,cut off or in static front , nowhere to hide or go and those things howling away ,demoralising would be an understatement.
pff watch n learn th-cam.com/video/QsCfVbvfhrc/w-d-xo.html
just imgaine it for innocent civilians not miitary soldiers
I love the subtitles. Krautfunding is a thing on this channel.
two people were too slow to fall back on the seelow heights.
Rocket artillery is pretty fascinating. Myth Busters recreated an ancient Chinese arrow launcher on their tv program. Also, famous actor David Niven wrote in one of his books that he'd never have joined the British Army if he had known about Nebelwerfers.
4:02 I remember reading about SADF in Angola playing the game of who was the last one to get into trenches while facing BM-21 fire.
Great content, always waiting eagerly your videos
I read a quote once that came from a 19th century general being asked by a historian why accounts were so different between combatants in the same battle. I can't recall the quote exactly years later (there's a clue) but in effect he said, Imagine all the participants at an event in a grand ballroom. Everyone there had a different experience. No one saw everything at once and everyone probably remembers only what happened to them. Wish I could remember who said it!
+ everyone tried to survive while also trying to kill someone...
@@MilitaryHistoryNotVisualized HaHa! See also: "Ballroom Blitz" by Sweet, 1973.
I prefer this newer format. Great work!
This on the northern finland front, on many cases veterans of the finland army in the continution war, (1944) reported the katjushka rockets failed to explode, the "rings" that were supposed to blow did not, causing significantly minor damage.. a case of failed ammunition casing on russian munition
The sheer sight of a raining fire and terrifying sound are more than enough to scare the ghost out of your body!
My late father in law, who fought in the Finnish army in ww2, first along with the Germans and later against them.He told the Katyushas only had a psychological effect. But later when they where driving the Germans out of the country, the precision of the German artillery put them in deep shit.
Very strong analysis!
Shortly:If you see lot of rockets flying on your position you have really bad day..
Im hear only to hear his "Štalingrad"
Informative as always.
I see you *everywhere* I go to. o.o
Nobody:
Red army: milk truck go rocket and anti air hehehe
Reddit moment
You literally radiate reddit
Good work as always! though you might want to consider moving the teleprompter and camera further as to make your eye scanning less noticeable, other than that I'm liking the new format.
Do visualised history please, I've got sick with bb (baldy beard) since...... 🤔......., 1978(ish) the visualised part is what made your vids so much more enjoyable 😉..., and (more important) more memorable.
Greetings (and awaiting those awesome animations) bibia
I have two channels, you are on the wrong one.
Deliver high volume of fire in a short amount of time in exchange of sustained fire capabilities? Seems excellent offensive weapons to me. In fact thats how I use them in MOW, bombard an area just before beginning the assault
My greatgramps drove a munition truck basically from the start of the war in june 41 till mid 43 and I recall him saying that Katiushas packed a punch and that supply routes for Katiushas were the most dangerous. Luftwaffe would target their trucks more often when they'd run Katiusha resupply routes.
9:04 Well said.
My grandpa once mentioned that they were shot at by Katjusha in the Festung Schneidemühl in Spring 1945 at the Eastern Front. His uniform was burning but he could put it out and had only some minor scars.
One of the major problems of the Red Army in the first half of the war was the lack of proper powerful explosives and nitroglycerine gunpowder. That affected hugely armament in general and Katusha in particular because it needed for its proper functioning those materials which were in such scarcity at the beginning of the war. Hence "surrogate" rockets with inadequate propellant and explosive which would shoot imprecise and explode weakly.
Thanks for your work !
I'm dying to know who you are referring to with the "cheap editing" comment. Thanks for the video
History channel tier filth.
@@HaqqAttak Pretty much any American documentary of the last 100 years. BBC does much better, but the quality is inconsistent.
As my British plumber said: Everybody is doing the propaganda. You can understand it when it’s a war. But Americans have not stopped when the war was over.
@@cookml Anyone engaging in empire-building has a use for propaganda in peacetime. The British should know this.
Seems like the sound of stuka dive siren, and the whoosh of the multiple rocket motors would, both, be terrifying.
#0:04 - i lend you an j / y _Kat_ *Y* _usha_
I suppose in this sense you could consider it to be the LMG of artillery. It CAN be effective for point targets, but largely its capabilities are about: Ammo down range/suppression/halting advance/Killing morale
When people see conflicting reports by survivors, they often think at least one of them was lying. But why? the front lines were HUGE. A soldier fighting in one location might have had completely different experiences from another soldier fighting 50 km away on a different part of the front.
Or even on the same patch of ground, I would be crapping myself, while my fellow soldier 5 metres away might just shrug his shoulders and get on with it. Everyone handles/reacts to a situation in their own way.
One possible reason for massive use of rocket artillery by both sides on the eastern front is that originally it could be developed to carry chemical weapons, so they were produced in numbers but never used as originally intended.
Awesome content
Soviets were not able to produce a lot of ammo for Katyushas because they didn't have enough explosive materials especially for rockets in the beginning of war. Later they were supplied by lendlease, and the effectiveness massively increased.
Katyusha
Oh you song! Little song of a maiden,
Head for the bright sun.
And reach for the soldier on the far-away border
Along with greetings from Katyusha.
The German veterans I talked in my childhood mostly said, the Stalin-Orgel was terrifying not least for the noise that accompanied the multiple inpacts around one.
A big effect is probably whether or not the soldier that experiences being shot at by a Katyusha is used to it - for a green recruit it is probably a terrifying experience to have seemingly everything around you explode. A veteran will know what once you jump into a hole, you are fairly safe.
One thing i have learned from reading rather a lot of history is that people are all different. Soldiers memoirs can be from a field grade officer of a veteran formation or a private with a month in combat. Professional soldiers and activated reservists have much different perceptions of any given situation than a draftee. Even the individuals psychology is different from person to person. Look at the current pandemic for example. Some people are extremely concerned or unnerved over the random and invisible threat of the WuHan virus while others take it as just another thing in a dangerous world that is not worth worrying about. People are unique in small ways psychologically and in larger ways experientially.
In any case a nicely done and very compact bit of history.
Very informative.
on the subject of veterans testimony , it should be pointed out that they are testimonies of survivors
the testimony of soldiers killed by, or because of katiushas support is missing , they might have a different point of view
I always thought that they would be used in two ways. The first is to concentrate them before a advance against a enemy line. Then unleashing them along with artillery before your troops storm the enemies line. The second if you need to stop a attack on your position that is being overrun.
The Katushya allowed one evil bastard defeat another evil bastard.
The Katyusha is very effective, not due to accuracy but as an effective means of bombardment. An artillery's purpose is most likely to push enemies back or an attack from afar
My father told me the Nebelwerfer or as he called it screaming meemies were quite disturbing and there inaccuracies caused a large area to keep down as you couldn't count where it would land unlike artillery where if you weren't on the receiving end you were ok
Was the sound effect of the Stalin Organ deliberate like the sirens of the Stuka?
It seems to have achieved a similar effect.