That is an insane amount of military equipment concentrated in a small area I don't think most people understand The magnitude of it its kind of hard to grasp
read from a book about German armored unit that the Soviet defense on Kursk was very complex and layered. With lots minefields, AT gun groups, bunkers and fortified positions. Even then, it was reported that Zhukov was not satisfied with the defenses and ordered *MORE*
Kursk was like Operation Overlord aka D-Day, something that we are unlikely to ever see again. In the post war interviews of the infantry from both sides that were there both Russian and German said the same thing, there were so many armored vehicles that they just huddled in their holes.
There will never be anything like another D day. The advent of nuclear weapons kind of put a damper on that sort of massed attack. Hopefully we never see either!
@@burtvhulberthyhbn7583 the germans basically had to fight with 1 hand behind their back from 43 onwards after N. Africa surrendered and the Italian front had to be put on life support meanwhile the Soviets were getting more and more supplies from the west.
the Perekop invasion took 6 times the casualties of d-day. D day was a beach party against it. The Uman pocket alone had more victims than the USA in the whole war.
Today....with new motorways and SUV's etc it takes 26 hours to drive from St Petersburg to the black sea coast at Taman......in 1942-1943 the Italian 8th army were fully responsible for holding 250 miles of front holding open the Stalingrad supply lines.....it's beyond comprehension....
I remember watching a documentary about the battle of kursk from the survivors of both sides. Shit was insane. German and Russian tankmen said that tank battles were so close that it was near impossible to miss.
Dark please never stop putting out content or making videos . Your style and material are amazing .... Im sincere when I say your channel has to be the best on TH-cam . I can never scroll when I see your videos , Its an automatic click of the mouse for me my man . Thank you for your amazing content and the incredible history lesson I never got in school .
@@5han921 no, a majority were destroyed by either engine fires or the final drives going kaput, which was prevalent on the D variant which was used at Kursk.
If there were such a failure then why did XXXXI.PzK broke through the first two defensive belts and reached the third, despite only having infantry divisions (and one PzDiv that was underequipped and badly used in Ponyri)? It may had something to do with the artillery and SP assets this corps had. Yes the Ferdinands were an operational failure, their effect, however, was very useful for the German infantry. The 13A was the most reinforced Soviet army in the Kursk bulge. Still, XXXXI.PzK did a lot of damage to this army. Without the Ferdinands and the Sturmpanzers they wouldn't have been able to do that.
Thanks for the briefe explanation of Battle of Kursk to Western world. The field near village Prokhorovka, where nazi and soviet tank armies literally collided head to head, took 20+ years to clean from the "tank salad".
My great-uncle was killed in that battle, he was a medic in a German artillery regiment. He was the small brother of my grandma(1901-1986)and she loved him dearly, she kept talking about him until her own passing. I still have his military pass and his Iron Cross, also the death notice to the family written by his company commander back in the day.
@Thunder Cloud Your comment barely makes sense. I’m just stating a fact that Patton’s meaning behind that quote was that he wanted to carry on the fight against the Russians, after defeating the Germans.
In many ways, Churchill's famous quote about El Alamein" This is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end,but it is perhaps the end of the beginning" could in many ways apply to events on two other fronts.Both Stalingrad on the Eastern Front and Midway in the Pacific became just as clear markers for that moment the tide turned as El Alamein did in the desert war.
Battle of Kursk has always fascinated me since first reading of it at an early age. Have always wondered if the English had not had the ENIGMA code breaking machine and alerted the Russian forces of Operation Citadel what then? Surprise in battle has always been a tremendous advantage Enjoy your documentaries!
@@itchytriggerfinger7622 im not so sure about that i believe if not for hitler the German army could have won or atleast pulled off a stalemate and forced the allies into signing a treaty with Germany keeping most of the places they took in ww2. Or it most definitely would have went nuclear and if Hitler would have just listen to his generals
Depends, the Soviets had started fortifying tho location since it was quite an obvious location to get attacked at. The Soviets also had the largest amount of spies of the Allies (it is really crazy how many different networks they had) so an attack could be uncovered before the Germans attacked
Soviets had many spies and recon units too.. don't be so foolish to think that everything relied on some Enigma messages. That is just nice story for western audience.
@@LexlutherVII fighting for the oppression and destruction of an entire people. some of the most vial pieces of shit that ever lived. even if they were just doing their duty
@@brandonfrancois9352 How long and for Gow Long have those Devil massacred innocent beings for over Houndreds of Years undocumented and un Recorded etc?
Marshal Georgy Zhukov and Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky were the two primary Red Army Commanders during the Battle of Kursk. Neither are mentioned in this video. They should’ve been included. Of course a comprehensive explanation of the battle wasn’t the purpose of the video, but even a brief mention of them would’ve added to the narrative.
Rokossovsky was, Zhukov probably not as much. Zhukov was Stalin's favorite after the defense of Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad and might be that's why he was credited well over his actual involvement in Kursk.
@@tvgerbil1984 Thank you for your kind reply. I've listened to both sides of this discussion, and the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. Rokossovsky and Zhukov, were both, as you undoubtedly already know, very able military leaders. Stalin was paranoid about anyone who achieved what he saw as excessive fame. So, he pitted one against the other in many and different ways. For example, Zhukov entered Berlin first, and Rokossovsky rode his white horse into Red Square during the victory ceremony first. Just another day in Stalinist Russia.
Bro you’re speed is getting better 👍👍👍 keep it up man and thanks for sharing what these people went through in the past on all side’s and fronts to the rear ✌️
Well done. One small comment. The german tanks at 06:55 are King Tigers (Tiger 2). These tanks definitely didn´t fight at Kursk in 1943. The footage is more likely from the western front before the battle of the bulge in France 1944 (Ardennenoffensive)
Great video lots of action!! My favorite ww2 history is learning more and more about the eastern front. The scale of war on the eastern front was incredible ,so many loses on both sides. Just incredible bravery and savagery.
I think the Germans were finished in December 1941. Reasons; June 1941 attacks were along the entire eastern front. 1942 only mustered enough forces to attack the southern part of the eastern front. 1943 only mustered enough forces to attack the Kursk salient.
After the disasters of 1943, Manstein attempted to convey the cold hard facts to Hitler regarding the truth, victory was now impossible and the Germans could only delay the inevitable. He was promptly dismissed.
@@StalinTheMan0fSteel they were delusional. Even if they managed to take stalingrad and moscow the soviets will just move in further to the urals. Germany didnt have the resources and manpower and even the strategic depth the soviet had. So their doom was inevitable
This dude describes the battle as a Soviet pyrrhic victory. Look at the maps, and troop placements. There was no chance the Germans could've won they were running right into a wall and were battered.
@@andrewfernandes5516 Dark Doc will unironically say "the Germans bravely retreated from the cowardly Communist attack" I'm not accusing him of being a Nazi or Wehraboo but his language and bias is enough to pick on him for it.
There is historical inaccuracy involving the file footage from later in the war. This is exemplified with later war variants of German tanks like King Tiger and later models of Panther medium tank on display here. Russian did not use T34/85 @ this time, as it only began production in 1944.
@@zojo4348 You technically correct, it's just that the serious production run commenced in early 1944. The Guard units received the early 85's pre serious production units.
You’d think after WW1 on the Western Front the Germans would understand the attrition their forces would have at attacking the prepared Soviet forces at Kursk. Which never worked on the Western Front.
As they say the one tank battle where they ended up turning more troops into infantry than anytime, still trying to stop tanks with Hollow charge grenades when there was no alternative
Contrast how insane the war in the eastern front was...In the battle for stalingrad, it was house to house fighting ...In this battle, it was open ground...no place to hide....totally insane!
@@bradbutcher3984 wikipedia says 800.000 soviet and 200.000 german casualties. Yea the soviets lost even more than what he mentioned, but I don't get your point.
Great video and thank you for the reminder of the key factor to winning a total war (yes that’s what WWI and WWII were). Brilliant tactics and bravery will only carry an army so far. What makes the difference is which country has the resources and economic might to out-produce their adversary. The question about the inevitable outcome answers itself.
the wehrmacht was like former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson. If Tyson was going to get you, he would knock you out fast. But if you hung in there and survived the early rounds, it was just a matter of time before you could knock him out.
Can people stop saying that the germans were superior tactically and that the soviets only won because of numbers ? That's a cheap excuse to explain germany losing battles.
yeah full scale wars like this in the past happened frequently, but what made ww2 especially worse was how mechanized and industrialized human slaughter was
In answer to Guidarians question of " Why Kursk? Does anyone know even where Kursk is?" .. It was to regain the " Offensive Initiative ".. whether that was important or not
Colonel General Heinz Guderian fought his armor as cavalry. That made all the difference when dealing with opponents that fought their armor as infantry support vehicles.
Why does this video keep showing King Tiger tanks when there were no King Tiger tanks during the battle of Kursk? King Tigers were not present in 1943.
@@LexlutherVII I fought in many battles...the last one was in 2019 and I know exactly when you are less powerful than your enemy and the difficulty of keeping military units effective in such circumstances. Only the true soldiers will remain with you.... Praise be to God, after our steadfastness... God has blessed us with victory
The Battle of Brody 1941was the largest tank battle in WW2. Strange its never talked about... probably because the Germans won? Kursk was certainly the biggest battle of the war....
If we say Kursk was brutal, how much more Stalingrad, Leningrad,Moscow or even crimea? How about the cacauses and mountain fronts. The eastern front was extremely vast, it was extremely brutal because the Germans underestimated them
They didn't underestimate them per se. The banked on the government collapsing after they obliterated them in the opening months and they didn't. They never planned on invading or occupying the entire, impossibly vast country, obviously.
German technical superiority was pitted against Soviet numbers, though by this point in the war the Sovs had narrowed the differences quite substantially. The TIgers and Panthers suffered many mechanical breakdowns that accounted for almost as many losses as those due to combat. Many of the Sov victories were scored by ramming German tanks and trucks as the fighting devolved into point-blank exchanges. Manstein originated the plan for Citadel, but he called for the attack to be launched in April or early May, weather permitting. His idea was to hit the Sov salient before they could reinforce it. However, Hitler insisted in building up numbers of the new Tigers and Panthers, and the schedule slipped to July. This gave the Sovs time to reinforce the salient and form new armies. And deploy new air forces with new versions of their proven Yak and IL-2 aircraft. The Germans failed to use their advantage in strategic mobility to hit the Sovs in a weak spot. The Germans should have feinted at Kursk and redeployed secretly to hit Moscow, which would have been a crippling blow if it had succeeded. (Communists are highly centralized physically and organizationally). Stalingrad was Hitler's last opportunity for victory in the east. By 1943 the war was lost even if they had succeeded at Kursk. The Soviet production capacity and endless reserves of manpower were just too big to overcome.
Numerical inferiority of German Army is the major reason that The Nazis were defeated. They are highly-skilled, have high tech weapons and as told in this documentary, they won the battle in terms of tactics and damages inflicted, but lost the battle in the end. It is more obvious in the western front where Americans massed millions of troops with almost endless reinforcements of hundreds of thousands tanks, aircraft and so on. The geography and the natural resources favored Americans, also in the WW1. No single bombed had been dropped to American continent, hence no halting of war production happened.
That’s what happens when you pick too many people to go to war with. When you’re throwing a punch at the guy in front of you, another one bites you in the ass in Sicily.
Kim Philby had a personal sense of pride, for information handed over by him to the USSR that was crucial for the outcome of the battle Battle of Kursk, Philby would say Prokhorovaka, this being the village were the Germans were planning to deliver a decisive blow to the Red Army.
Only problem is, Kursk was NOT the largest tank battle in the world. The battle of Brody in central/north central Soviet Union in 1941 was. But in terms of the number of troops mobilized on both sides for this battle, I think this was one of the largest.
3:22 are those m13/40? I cant understand what other tanks they could be , but from what i know they were never used in the western front, only in Africa.
The 6th army was destroyed because Hitler refused to allow them to withdraw. The 2nd SS Panzer Corps was in the process of defeating the Soviets on the southern wing of the Kursk battle. They were defeating the 5th Guards Tank army and given a few more days, they might have done so. Again, Hitler saw the invasion by the Americans and British in the Italian theater and overreacted by pulling units out of the battle prematurely. The northern wing was unable to meet their objectives but had the southern wing been successful it might have had a different outcome.
Rob the elder watch a David glantz lecture on Kursk on TH-cam. He makes it clear that the Germans would have walked into a death trap simply because the soviets had so many reserves that German recon and Intel had completely missed/were unaware of.
Regarding 6th Army at Stalingrad, this is true, but also because Manstein insisted that he could relieve them. Paulus was actually going to try to break out to the west at one point. There was a small window of a couple of weeks when 6th Army could possibly have broken out to the west but Manstein asked Paulus to wait. The relief attacks failed and 6th Army was by then too weak to break out on their own and their fate was sealed. As to Citadelle, Hitler likely did overreact to the Italian landings, but most of the troops diverted there were after Citadelle was already clearly lost. The Germans greatly underestimated Soviet strength and barely made it to the 2nd defensive line. There were at least 4 defensive lines at Kursk and in some areas up to 6. They waited too long to attack. The Soviets had over 3 months to prepare their defenses and by July the battle should never have been attempted. At that point it was suicide.
That's a big MIGHT there as Operation Kutuzov launched by the Soviets against the flanks of the German Northern Front at Kursk threatend a cave in of the German offensive lines. In this case Hitler was right to call off the Operation because had the offensive continued Northern front would be cut off. The absolutely dumb excuse of blaming Hitler on the failure of Operation Citadel as a whole is ignoring the fact that the attack was not cancelled it's the fact that the attack was stopped and had failed and was never going to succeed.
There were many defensive layers constructed by the Soviets that never encountered by the nazis. This would have been further opportunity to destroy yet more nazi tanks.
Just word on names. The tank destroyers the Germans deployed st Kursk were FERDINANDS. They were a terrible failure. Lack of defensive armament was deadly. The Germans used the remaining FERDINANDS they had, upgraded them and added defensive armament among other improvements. Deployed to Italy they were then renamed ELEFANTS.
@4:25 I think the guy jumping on the tank thought the turret was locked……..apparently it wasn’t lol. Looks like he prolly busted ass. I’ve noticed little mishaps like this in a few different historical WWII clips. We’re all just human after all 🙂👍
@@Red_Sector_7 No Axis lost 868k, Soviets 1129k thats pretty much equal, especially considering these were very strong formations. The British and French were losing 15 times more than the Germans in the first part of ww2.
It's not being insulting to America but this oh we saved you is just so wrong. The Wehrmacht was streets ahead of any other army in the field. I once remember seeing stats around platoon sized engagements and the amount of fire being laid down. The German unit was every man putting out rounds AND manoeuvring while a British one or US had as many as 5-6 just hugging the dirt or being ineffective. The Eastern Front was titanic..America was daunted by 100,000 casualties from invading Japan..If the US had been on the Eastern front instead of Russia it probably would have gone under, Russia bled their army to defeat..Take out Russia out of the equationand you're looking at expending a million American lives at least surely? And I think that's a conservative estimate.
I watched something a few weeks ago on Military History Visualized or a similar channel that Kursk was only the second largest tank battle, with the largest taking place somewhere a fair distance to the North.
No...Citadel was the greatest....some anti Russian sources claim the series of armoured clashes around Brody to the West was the greatest but there is no comparison..
Dubno-Brody battles were larger. This was at the beginning of Barbarossa and involved the largest numbers of divisions, both armored and infantry, on both sides on the whole eastern front campaign except perhaps Bagration in mid ‘44. Generally Dubno-Brody battles are not considered to be a single major tank battle in the way Citadelle has been as it involved a much larger area and more engagements that were less coordinated and connected. Also due to the chaos on the Soviet side and speed of the German advance it’s much less documented and thus gets ignored by nearly everyone.
He got a bit of this incorrect. It wasn’t the loss at Stalingrad that forced the Germans to turn south. It was the decision to go south to the oil fields that had them attack Stalingrad to prevent Soviet forces from attacking them from the north by traveling down the Volga. The failure of Stalingrad was a major problem and was the beginning of the end of the southern advance and the loss of any possibly of preventing the Soviets from using that oil or getting it for themselves. That was a pipe dream in any event as it would have taken the Germans up to a year to get significant amounts of oil out of the ground from what would have been totally destroyed fields, as the Germans found from the ones the did capture, as well as the transporting of the oil back to Rumania to refine without any pipelines to do so. By the time all of that happened, the Soviets, partly thanks to over 12 million tons of aid, mostly from the USA, were ready for major advances. Kursk, despite what some people like to think, was not “the turning point of the war”. The turning point was in December, 1941. Once Barbarossa failed at that point. It was just downhill from then on. They never really had a chance in the south and June 1944 destroyed any possibility that Germany would have enough troops, equipment, or industry to win.
To give a notion of the scale of the battle: it occurred over an area the size of modern Wales in the UK. I think most people just fail to grasp the enormity of it all. Peace!
We fell for the same thing in korea. We were killed by the huge numbers of chinese. Just like the Germans verse the Russians here. Why don't leaders learn from mistakes of others in the past?
@@daviddoran3673 defetead 80 divisions of untrained drafted 18 year Olds yeah that's sO iMpReSsIvE... the trained professional wehrmacht annihilated the soviets everywhere they went
@@geewhiz5926 They didn't only lose 80 divisions bud They lost: Many many of their fortified defences Equipment, lots of it Hundreds of miles of land as well as their Axis allies 400,000 soldiers A lot of their tanks destroyed, including the precious tiger tanks And you do realised that the Germans lost the 4th and 9th army right? They were the largest armies stationed for the Eastern Front. And no, no, no. After 1942, the Soviets were the ones annihilating the Germans in most situations. The battle of Kursk was a disaster and a waste of resources for Germany. The battle of Stalingrad was an absolute catastrophe for Army Group South after losing an entire army for surrendering to the Soviets after the encirclement. This allowed the Soviets to counter-attack against Army Group South and was a continuous victory until they finally end it by the beginning of 1944, where 6 months later Operation Bagration takes place, losing Army Group Centre, which remains as the biggest defeat in German Military History. If the Wehrmacht was sO GOoD and unstoppable, how did they lose to the Red Army? They surely could've destroyed the entire red army but they didn't. They lost strategically, tactically, industrially and economically to the USSR. The "man power" excuse is nothing but an exaggerated myth for the "Human Wave" tactic myth the Soviets didn't use. Almost 6,000,000 German soldiers were killed or captured by the Red Army in the Eastern Front, along with almost a million soldiers from the other Axis forces in Europe. Compare this to the 10 million Soviet casualties. The Germans weren't outnumbered by a long shot by the Soviets until Kursk. Battle of Moscow - 1.9 million German soldiers vs 1.2 million Soviet soldiers as an example Sources: th-cam.com/video/AwYhpYPftlg/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/5qkmO7tm8AU/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/B-ZHH770WLs/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/_7BE8CsM9ds/w-d-xo.html
Amateurs talk firepower - professional talk logistics” - General Courtney Hodges He is right - you can be the best trained soldiers in the world but when it comes to territorial war fare it’s the logistical supply of that country that wins. It’s who can get the most equipment and people to the lines quickest and resupply who wins a war - it was Germaine’s downfall along with Japans. Japan never understood after they took out the peral harbor fleet how we built so many ships so fast.
If only people would realize how lucky they are today. Health, medical, food, etc. are so much more better for all (at least I the US) people are soft & worry about basically made up reasons. Alas. TY for ur videos. Many Blessings 🙏 🇺🇸
That is an insane amount of military equipment concentrated in a small area I don't think most people understand The magnitude of it its kind of hard to grasp
Yeah almost impossible to grasp
The kessel was about 100 miles long....
read from a book about German armored unit that the Soviet defense on Kursk was very complex and layered. With lots minefields, AT gun groups, bunkers and fortified positions. Even then, it was reported that Zhukov was not satisfied with the defenses and ordered *MORE*
Kursk was like Operation Overlord aka D-Day, something that we are unlikely to ever see again. In the post war interviews of the infantry from both sides that were there both Russian and German said the same thing, there were so many armored vehicles that they just huddled in their holes.
There will never be anything like another D day. The advent of nuclear weapons kind of put a damper on that sort of massed attack. Hopefully we never see either!
The scale of The Eastern Front was insane.
75-80% of the entire German war effort was expended in Russia.
Yes the scale of it is incomprehensible.
The open steppes have always been the prime place for large scale mobility warfare. From horses to tanks.
@@burtvhulberthyhbn7583 the germans basically had to fight with 1 hand behind their back from 43 onwards after N. Africa surrendered and the Italian front had to be put on life support meanwhile the Soviets were getting more and more supplies from the west.
the Perekop invasion took 6 times the casualties of d-day. D day was a beach party against it. The Uman pocket alone had more victims than the USA in the whole war.
Today....with new motorways and SUV's etc it takes 26 hours to drive from St Petersburg to the black sea coast at Taman......in 1942-1943 the Italian 8th army were fully responsible for holding 250 miles of front holding open the Stalingrad supply lines.....it's beyond comprehension....
Been waiting ages for Dark to cover Kursk. The ultimate battle.
He prefers Nazis over anything what can you expect
@@trueKENTUCKY, you seem to not quite understand what this series is about…
@@trueKENTUCKY Not every german who fought for their country in WWII was a jew hating Nazi. A very low percentage were overall.
This was truly an apocalyptic battle. The sheer magnitude cannot even be comprehended.
I remember watching a documentary about the battle of kursk from the survivors of both sides. Shit was insane. German and Russian tankmen said that tank battles were so close that it was near impossible to miss.
Most T-34 victories were scored by ramming the Germans.
Dark please never stop putting out content or making videos . Your style and material are amazing .... Im sincere when I say your channel has to be the best on TH-cam . I can never scroll when I see your videos , Its an automatic click of the mouse for me my man . Thank you for your amazing content and the incredible history lesson I never got in school .
Most of the new Mk 5 Panther panzers broke down before even making it to the battle. The new Elephant tank destroyers were a failure at Kursk
Let's be honest the Ferdinand was a failure im general
panthers were bombarded by katyusha and that's why they broke down right?
pretty sure thats what i heard
@@5han921 no, a majority were destroyed by either engine fires or the final drives going kaput, which was prevalent on the D variant which was used at Kursk.
@@5han921 watch Spookston's video on the Panther th-cam.com/video/LZZPl6SBgZ4/w-d-xo.html
If there were such a failure then why did XXXXI.PzK broke through the first two defensive belts and reached the third, despite only having infantry divisions (and one PzDiv that was underequipped and badly used in Ponyri)? It may had something to do with the artillery and SP assets this corps had. Yes the Ferdinands were an operational failure, their effect, however, was very useful for the German infantry. The 13A was the most reinforced Soviet army in the Kursk bulge. Still, XXXXI.PzK did a lot of damage to this army. Without the Ferdinands and the Sturmpanzers they wouldn't have been able to do that.
Thanks for the briefe explanation of Battle of Kursk to Western world. The field near village Prokhorovka, where nazi and soviet tank armies literally collided head to head, took 20+ years to clean from the "tank salad".
Time Ghost Army , Mark Felton , and Dark Docs keep the Eastern Front covered 🤘
And TIK
and militaryhistorynotvisualized +
My great-uncle was killed in that battle, he was a medic in a German artillery regiment.
He was the small brother of my grandma(1901-1986)and she loved him dearly, she kept talking about him until her own passing.
I still have his military pass and his Iron Cross, also the death notice to the family written by his company commander back in the day.
@Thunder Cloud which he meant that the Russians should of also been beaten , not that Germany shouldn’t of been beaten .
@Thunder Cloud Your comment barely makes sense. I’m just stating a fact that Patton’s meaning behind that quote was that he wanted to carry on the fight against the Russians, after defeating the Germans.
@Thunder Cloud what complete and utter nonsense. Where’s your source for his statements ?
@swamp fox
Not all German soldiers were nazis like not all Confederate soldiers were slave drivers and racists.
@swamp fox
Were you there to see it?
In many ways, Churchill's famous quote about El Alamein" This is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end,but it is perhaps the end of the beginning" could in many ways apply to events on two other fronts.Both Stalingrad on the Eastern Front and Midway in the Pacific became just as clear markers for that moment the tide turned as El Alamein did in the desert war.
Imagine a war today where armies are losing 1000 + a day in men. That’s unbelievable. That’s hardcore war.
My brother in christ you predicted it
Battle of Kursk has always fascinated me since first reading of it at an early age. Have always wondered if the English had not had the ENIGMA code breaking machine and alerted the Russian forces of Operation Citadel what then? Surprise in battle has always been a tremendous advantage Enjoy your documentaries!
@@itchytriggerfinger7622 im not so sure about that i believe if not for hitler the German army could have won or atleast pulled off a stalemate and forced the allies into signing a treaty with Germany keeping most of the places they took in ww2. Or it most definitely would have went nuclear and if Hitler would have just listen to his generals
Depends, the Soviets had started fortifying tho location since it was quite an obvious location to get attacked at. The Soviets also had the largest amount of spies of the Allies (it is really crazy how many different networks they had) so an attack could be uncovered before the Germans attacked
Yeah, they weren't those kind of allies
Soviets had many spies and recon units too.. don't be so foolish to think that everything relied on some Enigma messages. That is just nice story for western audience.
@@xmeda Never underestimated them my friend It's just that the Germans never had comparable use of "higher" sources like Enigma A matter of degree
Basically every german general during this battle: "They don't stop coming and they don't stop coming"
So much to do so much to see….
They had Hearts of iron Lions!! pure fighters🤴
@@LexlutherVII fighting for the oppression and destruction of an entire people. some of the most vial pieces of shit that ever lived. even if they were just doing their duty
@@brandonfrancois9352 Yeah, compare them with the Real Devils aka UK 🇬🇧, France 🇫🇷, Spain 🇪🇸, Belgium 🇧🇪 etc
@@brandonfrancois9352 How long and for Gow Long have those Devil massacred innocent beings for over Houndreds of Years undocumented and un Recorded etc?
As accurate and concise a synopsis as any I have seen of what is arguably the most pivotal point in WWII. Fantastic video.
Marshal Georgy Zhukov and Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky were the two primary Red Army Commanders during the Battle of Kursk. Neither are mentioned in this video. They should’ve been included. Of course a comprehensive explanation of the battle wasn’t the purpose of the video, but even a brief mention of them would’ve added to the narrative.
Rokossovsky was, Zhukov probably not as much. Zhukov was Stalin's favorite after the defense of Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad and might be that's why he was credited well over his actual involvement in Kursk.
@@tvgerbil1984 Thank you for your kind reply. I've listened to both sides of this discussion, and the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.
Rokossovsky and Zhukov, were both, as you undoubtedly already know, very able military leaders. Stalin was paranoid about anyone who achieved what he saw as excessive fame. So, he pitted one against the other in many and different ways. For example, Zhukov entered Berlin first, and Rokossovsky rode his white horse into Red Square during the victory ceremony first.
Just another day in Stalinist Russia.
Have watched plenty of documentary about this battle
This would have to be one of the best
Bro you’re speed is getting better 👍👍👍 keep it up man and thanks for sharing what these people went through in the past on all side’s and fronts to the rear ✌️
Great video
If any of you are into video games, Hell Let Loose has a map on Kursk and the tank gameplay is pretty fun.
Great game! I play it often. My name is Loki on the game. Whats the name of the map??
Well done. One small comment. The german tanks at 06:55 are King Tigers (Tiger 2). These tanks definitely didn´t fight at Kursk in 1943. The footage is more likely from the western front before the battle of the bulge in France 1944 (Ardennenoffensive)
Love the war footage but could do with some maps to help visualise the battle
Great video lots of action!! My favorite ww2 history is learning more and more about the eastern front. The scale of war on the eastern front was incredible ,so many loses on both sides. Just incredible bravery and savagery.
I think the Germans were finished in December 1941. Reasons; June 1941 attacks were along the entire eastern front. 1942 only mustered enough forces to attack the southern part of the eastern front. 1943 only mustered enough forces to attack the Kursk salient.
After the disasters of 1943, Manstein attempted to convey the cold hard facts to Hitler regarding the truth, victory was now impossible and the Germans could only delay the inevitable. He was promptly dismissed.
Gernany lost the first day it started the war, it was from the begining a war of attrition wgere the german could never hope of winning
@@evanmedi6144 The Germans were counting on a knock out blow in the first round! It didn't happen.
@@StalinTheMan0fSteel they were delusional. Even if they managed to take stalingrad and moscow the soviets will just move in further to the urals.
Germany didnt have the resources and manpower and even the strategic depth the soviet had. So their doom was inevitable
@@evanmedi6144 But - It was only because of all the supplies sent to Russia by the 'Allies' that they survived. Russia on it's own could not cope.
This dude describes the battle as a Soviet pyrrhic victory. Look at the maps, and troop placements. There was no chance the Germans could've won they were running right into a wall and were battered.
There's always an anti-Soviet slant in these videos. Even when the facts are evident.
@@kalomboC even when they're fighting Nazis too
The doc says "communist forces" and "heroic German pilots" as if the names were the good guys.
@@andrewfernandes5516 Dark Doc will unironically say "the Germans bravely retreated from the cowardly Communist attack"
I'm not accusing him of being a Nazi or Wehraboo but his language and bias is enough to pick on him for it.
@@ActinOnOrder I thought he was saying they were brave because they performed well against a force that was much larger
There is historical inaccuracy involving the file footage from later in the war.
This is exemplified with later war variants of German tanks like King Tiger and later models of Panther medium tank on display here. Russian did not use T34/85 @ this time, as it only began production in 1944.
Lier; 'By the end of 1940, when production of the T-34 started' wikipedia
It started in 1943
@@anprzewlocki1934 that's the first variants of the t-34 like t-34e and t-34/76
@@zojo4348 You technically correct, it's just that the serious production run commenced in early 1944. The Guard units received the early 85's pre serious production units.
@@anprzewlocki1934 You are ignorant of history girl. You are confusing different variants of T34's. ''Czterej Pancerni i Pies'' to byla tylko bajka.
You’d think after WW1 on the Western Front the Germans would understand the attrition their forces would have at attacking the prepared Soviet forces at Kursk. Which never worked on the Western Front.
Despite the Crazy Reasons they fought, they fought like no one before in this cicumstances 😪🇩🇪
As they say the one tank battle where they ended up turning more troops into infantry than anytime, still trying to stop tanks with Hollow charge grenades when there was no alternative
Contrast how insane the war in the eastern front was...In the battle for stalingrad, it was house to house fighting ...In this battle, it was open ground...no place to hide....totally insane!
"The Russians lost 500,000 whilst the Germans only lost 200,000" is the dumbest thing I've ever heard someone say. And you say it very calmly.
And it’s inaccurate too.
@@CraigerAce yes every side lost even more.
@@bradbutcher3984 wikipedia says 800.000 soviet and 200.000 german casualties. Yea the soviets lost even more than what he mentioned, but I don't get your point.
Great video and thank you for the reminder of the key factor to winning a total war (yes that’s what WWI and WWII were). Brilliant tactics and bravery will only carry an army so far. What makes the difference is which country has the resources and economic might to out-produce their adversary. The question about the inevitable outcome answers itself.
The battle of Kursk is one of my favourite ww2 tank battles in ww2
the wehrmacht was like former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson. If Tyson was going to get you, he would knock you out fast. But if you hung in there and survived the early rounds, it was just a matter of time before you could knock him out.
WW2 is the classic example of politicians who think they know better.
Great vid sir and you have slowed down just enough thank you!
Can people stop saying that the germans were superior tactically and that the soviets only won because of numbers ? That's a cheap excuse to explain germany losing battles.
Rip to all who lost thier lives in WW2
I Hope they are in Valhalla.
Theirs
Right on Bro, very good video.
So scary that all of this happened less then 100years ago
yeah full scale wars like this in the past happened frequently, but what made ww2 especially worse was how mechanized and industrialized human slaughter was
Great video as always!
Thanks
In answer to Guidarians question of " Why Kursk? Does anyone know even where Kursk is?" .. It was to regain the " Offensive Initiative ".. whether that was important or not
Colonel General Heinz Guderian fought his armor as cavalry. That made all the difference when dealing with opponents that fought their armor as infantry support vehicles.
Why does this video keep showing King Tiger tanks when there were no King Tiger tanks during the battle of Kursk? King Tigers were not present in 1943.
Enjoyed your video and I gave it a Thumbs Up
Great video👍🏼
Love these videos
videos never fail to entertain!
what's that supposed to mean?
The best thing that attracts me to the Wehrmacht is fighting soldiers to the last moment
They had Hearts of iron Lions!! pure fighters🤴
@@LexlutherVII I fought in many battles...the last one was in 2019 and I know exactly when you are less powerful than your enemy and the difficulty of keeping military units effective in such circumstances. Only the true soldiers will remain with you.... Praise be to God, after our steadfastness... God has blessed us with victory
The Battle of Brody 1941was the largest tank battle in WW2. Strange its never talked about... probably because the Germans won?
Kursk was certainly the biggest battle of the war....
th-cam.com/video/nA2286viUyw/w-d-xo.html
What about Stalingrad or Berlin?
Another great video.
Can you imagine the airborne projectiles... hell bullets are still flying over there 😑😑😑
Great video, could you some videos about against all odds tank warfare victories? I love seeing and hearing about these.
I’m reminded of a comment by one American official re the Iran/Iraq war, that it’s a pity they couldn’t both lose.
The Battle of Dubno in 1941 during Barbarossa was the largest tank battle ever.
Eastern Font required al ot of heavy lifting from both sides. Were some totally insane battles.
If we say Kursk was brutal, how much more Stalingrad, Leningrad,Moscow or even crimea? How about the cacauses and mountain fronts.
The eastern front was extremely vast, it was extremely brutal because the Germans underestimated them
They didn't underestimate them per se. The banked on the government collapsing after they obliterated them in the opening months and they didn't. They never planned on invading or occupying the entire, impossibly vast country, obviously.
German technical superiority was pitted against Soviet numbers, though by this point in the war the Sovs had narrowed the differences quite substantially. The TIgers and Panthers suffered many mechanical breakdowns that accounted for almost as many losses as those due to combat. Many of the Sov victories were scored by ramming German tanks and trucks as the fighting devolved into point-blank exchanges.
Manstein originated the plan for Citadel, but he called for the attack to be launched in April or early May, weather permitting. His idea was to hit the Sov salient before they could reinforce it. However, Hitler insisted in building up numbers of the new Tigers and Panthers, and the schedule slipped to July. This gave the Sovs time to reinforce the salient and form new armies. And deploy new air forces with new versions of their proven Yak and IL-2 aircraft. The Germans failed to use their advantage in strategic mobility to hit the Sovs in a weak spot. The Germans should have feinted at Kursk and redeployed secretly to hit Moscow, which would have been a crippling blow if it had succeeded. (Communists are highly centralized physically and organizationally).
Stalingrad was Hitler's last opportunity for victory in the east. By 1943 the war was lost even if they had succeeded at Kursk. The Soviet production capacity and endless reserves of manpower were just too big to overcome.
Please cover the "Battle of Longewala".
With almost no military training whatsoever, Hitler made decisions in days that generals would have studied for months.
He was the allies best weapon.
the words of Joseph Stalin effectively describe the outcome of Kursk: "Quantity has a quality all its own"
First I've heard of Elephant tanks(at 12:05).That will be an interesting new snippet of history to learn about
Numerical inferiority of German Army is the major reason that The Nazis were defeated. They are highly-skilled, have high tech weapons and as told in this documentary, they won the battle in terms of tactics and damages inflicted, but lost the battle in the end. It is more obvious in the western front where Americans massed millions of troops with almost endless reinforcements of hundreds of thousands tanks, aircraft and so on. The geography and the natural resources favored Americans, also in the WW1. No single bombed had been dropped to American continent, hence no halting of war production happened.
Elephant tanks? Going to have to check that out….
elephant is a panzerjager, meaning a tank hunter or tank destroyer
it’s similar to the ferdinand
An Epic Historic Battle indeed!
That’s what happens when you pick too many people to go to war with. When you’re throwing a punch at the guy in front of you, another one bites you in the ass in Sicily.
Kim Philby had a personal sense of pride, for information handed over by him to the USSR that was crucial for the outcome of the battle Battle of Kursk, Philby would say Prokhorovaka, this being the village were the Germans were planning to deliver a decisive blow to the Red Army.
Only problem is, Kursk was NOT the largest tank battle in the world. The battle of Brody in central/north central Soviet Union in 1941 was. But in terms of the number of troops mobilized on both sides for this battle, I think this was one of the largest.
A ten min documentary with adds
thanks Dark Dude. RLTW!!
Thank you for a very thought provoking experience. Well done!
Kurt Knispel 7:06 Legendary ace
In comparison to their 1941 and 1942 summer offensives, the Germans got nowhere. Indeed, they very soon went on the defensive.
The most brutal and heroic battle of modern history, all died like heroes
3:22 are those m13/40? I cant understand what other tanks they could be , but from what i know they were never used in the western front, only in Africa.
The 6th army was destroyed because Hitler refused to allow them to withdraw. The 2nd SS Panzer Corps was in the process of defeating the Soviets on the southern wing of the Kursk battle. They were defeating the 5th Guards Tank army and given a few more days, they might have done so. Again, Hitler saw the invasion by the Americans and British in the Italian theater and overreacted by pulling units out of the battle prematurely. The northern wing was unable to meet their objectives but had the southern wing been successful it might have had a different outcome.
Rob the elder watch a David glantz lecture on Kursk on TH-cam. He makes it clear that the Germans would have walked into a death trap simply because the soviets had so many reserves that German recon and Intel had completely missed/were unaware of.
Regarding 6th Army at Stalingrad, this is true, but also because Manstein insisted that he could relieve them. Paulus was actually going to try to break out to the west at one point. There was a small window of a couple of weeks when 6th Army could possibly have broken out to the west but Manstein asked Paulus to wait. The relief attacks failed and 6th Army was by then too weak to break out on their own and their fate was sealed.
As to Citadelle, Hitler likely did overreact to the Italian landings, but most of the troops diverted there were after Citadelle was already clearly lost. The Germans greatly underestimated Soviet strength and barely made it to the 2nd defensive line. There were at least 4 defensive lines at Kursk and in some areas up to 6. They waited too long to attack. The Soviets had over 3 months to prepare their defenses and by July the battle should never have been attempted. At that point it was suicide.
That's a big MIGHT there as Operation Kutuzov launched by the Soviets against the flanks of the German Northern Front at Kursk threatend a cave in of the German offensive lines. In this case Hitler was right to call off the Operation because had the offensive continued Northern front would be cut off. The absolutely dumb excuse of blaming Hitler on the failure of Operation Citadel as a whole is ignoring the fact that the attack was not cancelled it's the fact that the attack was stopped and had failed and was never going to succeed.
Meh, moustache man sucked and failed
There were many defensive layers constructed by the Soviets that never encountered by the nazis. This would have been further opportunity to destroy yet more nazi tanks.
Just word on names. The tank destroyers the Germans deployed st Kursk were FERDINANDS. They were a terrible failure. Lack of defensive armament was deadly. The Germans used the remaining FERDINANDS they had, upgraded them and added defensive armament among other improvements. Deployed to Italy they were then renamed ELEFANTS.
They needed machine guns to keep enemy infantry at bay.They did not fit them.
Gulag.. its not plural. Gulag is the system, not the camps..
@4:25 I think the guy jumping on the tank thought the turret was locked……..apparently it wasn’t lol. Looks like he prolly busted ass. I’ve noticed little mishaps like this in a few different historical WWII clips. We’re all just human after all 🙂👍
He said that Germans lost over 260k in Stalingrad when they actually lost much more, 868k soldiers.
Whatever the Germans lost at Stalingrad pales in comparison to how many Russians were killed there.
@@Red_Sector_7 No Axis lost 868k, Soviets 1129k thats pretty much equal, especially considering these were very strong formations. The British and French were losing 15 times more than the Germans in the first part of ww2.
You can't say the Germans won when it ultimately ended any offence for them lol
Offensive ❓
It's not being insulting to America but this oh we saved you is just so wrong. The Wehrmacht was streets ahead of any other army in the field. I once remember seeing stats around platoon sized engagements and the amount of fire being laid down. The German unit was every man putting out rounds AND manoeuvring while a British one or US had as many as 5-6 just hugging the dirt or being ineffective. The Eastern Front was titanic..America was daunted by 100,000 casualties from invading Japan..If the US had been on the Eastern front instead of Russia it probably would have gone under, Russia bled their army to defeat..Take out Russia out of the equationand you're looking at expending a million American lives at least surely? And I think that's a conservative estimate.
Yanks like to think themselves as "saviors" it's not surprising
How would you like to be under the command of one who thinks that you are expendable?
That's pretty much true of any army you could name. The term is, "cannon-fodder".
Once again just excellent
Can only imagine the carnage that went down there towards the end of that battle...shit had to have felt like the entire world was up in flames.
I watched something a few weeks ago on Military History Visualized or a similar channel that Kursk was only the second largest tank battle, with the largest taking place somewhere a fair distance to the North.
No...Citadel was the greatest....some anti Russian sources claim the series of armoured clashes around Brody to the West was the greatest but there is no comparison..
Dubno-Brody battles were larger. This was at the beginning of Barbarossa and involved the largest numbers of divisions, both armored and infantry, on both sides on the whole eastern front campaign except perhaps Bagration in mid ‘44.
Generally Dubno-Brody battles are not considered to be a single major tank battle in the way Citadelle has been as it involved a much larger area and more engagements that were less coordinated and connected. Also due to the chaos on the Soviet side and speed of the German advance it’s much less documented and thus gets ignored by nearly everyone.
He got a bit of this incorrect. It wasn’t the loss at Stalingrad that forced the Germans to turn south. It was the decision to go south to the oil fields that had them attack Stalingrad to prevent Soviet forces from attacking them from the north by traveling down the Volga. The failure of Stalingrad was a major problem and was the beginning of the end of the southern advance and the loss of any possibly of preventing the Soviets from using that oil or getting it for themselves. That was a pipe dream in any event as it would have taken the Germans up to a year to get significant amounts of oil out of the ground from what would have been totally destroyed fields, as the Germans found from the ones the did capture, as well as the transporting of the oil back to Rumania to refine without any pipelines to do so. By the time all of that happened, the Soviets, partly thanks to over 12 million tons of aid, mostly from the USA, were ready for major advances. Kursk, despite what some people like to think, was not “the turning point of the war”. The turning point was in December, 1941. Once Barbarossa failed at that point. It was just downhill from then on. They never really had a chance in the south and June 1944 destroyed any possibility that Germany would have enough troops, equipment, or industry to win.
Germany should've finished off Britain first before even thinking of opening another front. They could've won this one.
Supply lines and weak Romanian and Italian flanks led to the destruction for the panzergreneder. We’re still paying the cost today.
I think you are talking about Stalingrad not Kursk.
How exactly are you still paying the cost?
To give a notion of the scale of the battle: it occurred over an area the size of modern Wales in the UK. I think most people just fail to grasp the enormity of it all. Peace!
We fell for the same thing in korea. We were killed by the huge numbers of chinese. Just like the Germans verse the Russians here. Why don't leaders learn from mistakes of others in the past?
Masses of numbers always prevail. Eventually.
Nice content, let’s see one on the soviet offensive operation bagration 1944
Agreed!!! The most ignored and most successful counter attack in history!!!! 80 Wehrmacht divisions annihilated!!! Army Group Centre wiped out!!!!
@@daviddoran3673 defetead 80 divisions of untrained drafted 18 year Olds yeah that's sO iMpReSsIvE... the trained professional wehrmacht annihilated the soviets everywhere they went
@@geewhiz5926 They didn't only lose 80 divisions bud
They lost:
Many many of their fortified defences
Equipment, lots of it
Hundreds of miles of land as well as their Axis allies
400,000 soldiers
A lot of their tanks destroyed, including the precious tiger tanks
And you do realised that the Germans lost the 4th and 9th army right? They were the largest armies stationed for the Eastern Front.
And no, no, no. After 1942, the Soviets were the ones annihilating the Germans in most situations. The battle of Kursk was a disaster and a waste of resources for Germany. The battle of Stalingrad was an absolute catastrophe for Army Group South after losing an entire army for surrendering to the Soviets after the encirclement. This allowed the Soviets to counter-attack against Army Group South and was a continuous victory until they finally end it by the beginning of 1944, where 6 months later Operation Bagration takes place, losing Army Group Centre, which remains as the biggest defeat in German Military History.
If the Wehrmacht was sO GOoD and unstoppable, how did they lose to the Red Army? They surely could've destroyed the entire red army but they didn't. They lost strategically, tactically, industrially and economically to the USSR. The "man power" excuse is nothing but an exaggerated myth for the "Human Wave" tactic myth the Soviets didn't use. Almost 6,000,000 German soldiers were killed or captured by the Red Army in the Eastern Front, along with almost a million soldiers from the other Axis forces in Europe. Compare this to the 10 million Soviet casualties. The Germans weren't outnumbered by a long shot by the Soviets until Kursk.
Battle of Moscow - 1.9 million German soldiers vs 1.2 million Soviet soldiers as an example
Sources:
th-cam.com/video/AwYhpYPftlg/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/5qkmO7tm8AU/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/B-ZHH770WLs/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/_7BE8CsM9ds/w-d-xo.html
@@minehffd2651 German losses at 3.8 million
Russian losses at 10.4 million
That is all!
@@minehffd2651 that's like an 8.1 K/D ratio
Stop showing film of Ger. Tiger 2 tanks in Context of the 1943 summer fighting on the Russian Front !
Amateurs talk firepower - professional talk logistics” - General Courtney Hodges
He is right - you can be the best trained soldiers in the world but when it comes to territorial war fare it’s the logistical supply of that country that wins. It’s who can get the most equipment and people to the lines quickest and resupply who wins a war - it was Germaine’s downfall along with Japans. Japan never understood after they took out the peral harbor fleet how we built so many ships so fast.
German logistics was crippled by Soviet guerillas or "partisans". This is another great topic for Dark Docs to look at.
@@solarpower09 I agree absolutely on both accounts
2:40
"Social supply networks... "?
Check the commentary of Thames tv and this one vry big difference in pronunciation
A less scummy narration than usual, some improvement.. Still good footage & pieced together well.
If only people would realize how lucky they are today. Health, medical, food, etc. are so much more better for all (at least I the US) people are soft & worry about basically made up reasons. Alas.
TY for ur videos.
Many Blessings 🙏 🇺🇸
The scale of the lend lease policy shows itself ones again...insane