Using the 20 mm flak in infantry support is no BS. Most regiments had a company of then, and they were often used for heavy direct suppression fire ...The Flakvierling in motorized units was extremly usefull against both aircraft and infantery.
A former German chancellor (Helmut Schmidt, who was Leutnant of a Flak unit that probably had 20 or 37mm Flak) said in an Inteview they used their Flaks with incendiary rounds against russian huts when getting fired at by those. So yes, they were really used for ground support.
3:05 Man on this photo is Witold Kieżun. One of the most famous polish resistance fighters. He took part in attack of Main Post Office. After the uprising he survived gulag and returned to Poland and started law studies. In 80' he became UN expert in Burundi. Died in 2021 at age of 99. Few years before this death I had conversation with him. He was truly extraordinary man.
Women and girls most certainly took part in the Warsaw Uprising fighting. My aunt, who was petite at just 4' 10" tall was there, fighting within the AK (Home Army Resistance). Many years after the war, her activities were recognized and she received a Medal for Bravery.
The 2 cm Flak 38 was very common and very often used against ground forces. A human hit by this would be ripped apart. Quad Flakpanzers like the Wirbelwind were extremely terrifying in the ground role. Panzer II, most armored cars, most flakpanzers, several HTs and trucks also used it. It was basically the German version of the "Ma Deuce".
Its bs in the sense that the Germans didn't use it while still on its wheels like in saving private ryan, it was used against ground targets in defence. But it's nothing like a 50. It was normally towed by a truck or half track. Not some thing that's broken down and carried by 3 or 4 guys
I've seen this movie 4/5 times and it's always thrilling. Special effects are amazing and the direction is spot on with some really surreal scenes. The tenacity and resilience of the Polish fighters is inspirational.
The gun that the polish resistance fighter was using is a Mosin-nagant 1891/30 carbine (M38), its a carbine version of the Mosin-Nagant 1891-30, it was created in 1938, but in 1944 the red army adopted the M44 carbine, which is basically the same as the M38, but it has a fixed bayonet, while at the time the most abundant and common red army weapon was the M44, but they are resistance fighter or partisans so it’s totally accurate for them to be using the M38
but would any mosins have made it behind the german lines to the polish resistance? same with the ppsh41 im no expert on the polish uprising so it could be that the russians smuggled in stuff cus i know the british at least smuggled stuff in and out of germany with c47s during the night on makeshift runways
@@jrsviking215 It can be Mosin wz.91/98/23 converted to 8mm Mauser cartrige to meet Polish pre-war standard ammo, but it can also be Soviet Mosin which made its way to left bank of the river with Polish troops of 1st Polish Army which was part of Red Army and stood at right bank. They've made limited scale landing across Vistula in September 1944.
The Germans specifically were somewhat famous for using those 20mm flak guns as "heavy mgs" on the eastern front. They used them to provide suppressive fire out to ranges of about 2000m. And because they were so common and because they were increasingly ineffective against aircraft.
@@MaticTheProto Late reply, but they became increasingly ineffective as the war progressed and the Allies (especially the Western Allies) flew at higher altitudes during their bombing runs.
The Sten was designed to use the same type of ammunition (9mm) and magazine of the MP40 so that resistance fighters could use ammo they captured from the enemy
@Angryewokadam yeh I was surprised about the magazine. Apparently the magazine spring was so weak that the last rounds would sometime not reach the chamber. Also if you ran with a stent on your back with the safety off it could fire. Actually near where I live in France, during the recovery of allied weapon drops by the resistance a 9year old kid was killed like that, a passing by fighter had sten on his back and running by the kid the sten accidentally fired and killed the kid. He's known as the youngest resistant fighter kia, in a way to honour him. I think that was sugar coating of course, he was more of a kid in the wrong place at the wrong time imo...
As for women in the Warsaw Uprising. In addition to cooking, treating the wounded, and loading ammunition, they also took part in the fight. There was a whole combat unit composed only of women. "Disk" unit - a subversive and sabotage women's unit of the Home Army. DISC is an abbreviation for Dywersja and Sabotaż Women. During the uprising, "Disk" joined the Broda 53 brigade and fought in the "Radosław" Group. They fought in Wola (a district of Warsaw). After the fall of the district, which could not be maintained despite fierce fighting, the women, along with the rest of the troops, went through the ruins of the ghetto to the Old Town. Here they fought until they retreated through the sewers to Śródmieście, where some of the healthy, under the command of "Zofia", went to Czerniaków, and the sick and wounded remained in Śródmieście. During the fights, the women not only acted as nurses, miners, liaison officers and observers, but also developed traffic lights for Allied planes and took part in receiving airdrops. It should also be remembered that it was women-minerals who breached the PAST building, through which the second assault on this building was carried out. They were highly respected by the men fighting them, who appreciated the versatility of the members of the DISC. There were also women - privates who fought with weapons in hand (Magdalena Grodzka-Gużkowska was a sharpshooter). When the Uprising began, there were about 5,000 women - soldiers of the Home Army. During the Warsaw Uprising, they were mainly nurses and liaison officers. Women accounted for over 60% of the state in a special canal communications platoon. There were also them in the sabotage and quartermaster services, as well as information and propaganda.
As for the weapons used by the Polish resistance movement. The guerrillas used whatever weapons they could get, steal, buy from someone or get them in airdrops from the English, or they produced them themselves. They used everything from Polish, German, Soviet, Romanian, Hungarian, French, Italian and Allied weapons. The productions of the Polish resistance movement are "BŁYSKAWICA", "BECHOWIEC" (in two versions), "KIS", "KOP-PAL". They were produced from several hundred to several thousand pieces. Different units in different parts of occupied Poland could have completely different weapons.
In regards to the 20 mm AA used in a direct fire infantry support role, it’s very accurate. There’s images of soldiers using it that way and I recently read an account of artillery troops using it against airborne troops on the morning of june 6th
Hej buddy. Love your videos. As an ex-military infantry man, I have to say that this is something we learn about in CQC/CQF in urban areas. 4:05 actually the people falling even with the bullets hitting the ground in front of them is very accurate. Especially in urban fighting where the streets are solid. The bullets hitting the hard surface of the streets causes "bullet splash" Bullet splash is exactly what it sounds like. If a soft object hits a hard surface fast enough, it’s going to create a ‘splash’. Like a water balloon against a wall, you get small fragments shooting out perpendicular to the impact surface. When a bullet hits a hard surface, the (relatively soft) bullet will fragment and send bullet fragments off in different directions. The only difference here is that a bullet travels so fast with so much potential energy, that those shards are still deadly dangerous. Also the bullet can ricochet if the angle is just right.
A lot of Allied airmen flew missions to drop supplies to the Polish Home Army. Many were shot down and near my house in Southern Poland, a large plaque in a local church and small shrine remembers one crew, mainly New Zealanders, all young blokes of 20 something, who never made it home, and gave their lives to give the Polish guys a chance. They aren't forgotten in Poland.
Well said, in Newark, Nottinghamshire, UK, we have the Warsaw Air Bridge Monument dedicated to the approx. 250 airmen shot down flying there from Italy during August-Sept. 1944. The aircraft came from Polish, British and South African squadrons (plus there was a few American losses during the Sept. 18th daylight drop). In Newark is buried Sgt. Jim Auton who flew on a 178 Squadron (RAF) Liberator twice to Warsaw. Just before he died in early 2020 some 5000 Poles sent him messages of gratitude in just one week including the descendants of AK insurgents.
The Warsaw Uprising always makes me so sad, man. I think something like a quarter or a third of the soldiers in the resistance were from the Polish equivalent of the boy scouts. Ow.
14:15 if the tank fired in that scene, the blast would not only obliterate the civilians in front of the tank, but also kill the soldiers next to the gun. The barrel of many of the german tanks, and the tank in the scene has a muzzle that directs some of the blast to the sides instead of ahead. This is designed to give the tank better visability after it has fired, since it was common for tanks to be virtually blind after firing a shot because of the dust clouds it resulted in. The down side was that if u stood next to the barrel when it fired, you would get killed instantly from the blast. However this could also work in favor of the tanks, since in many situations, the blast force from the tank was more effective to kill infantry than the projectile it fired, especially in urban combat. If an enemy soldier rushed up to the tank, firing the gun would often be enough to deal with him even if the person was not in front of the tank.
"muzzle that directs some of the blast to the sides" that thing is a muzzle break. It helps reduce recoil. If the gun does not have muzzle break , the recoil would make the gun move further back inside the tank.
Gonna have to stop you at 10:30 - 11:00 In urban environments troops will use whatever they can get their hands on. Ingenuity in combat is a soldier his best friend. Using a 2cm cannon to blast a building is a great example. Now you say: that wasn’t it’s intended purpose. Yes that’s true. Now ask the US Marines in Fallujah Iraq if the Purpose for the Amphibious Tracked Vehicles and the D2 Combat Engineer Bulldozers purpose was to drive into insurgent held buildings so that they would collapse. (They did do this in fact) The point is in a cities and urban environments it’s easy to be placed in a stalemate so to get the upper hand you must think outside the box. Russians are even seen using Direct fire of B4 Howitzers into buildings in Berlin. Anything goes in a city.
good point while pointing the battle in Fallujah the opposing to coalition forces rebels used AA guns as infantry support soo yeah every thing can be usefull in ubran combat
Yeah the guy in these videos thinks war is fought reading the manual, in the field anything and everything is used for an advantageous in a fire fight .
4:12 . It can happened. There were granite pavements so rebound fire was very effective. Germans in close combat were oredered took off helmet because to many Poles had similar gear. Mauser Kar98k was popular in 1944 perfect for long distance shots. 12:13 it was every day crime. My Grandfather as teenanger was used this way and than was taken to neogothic St. Adalbert Church. Thaks God he escaped an survived this hell. Most of his school friends were mourdered at Wola District. Those mourders and rapist - "simple" conscript Wermacht soldiers and Police Units executed civils till the end of ammunition...
When it comes To this movie, I also reccomend you to watch "Warsaw Uprising" - This movie came out this same year the "Warsaw 44" came out - it is, And I'm not joking, A Feature movie created Entirely with The Real Footage from the 1944 Warsaw Uprising... They Took the original reels that survived (Originally there was 20 Hours of footage, but only 5 and half hours of footage survived to this day), they stabilized, Digitally Restored/Reconstructed and colorized the footage... But not only that - They added sound, They hired the person that was able to read from the people's lips, and They hired many voice actors to voice people recorded on that reels (They even search for the actors who would match the body of the person they were voicing) And around that, they created an entire Plot - The plot is about two brothers, filmmakers, who film the Uprising - They are the only Fictional Characters in this movie... After watching it for like, 5-10 minutes, you forget that you are watching real footage. When It comes to the quality of the restoration - It depends, because some reels were basically copy of a copy of a copy of a copy - So some parts of the movie look like they were filmed yesterday, and some look like a VHS recording. But overall I recommend you to search and check out this movie :D
Witold Pilecki, a hero from Auschwitz, who was murdered by the communists after the war, fought in the Warsaw Uprising - do not insult the Warsaw Insurgents by comparing them to the Spanish communists... What you expressed in these words 0:48-0:55 is outrageous!
The weapon the Upriser was using that you called a Sten, was actually a Polish made weapon called a "błyskawica" (Polish for "lightning"). These weapons were fabricated in basements and other secret places prior to the Uprising. They are of Polish design and, for what they were, were o.k. weapons. The truth of the matter is, the British and the U.S. wanted to airdrop supplies and weapons to the Armia Krajowa (AK Polish for "Home Army") during the uprising, but Stalin forbade them from using Soviet held airstrips and Soviet aviation fuel to help get the badly needed supplies to Warsaw. In the end, only two drops were made. A very small one by the British, and a little larger one by the U.S. The U.S. drop did not correct for wind, and the vast majority of the supplies and weapons landed behind German lines. Even then, the drops were way too little, way too late. Stalin had stalled long enough to ensure that the Germans would decimate the AK, while the Red Army sat and watched from Praga across the Vistula river.
I loved the scene of the 20mm flak gun in Saving Private Ryan, because it showed the randomness of combat. The Americans took out one of the German tanks relatively easily, but an unshielded gun manned by a totally exposed crew took them a long time to put out of commission.
The 2cm flak was great at shooting targets hiding behind hard cover like brick walls and sandbags. Since the round could penetrate such cover and cause massive psychological terror in the people hiding behind it. So the 2cm and 3.7cm flak guns were often used against opponents that are held in fortified positions, which there are many accounts and photos of.
The PIAT could certainly be an effective weapon but it was an absolute bastard to cock. It was basically a spring-powered spigot mortar, and to cock it you had to push the back end with your feet and pull the front end with all your might in order to compress the spring and engage the trigger. In practice it looked kind of like someone on a pogo stick. It was very difficult to do unless you were standing up, which is not what you want to be doing in combat. The recoil was also quite awful. But hey, no backblast.
In the german WW2 newsreel about the warsaw ‘s battle they show the karl heavy mortars, the stugs and a shot of a crew of flakwierling 38 fire at some buildings in direct fire mode
Sten was not only dropped by allies, but Polish rsistance had small underground factories manufacturing Sten. Also they produced SMG's like Bechowiec or Błyskawica, frag grenades, they even made their own flamethrower and armored car named "Kubuś", but due to lack of fuel it wasn't really used during battles in Warsaw.
I don’t know what is so strange about using aa against infantry. As recently as 2015 I myself witnessed how ZU-23 was used against fortifications and light armored vehicles, with a great success btw.
Just because something is made for one purpose does not mean someone else can find another use for it. The german 88mm Flak gun was made for AA but they realized it was also good at destroying tanks. The Soviet ZSU-23 was made for AA but then they realized it was great at destroying Chechen positions during CQB engagements due to its firepower and ability to have high angle of fire.
At the end of the day. It's a gun. Guns shoot and kill. I totally agree. You use what you have and make do. Ya if I was the crew. I would much rather of been in a armored vehicle intended to get that close. Designed for the purpose of that. But it can lower it's gun to fire at that angle. That is what matters.
At the 11:03 mark, I read somewhere that the Polish girl was killed by a round from the Panther tank. Now it seems kind of less explosive than a tank round should be. We could if we wanted to might explain this away by saying it was a defective shell, practice shell or that the outside of the building was different were she stood. Still a cool movie.
Warsaw Uprising is a very controversial topic. In summer of 1944 germans were retreating in complete panic after operation Bagration and that raised great entusiasm around poles. But unluckly right before the uprising german comanders changed mind and decided to hold on Vistula river on every cost. Soviets expected that and their propagand radio called people of Warsaw to uprising just to use germans for dirty job in kiling as many polish patriots as posible, to make future comunization of Poland easier. Hitler himself ordered to completly obliterate Warsaw despite lack of resources on every front (proof of his madness after failed assasination atempt). German forces obeyed and used all of their heavy toys: artilery, Stuka zu FuB bombs, nebelwerfers, railway heavy mortars, even prototype Sturmtigers (Shwerer Gustaw is not confirmed). And they used just six Ju87 to bomb every building in the city one by one (Soviet fighters didn't disturb them). And after fall of the uprising germans continuded pointless destruction of the city until January 1945 !!!
An incredible number of 250,000 polish civilians lost their lives in Warsaw Uprising. An incredible figure. Almost the entire young generation of that city died during it. And I saw the movie, it portrays very well the raw reality of the war. Its very sad what they had to be through.
my grandmother made stens in the uk , and they were good in that they are only about 30 parts so cheap , and they could use german mp40 magazines , and you could take them apart so they were easy to smuggle .
5:20 I'm not a specialist, but to me it looks like a Mosin Nagant, perhaps one of the early variants, considering the bolt is sraight, and not bent downwards, so mounting a scope would be impossible
Hey Alex, the rifle in question at 5:18 is a M38 or M44 Mosin Nagant. Carbine version of the M91/30. I swing towards the M38, as I don’t see the bayonet mounted on it, which is the only major sign of difference between the M38 and M44 carbines. I also lean more towards M38 as the Germans would have more of those captured than the M44 at this point, due to the M44 just entering mass use in 1944.
That soundtrack to the graveyard scene took me out of the movie. The Dirlewanger men were well represented in the movie. Good review sir. Have a nice 2022!🦊🫖
maybe they didnt have anywhere to retreat to or perhaps they were under strict orders to hold that position at all costs you know? its not like call of duty or airsoft where you can just run away when you feel like it
Using antiair 20 mm guns in anti infantry and support is accurate, imagine making swiss cheace of buildings or explosive roundseffect on people. . in balkan wars praga antiair truck was popular effective tactic.thats one example i can remember of.
Actually, the Polish women who fought in the Warsaw Uprising were the first women in history to be recognized as soldiers by the enemy army. The Polish firefighters made it a condition of their capitulation that all the women who fought along them would be given the POW status by Nazis. It was the first time the Nazis had to create a female POW camp. Women weren't there just as nurses but fought with guns too. Some were trained snipers for example.
1:39 It was spring-actuated rather than rocket-driven like the Bazooka, Panzerschreck and Panzerfaust. In terms of performance the PIAT had a much worse armor-piercing capability than all the aforementioned and it lacked the range of the Bazooka and Panzerschreck.
You could read " sonderführer w warchawyzie" by my father Dietmar Apel. Its about the uprising and some Shit my Uncle was in .....Like real scary Shit.
I recommend continue with the reaction video, it is very entertaining and educating. I recommend you can give a shot on the Korean Movie "My Way" which can be said as the best D-day CGI movie, but in terms of the reality it was very questionable. It also depited the Russian-Japanese border conflict in 1939 and also 1941 Eastern Front (briefly)
20mm AA guns were praised by Jurgen Stroop, a war criminal responsible for pacification of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. He liked its effectiveness against fortified positions and in general as a powerful anti infantry weapon. So I think it is possible those guns were used in the same role during the Warsaw Uprising.
The Russian Advance halted outside Warsaw they could have easily saved those resistance fighters but the Russians halted until the Resistance fighters were wiped out
MY NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR VISITED THE POLISH DEATH CAMPS THIS PAST SUMMER; SHE SAID IT WAS A VERY MOVING EXPERIENCE. INCREDIBLE HISTORY NOT TO BE FORGOTTEN.
The Panzerschreck and Panzerfaust penetrated twice as much as the Bazooka and PIAT (200+mm vs. 80-100mm), no contest there. The PzSchreck had the best effective range (200 yards), but the PzFaust was the best because it could be handled by everyone - from elite troops to grandmothers. It also made the largest entrance hole, thus being the deadliest after penetration. The Bazooka was plagued by duds and low performing rockets, the PIAT needed a strong man. It is a mystery that the US didn't upgrade the Bazooka during the war (the "Super Bazooka" didn't see service until the Korean War). OTOH, the Germans clearly needed infantry AT weapons more than the Allies. They didn't need civilians in front of the Panther, neither the Bazooka or PIAT could penetrate the front armor of the Panther. However, US tests of PzFaust and PzSchreck showed that both easily penetrated the Panther front - and captured PzFausts killed both Jagdtigers and Tigers in the last months of the war. th-cam.com/video/VX4AdArpuko/w-d-xo.html
@@kanyewhite429 I suppose it could be possibly in an urban environment, where you can fire from the second floor, but then you would probably try to hit something more vulnerable than the glacis anyway, like the roof armor. Other than that a hit at extreme range could possibly achieve the right angle. Even so 80-85mm armor is probably at the very edge of what the PIAT could penetrate. HEAT need some margin of "overkill" to penetrate clean. Anyway, you would need a LOT of luck to hit at excact right angle at 350 yards.
8:11 for the case of logistics is actually not that bad from polish partisan since most weapon used are chambered in same german ammunition. Sten MK2 are 9x19 parabellum and most rifle are chambered in 7.92x57 mauser. Few exceptions are PPSh and Mosin Nagant been chambered in 7.62x25 tokarev and 7.62x54R respectively. But ammo stock are kinda available since german actually put 7.62 x 25 mauser for the PPSh early war and rifle ammo are found in soviet outpost set back in late 1939. And side note for STEN reputation for jamming its because of the bad mag well design. The best way to shoot it is to hold the mag well from the bottom to realign the magazine to the receiver.
its rly nice to watch stuff from someone that actually studied by reading and actually obtaning knowledge and not just spamming out words and facts that they dont know anything about i relly enjoy watching your videos man but yes they used 20mm on infantry not as direct fire but aimed at hard structures in this case the building they where in one exemple is the sdkfz 222 20mm with a 42mg that round would blown half her face and elbow of tho since the explode even the AP version specialy HE
Your point on the 2cm flak gun is not a good take. There are a few reasons for this: First: a 2cm flak gun is not effective against the airdrops, the planes are up in too high an altitude for the gun to be effective, in the later stages of the war the 2cm flak gun was mostly effective in firering tracer rounds to scare the pilots (btw it worked). Where the 2cm flak gun would be effective (and the reason it was used as much as it was) is that it is a decent defensive gun against lowlevel flying ground attack planes, fighters doing strafing runs and so on, but that wasn't something that happened in Warsaw in 44 from the Polish or British side. Second: a 2cm gun, is an excellent anti-material gun, particular in an urban enviroment. If you have the guns, and they are not really being used for the original job, then you use it for other things. This happened all over Europe and the Pacific, if you have an automatic gun, and the enemy is nearby you use it... It might not have been noted often, because lets face it there are usually more impressive things to talk about, but we know from ammo-expention from all over that the small caliber AA guns were pressed into service against ground targets when needed. That the Germans would use it in Warsaw is very realistic. As to the PIAT... The PIAT was named the most useful weapon by a census taken among Canadian infantry officers after the war, this in part because some claimed to have fired mortar rounds from it, and as you point to in an urban battlefield, being able to blast a hole in a wall, without frying everyone in the room, is pretty handy. When it worked, it also fired really fast for an anti-tank weapon, tree or even four times as fast as a Bazooka. However it had a shorter range, and while the bomb was powerful enough to take out most tanks, it had (at least for a while) quality control issues. So was it better? Well it was heavy (like really heavy), you had to get really close, and if it malefunctioned, it was a pain in the ass to reloade... On the other hand, it fired a powerful bomb, could shoot fast and was great in both ambush and urban fighting, and was very versital, with reports talking about it working as an extra mortar in extreme cases. I think the hate it got for a long time, might have been unjust, but I don't think it was better than the other man-portable anti-tank options in the war.
The 2cm Flak 38mm gun was definitely effective against the airdrops that took place at only 400-500 ft by RAF, Polish and SAAF aircraft dropping supplies over the burning city at low speed. Records from surviving aircrew mention upto twenty light A/A guns firing at them. Three aircraft were shot down directly over Warsaw by flak during the night of 13th/14th August as one example. There were numerous 2cm guns in Warsaw and from August 1st were used against attacking insurgents. During one bridge assault on 1st August almost all fifty insurgents were ripped apart by a well positioned 2cm flak gun.
@@paultrickett9691 I wont say that the 2cm didn't shoot down the planes, but the reason I say that they were not effective is that on land (particular in cities) it is often really hard to get the 2cm guns in position to see and shoot at the planes (the heavier AAA had both higher payload and better angels on their guns). Ofc they have been used when planes are inbound, but when that is not the case why not use it? I do however believe that it was heavier guns like 40mm or 88mm guns that shot down most of the planes over Warsaw (like most other places)... But I wont say the 2cm didn't work in the role.
This presenter really is knowledgeable bout the facts that he did s talking about. I was impressed with him knowing about the Dirlewanger Brigade of the SS
Well i think the PIAT wasnt better than the PzF or the Bazooka because for the reload you hat to stand up wat almost forced you to get out of cover. It also didnt have a good range because ut didnt use explosives to shoot the protectile, because it used a feathering system that you hat to reset every time and thats why you had to stand up to reload. And the rifle was a Mosin Nagant. GOOD VID DUDE LOVE IT! LIKE YOUR CHANNEL👍
oh well, only the UK only uses anti-aircraft guns just to shoot planes, they can't be used against tanks, trucks, infantry and buildings. That's why the British troops in North Africa lost in 1941. While the Soviets even used submachine guns to shoot low-flying Stuka planes.
Though I am not 100% sure can imagine that at times women would be there in a firefight. Remember this was a desperate uprising and they needed as much help as they could get. Men, women, children, the elderly, the sick, all participated, and everyone who they could get who was physically capable of firing a weapon probably did
Many women and girls were trained together with men and boys before the uprising. They were taught how to fight along their male colleagues. It wasn't an exception. Many Polish women fought in WWI and earlier in Polish uprisings against Russia. Look up Emilia Plater for the most famous example.
It was actually not uncommon for German soldiers to use civilians as human shields. They did it on several occasion in Norway in 1940 during Operation Weserübung. I don't know why this is rarely talked about.
Yeah true. There is this one story of British Paratroopers I think on Pegasus Bridge in Normandy which blew a Panzer IV to pieces with thing. The Germans then were feared to attack again because they thought the British would have some kind of super weapon. Later the British soldiers said it was pure luck that thing did even work, often it would just not shoot at all. So yes. If it worked it worked.
@@kingstar0084 Really ? did they hit it from the sides ? I remember the Piat couldn't pen the front of a Panzer 4 and the sides where hard since most Panzers had side skirts.
@@fren2327 I checked again and it should have been a Panzer IV. But probably without skirts. And that happened during an ambush in which the PIAT was fired at a very close range
![[Live สด] การออกรางวัลสลากกินแบ่งรัฐบาล งวดวันที่ 16 พฤศจิกายน 2567](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wPd7VFfWHIA/mqdefault.jpg)
Using the 20 mm flak in infantry support is no BS. Most regiments had a company of then, and they were often used for heavy direct suppression fire ...The Flakvierling in motorized units was extremly usefull against both aircraft and infantery.
A former German chancellor (Helmut Schmidt, who was Leutnant of a Flak unit that probably had 20 or 37mm Flak) said in an Inteview they used their Flaks with incendiary rounds against russian huts when getting fired at by those. So yes, they were really used for ground support.
Yes i belive the Panzer II was armed with 20mm autocannon as well
As a CoH2 Oberkommandowest main I can confirm that :)
@@Dicipleguy333 Panzer 2's
@@ryuhanja3415 its called roman numerals
3:05 Man on this photo is Witold Kieżun. One of the most famous polish resistance fighters. He took part in attack of Main Post Office. After the uprising he survived gulag and returned to Poland and started law studies. In 80' he became UN expert in Burundi. Died in 2021 at age of 99. Few years before this death I had conversation with him. He was truly extraordinary man.
Wow zazdro
🙌🙌🙌
It's good to know. Thanks for the info, man.
Women and girls most certainly took part in the Warsaw Uprising fighting. My aunt, who was petite at just 4' 10" tall was there, fighting within the AK (Home Army Resistance). Many years after the war, her activities were recognized and she received a Medal for Bravery.
The 2 cm Flak 38 was very common and very often used against ground forces. A human hit by this would be ripped apart. Quad Flakpanzers like the Wirbelwind were extremely terrifying in the ground role. Panzer II, most armored cars, most flakpanzers, several HTs and trucks also used it. It was basically the German version of the "Ma Deuce".
THANK YOU!
I get irritated when people makes videos and claims really common things didn’t happen……..
Its bs in the sense that the Germans didn't use it while still on its wheels like in saving private ryan, it was used against ground targets in defence. But it's nothing like a 50. It was normally towed by a truck or half track. Not some thing that's broken down and carried by 3 or 4 guys
In the german WW2 newsreel about the warsaw ‘s battle they show an a flakwierling 38 fire at some buildings in direct fire mode
I've seen this movie 4/5 times and it's always thrilling. Special effects are amazing and the direction is spot on with some really surreal scenes. The tenacity and resilience of the Polish fighters is inspirational.
The gun that the polish resistance fighter was using is a Mosin-nagant 1891/30 carbine (M38), its a carbine version of the Mosin-Nagant 1891-30, it was created in 1938, but in 1944 the red army adopted the M44 carbine, which is basically the same as the M38, but it has a fixed bayonet, while at the time the most abundant and common red army weapon was the M44, but they are resistance fighter or partisans so it’s totally accurate for them to be using the M38
but would any mosins have made it behind the german lines to the polish resistance? same with the ppsh41
im no expert on the polish uprising so it could be that the russians smuggled in stuff cus i know the british at least smuggled stuff in and out of germany with c47s during the night on makeshift runways
@@jrsviking215 It can be Mosin wz.91/98/23 converted to 8mm Mauser cartrige to meet Polish pre-war standard ammo, but it can also be Soviet Mosin which made its way to left bank of the river with Polish troops of 1st Polish Army which was part of Red Army and stood at right bank. They've made limited scale landing across Vistula in September 1944.
@@austindecker7643 sure, but it was done in 1923. Also such Mosins were adapt to use Mauser bayonetes.
Ghewer
114 (: edit 4/5 (:
The Germans specifically were somewhat famous for using those 20mm flak guns as "heavy mgs" on the eastern front. They used them to provide suppressive fire out to ranges of about 2000m. And because they were so common and because they were increasingly ineffective against aircraft.
Not that ineffective
@@MaticTheProto Late reply, but they became increasingly ineffective as the war progressed and the Allies (especially the Western Allies) flew at higher altitudes during their bombing runs.
The Sten was designed to use the same type of ammunition (9mm) and magazine of the MP40 so that resistance fighters could use ammo they captured from the enemy
And then the germans got their hands on a sten and decided to copy the gun in an even more simplified version
@Angryewokadam yeh I was surprised about the magazine. Apparently the magazine spring was so weak that the last rounds would sometime not reach the chamber. Also if you ran with a stent on your back with the safety off it could fire. Actually near where I live in France, during the recovery of allied weapon drops by the resistance a 9year old kid was killed like that, a passing by fighter had sten on his back and running by the kid the sten accidentally fired and killed the kid. He's known as the youngest resistant fighter kia, in a way to honour him. I think that was sugar coating of course, he was more of a kid in the wrong place at the wrong time imo...
5:27
For someone that covers a lot of war history you'd think he would know that's a Mosin Nagant, such an iconic bolt action rifle.
just mosin. No thing such as mosin nagant
As for women in the Warsaw Uprising. In addition to cooking, treating the wounded, and loading ammunition, they also took part in the fight. There was a whole combat unit composed only of women. "Disk" unit - a subversive and sabotage women's unit of the Home Army. DISC is an abbreviation for Dywersja and Sabotaż Women. During the uprising, "Disk" joined the Broda 53 brigade and fought in the "Radosław" Group. They fought in Wola (a district of Warsaw). After the fall of the district, which could not be maintained despite fierce fighting, the women, along with the rest of the troops, went through the ruins of the ghetto to the Old Town. Here they fought until they retreated through the sewers to Śródmieście, where some of the healthy, under the command of "Zofia", went to Czerniaków, and the sick and wounded remained in Śródmieście. During the fights, the women not only acted as nurses, miners, liaison officers and observers, but also developed traffic lights for Allied planes and took part in receiving airdrops. It should also be remembered that it was women-minerals who breached the PAST building, through which the second assault on this building was carried out. They were highly respected by the men fighting them, who appreciated the versatility of the members of the DISC.
There were also women - privates who fought with weapons in hand (Magdalena Grodzka-Gużkowska was a sharpshooter).
When the Uprising began, there were about 5,000 women - soldiers of the Home Army. During the Warsaw Uprising, they were mainly nurses and liaison officers. Women accounted for over 60% of the state in a special canal communications platoon. There were also them in the sabotage and quartermaster services, as well as information and propaganda.
Strong woman, I respect that, no jokes but no scowling at them too. Nice to learn somwthing new
Kobiety not Women
As for the weapons used by the Polish resistance movement. The guerrillas used whatever weapons they could get, steal, buy from someone or get them in airdrops from the English, or they produced them themselves. They used everything from Polish, German, Soviet, Romanian, Hungarian, French, Italian and Allied weapons. The productions of the Polish resistance movement are "BŁYSKAWICA", "BECHOWIEC" (in two versions), "KIS", "KOP-PAL". They were produced from several hundred to several thousand pieces. Different units in different parts of occupied Poland could have completely different weapons.
I'm glad that I found this channel
Glory to Polish Heroes
In regards to the 20 mm AA used in a direct fire infantry support role, it’s very accurate. There’s images of soldiers using it that way and I recently read an account of artillery troops using it against airborne troops on the morning of june 6th
Hej buddy. Love your videos.
As an ex-military infantry man, I have to say that this is something we learn about in CQC/CQF in urban areas.
4:05 actually the people falling even with the bullets hitting the ground in front of them is very accurate. Especially in urban fighting where the streets are solid.
The bullets hitting the hard surface of the streets causes "bullet splash"
Bullet splash is exactly what it sounds like. If a soft object hits a hard surface fast enough, it’s going to create a ‘splash’. Like a water balloon against a wall, you get small fragments shooting out perpendicular to the impact surface.
When a bullet hits a hard surface, the (relatively soft) bullet will fragment and send bullet fragments off in different directions. The only difference here is that a bullet travels so fast with so much potential energy, that those shards are still deadly dangerous.
Also the bullet can ricochet if the angle is just right.
A lot of Allied airmen flew missions to drop supplies to the Polish Home Army. Many were shot down and near my house in Southern Poland, a large plaque in a local church and small shrine remembers one crew, mainly New Zealanders, all young blokes of 20 something, who never made it home, and gave their lives to give the Polish guys a chance. They aren't forgotten in Poland.
Well said, in Newark, Nottinghamshire, UK, we have the Warsaw Air Bridge Monument dedicated to the approx. 250 airmen shot down flying there from Italy during August-Sept. 1944. The aircraft came from Polish, British and South African squadrons (plus there was a few American losses during the Sept. 18th daylight drop).
In Newark is buried Sgt. Jim Auton who flew on a 178 Squadron (RAF) Liberator twice to Warsaw. Just before he died in early 2020 some 5000 Poles sent him messages of gratitude in just one week including the descendants of AK insurgents.
The Warsaw Uprising always makes me so sad, man. I think something like a quarter or a third of the soldiers in the resistance were from the Polish equivalent of the boy scouts.
Ow.
The sad part is that after the Warsaw uprising was crushed and the city annihilated the Soviets would later storm the city like a day or two later.
The deadliest soldiers were as we call them szare szergi basically boy scouts and All AK members were targeted and executed by the NKVD
@@planderlinde1969 And most of those who survived were later executed by the Reds for being "an enemy of the people".
14:15 if the tank fired in that scene, the blast would not only obliterate the civilians in front of the tank, but also kill the soldiers next to the gun. The barrel of many of the german tanks, and the tank in the scene has a muzzle that directs some of the blast to the sides instead of ahead. This is designed to give the tank better visability after it has fired, since it was common for tanks to be virtually blind after firing a shot because of the dust clouds it resulted in. The down side was that if u stood next to the barrel when it fired, you would get killed instantly from the blast. However this could also work in favor of the tanks, since in many situations, the blast force from the tank was more effective to kill infantry than the projectile it fired, especially in urban combat. If an enemy soldier rushed up to the tank, firing the gun would often be enough to deal with him even if the person was not in front of the tank.
"muzzle that directs some of the blast to the sides" that thing is a muzzle break. It helps reduce recoil. If the gun does not have muzzle break , the recoil would make the gun move further back inside the tank.
The 50 round for the MG-42 was not a magazine but a simple drum that held a 50 round belt.
Gonna have to stop you at 10:30 - 11:00
In urban environments troops will use whatever they can get their hands on. Ingenuity in combat is a soldier his best friend. Using a 2cm cannon to blast a building is a great example.
Now you say: that wasn’t it’s intended purpose. Yes that’s true.
Now ask the US Marines in Fallujah Iraq if the Purpose for the Amphibious Tracked Vehicles and the D2 Combat Engineer Bulldozers purpose was to drive into insurgent held buildings so that they would collapse. (They did do this in fact)
The point is in a cities and urban environments it’s easy to be placed in a stalemate so to get the upper hand you must think outside the box. Russians are even seen using Direct fire of B4 Howitzers into buildings in Berlin. Anything goes in a city.
Totally agree
good point
while pointing the battle in Fallujah the opposing to coalition forces rebels used AA guns as infantry support
soo yeah every thing can be usefull in ubran combat
Yeah the guy in these videos thinks war is fought reading the manual, in the field anything and everything is used for an advantageous in a fire fight .
4:12 . It can happened. There were granite pavements so rebound fire was very effective. Germans in close combat were oredered took off helmet because to many Poles had similar gear.
Mauser Kar98k was popular in 1944 perfect for long distance shots.
12:13 it was every day crime. My Grandfather as teenanger was used this way and than was taken to neogothic St. Adalbert Church. Thaks God he escaped an survived this hell. Most of his school friends were mourdered at Wola District. Those mourders and rapist - "simple" conscript Wermacht soldiers and Police Units executed civils till the end of ammunition...
When it comes To this movie, I also reccomend you to watch "Warsaw Uprising" - This movie came out this same year the "Warsaw 44" came out - it is, And I'm not joking, A Feature movie created Entirely with The Real Footage from the 1944 Warsaw Uprising...
They Took the original reels that survived (Originally there was 20 Hours of footage, but only 5 and half hours of footage survived to this day), they stabilized, Digitally Restored/Reconstructed and colorized the footage...
But not only that - They added sound, They hired the person that was able to read from the people's lips, and They hired many voice actors to voice people recorded on that reels (They even search for the actors who would match the body of the person they were voicing)
And around that, they created an entire Plot - The plot is about two brothers, filmmakers, who film the Uprising - They are the only Fictional Characters in this movie...
After watching it for like, 5-10 minutes, you forget that you are watching real footage.
When It comes to the quality of the restoration - It depends, because some reels were basically copy of a copy of a copy of a copy - So some parts of the movie look like they were filmed yesterday, and some look like a VHS recording.
But overall I recommend you to search and check out this movie :D
Witold Pilecki, a hero from Auschwitz, who was murdered by the communists after the war, fought in the Warsaw Uprising - do not insult the Warsaw Insurgents by comparing them to the Spanish communists... What you expressed in these words 0:48-0:55 is outrageous!
The weapon the Upriser was using that you called a Sten, was actually a Polish made weapon called a "błyskawica" (Polish for "lightning"). These weapons were fabricated in basements and other secret places prior to the Uprising. They are of Polish design and, for what they were, were o.k. weapons.
The truth of the matter is, the British and the U.S. wanted to airdrop supplies and weapons to the Armia Krajowa (AK Polish for "Home Army") during the uprising, but Stalin forbade them from using Soviet held airstrips and Soviet aviation fuel to help get the badly needed supplies to Warsaw. In the end, only two drops were made. A very small one by the British, and a little larger one by the U.S. The U.S. drop did not correct for wind, and the vast majority of the supplies and weapons landed behind German lines. Even then, the drops were way too little, way too late. Stalin had stalled long enough to ensure that the Germans would decimate the AK, while the Red Army sat and watched from Praga across the Vistula river.
It’s a nice feeling to wake up and find that you have a new video
I loved the scene of the 20mm flak gun in Saving Private Ryan, because it showed the randomness of combat. The Americans took out one of the German tanks relatively easily, but an unshielded gun manned by a totally exposed crew took them a long time to put out of commission.
Thank you for covering part of Polish history ✌
The 2cm flak was great at shooting targets hiding behind hard cover like brick walls and sandbags. Since the round could penetrate such cover and cause massive psychological terror in the people hiding behind it.
So the 2cm and 3.7cm flak guns were often used against opponents that are held in fortified positions, which there are many accounts and photos of.
The PIAT could certainly be an effective weapon but it was an absolute bastard to cock. It was basically a spring-powered spigot mortar, and to cock it you had to push the back end with your feet and pull the front end with all your might in order to compress the spring and engage the trigger. In practice it looked kind of like someone on a pogo stick. It was very difficult to do unless you were standing up, which is not what you want to be doing in combat. The recoil was also quite awful. But hey, no backblast.
they intheory at least should recock themselves after they are fired but apparently that system was unreliable
In the german WW2 newsreel about the warsaw ‘s battle they show the karl heavy mortars, the stugs and a shot of a crew of flakwierling 38 fire at some buildings in direct fire mode
Sten was not only dropped by allies, but Polish rsistance had small underground factories manufacturing Sten. Also they produced SMG's like Bechowiec or Błyskawica, frag grenades, they even made their own flamethrower and armored car named "Kubuś", but due to lack of fuel it wasn't really used during battles in Warsaw.
I don’t know what is so strange about using aa against infantry. As recently as 2015 I myself witnessed how ZU-23 was used against fortifications and light armored vehicles, with a great success btw.
Just because something is made for one purpose does not mean someone else can find another use for it. The german 88mm Flak gun was made for AA but they realized it was also good at destroying tanks. The Soviet ZSU-23 was made for AA but then they realized it was great at destroying Chechen positions during CQB engagements due to its firepower and ability to have high angle of fire.
I believe there is evidence that the 88 mm was designed from the get-go to be anti-tank capable as well.
At the end of the day. It's a gun. Guns shoot and kill. I totally agree. You use what you have and make do. Ya if I was the crew. I would much rather of been in a armored vehicle intended to get that close. Designed for the purpose of that. But it can lower it's gun to fire at that angle. That is what matters.
The PIAT does not have backblash but the recoil is harsh.
At the 11:03 mark, I read somewhere that the Polish girl was killed by a round from the Panther tank. Now it seems kind of less explosive than a tank round should be. We could if we wanted to might explain this away by saying it was a defective shell, practice shell or that the outside of the building was different were she stood. Still a cool movie.
Warsaw Uprising is a very controversial topic. In summer of 1944 germans were retreating in complete panic after operation Bagration and that raised great entusiasm around poles. But unluckly right before the uprising german comanders changed mind and decided to hold on Vistula river on every cost. Soviets expected that and their propagand radio called people of Warsaw to uprising just to use germans for dirty job in kiling as many polish patriots as posible, to make future comunization of Poland easier.
Hitler himself ordered to completly obliterate Warsaw despite lack of resources on every front (proof of his madness after failed assasination atempt). German forces obeyed and used all of their heavy toys: artilery, Stuka zu FuB bombs, nebelwerfers, railway heavy mortars, even prototype Sturmtigers (Shwerer Gustaw is not confirmed). And they used just six Ju87 to bomb every building in the city one by one (Soviet fighters didn't disturb them). And after fall of the uprising germans continuded pointless destruction of the city until January 1945 !!!
The 20mm flak Canon was why Germany doesn't have a 12.7mm weapon. To them it's their heavy mg.
I lost all my respect for this guy when he said it is BS to use 20mm against ground targets
An incredible number of 250,000 polish civilians lost their lives in Warsaw Uprising. An incredible figure. Almost the entire young generation of that city died during it. And I saw the movie, it portrays very well the raw reality of the war. Its very sad what they had to be through.
my grandmother made stens in the uk , and they were good in that they are only about 30 parts so cheap , and they could use german mp40 magazines , and you could take them apart so they were easy to smuggle .
@ 5:27 it looks to be a Soviet Mosin Nagant rifle!
5:20 I'm not a specialist, but to me it looks like a Mosin Nagant, perhaps one of the early variants, considering the bolt is sraight, and not bent downwards, so mounting a scope would be impossible
Hey Alex, the rifle in question at 5:18 is a M38 or M44 Mosin Nagant. Carbine version of the M91/30. I swing towards the M38, as I don’t see the bayonet mounted on it, which is the only major sign of difference between the M38 and M44 carbines. I also lean more towards M38 as the Germans would have more of those captured than the M44 at this point, due to the M44 just entering mass use in 1944.
Sad that he didn't notice this
The man firing the rifle out of the window is using a Russian Mosin Nagant 7.62R cal.It appears to be a m1944 carbine version.
10:16 also the the Polish not having a solid front line to drop supplies behind.
That soundtrack to the graveyard scene took me out of the movie. The Dirlewanger men were well represented in the movie. Good review sir. Have a nice 2022!🦊🫖
Please do a video about the unknown soldier its probably the most underrated WW2 film there is!
maybe they didnt have anywhere to retreat to or perhaps they were under strict orders to hold that position at all costs you know? its not like call of duty or airsoft where you can just run away when you feel like it
Best, most realistic war movie I have ever seen, hands down. A 10 on a 10 scale.
Using antiair 20 mm guns in anti infantry and support is accurate, imagine making swiss cheace of buildings or explosive roundseffect on people.
. in balkan wars praga antiair truck was popular effective tactic.thats one example i can remember of.
Great analysis…as usual. Love these videos of yours.
Actually, the Polish women who fought in the Warsaw Uprising were the first women in history to be recognized as soldiers by the enemy army. The Polish firefighters made it a condition of their capitulation that all the women who fought along them would be given the POW status by Nazis. It was the first time the Nazis had to create a female POW camp. Women weren't there just as nurses but fought with guns too. Some were trained snipers for example.
They were German not only Nazis. We have to remember that.
1:39 It was spring-actuated rather than rocket-driven like the Bazooka, Panzerschreck and Panzerfaust.
In terms of performance the PIAT had a much worse armor-piercing capability than all the aforementioned and it lacked the range of the Bazooka and Panzerschreck.
5:28 the part near the trigger looks like a mausin nagant
You could read " sonderführer w warchawyzie" by my father Dietmar Apel. Its about the uprising and some Shit my Uncle was in .....Like real scary Shit.
The weapon In the 5:29 mark is a Russian mosin nagant rifle used by Soviet infantry and sharpshooters
Good work on the piat my friend your knowledge is impressive. Great content.
I recommend continue with the reaction video, it is very entertaining and educating. I recommend you can give a shot on the Korean Movie "My Way" which can be said as the best D-day CGI movie, but in terms of the reality it was very questionable. It also depited the Russian-Japanese border conflict in 1939 and also 1941 Eastern Front (briefly)
20mm AA guns were praised by Jurgen Stroop, a war criminal responsible for pacification of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
He liked its effectiveness against fortified positions and in general as a powerful anti infantry weapon.
So I think it is possible those guns were used in the same role during the Warsaw Uprising.
Wow. I am impressed your knowledge
The Russian Advance halted outside Warsaw they could have easily saved those resistance fighters but the Russians halted until the Resistance fighters were wiped out
To be honest, I once saw a video of Polish fighters in Warsaw smashing German position with "2 cm Flakvierling 38" I will link it if ill find it.
Also in Italy partisans use a lot of stens smg, but the majority Are The Mab-38 and MP-40 and other italian late war SMG
the gun the pole is using is the mosin nagant, possible captured from an eastern front veteran of the german army
This movie and Stalingrad were amazing ww2 films
MY NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR VISITED THE POLISH DEATH CAMPS THIS PAST SUMMER; SHE SAID IT WAS A VERY MOVING EXPERIENCE. INCREDIBLE HISTORY NOT TO BE FORGOTTEN.
Polish?
There is no such thing as a Polish Death Camps.
You meant German death camps in Poland, right?
Polish death camps? Is this a kind of stupid provocation??? No sorry...
5:28 that's a mosin nagant 1891 rifle.
there are German newsreels showing the 2cm flak being used during the Warsaw rising
The Panzerschreck and Panzerfaust penetrated twice as much as the Bazooka and PIAT (200+mm vs. 80-100mm), no contest there.
The PzSchreck had the best effective range (200 yards), but the PzFaust was the best because it could be handled by everyone - from elite troops to grandmothers. It also made the largest entrance hole, thus being the deadliest after penetration.
The Bazooka was plagued by duds and low performing rockets, the PIAT needed a strong man. It is a mystery that the US didn't upgrade the Bazooka during the war (the "Super Bazooka" didn't see service until the Korean War). OTOH, the Germans clearly needed infantry AT weapons more than the Allies.
They didn't need civilians in front of the Panther, neither the Bazooka or PIAT could penetrate the front armor of the Panther. However, US tests of PzFaust and PzSchreck showed that both easily penetrated the Panther front - and captured PzFausts killed both Jagdtigers and Tigers in the last months of the war.
th-cam.com/video/VX4AdArpuko/w-d-xo.html
Piat could theoretically pen it. Because the angle of the frontal plate isn’t that effective because of the ballistics of the piat round
@@kanyewhite429 I suppose it could be possibly in an urban environment, where you can fire from the second floor, but then you would probably try to hit something more vulnerable than the glacis anyway, like the roof armor. Other than that a hit at extreme range could possibly achieve the right angle. Even so 80-85mm armor is probably at the very edge of what the PIAT could penetrate. HEAT need some margin of "overkill" to penetrate clean. Anyway, you would need a LOT of luck to hit at excact right angle at 350 yards.
@@TTTT-oc4eb i totally agree
PIAT and bazooka had same pen values but bazooka had better range and panzerfaust had like 300 mm of penetration
it could pen practicaly anything
@@hubertgizinski7962 300mm pen is exaggerated
8:11 for the case of logistics is actually not that bad from polish partisan since most weapon used are chambered in same german ammunition. Sten MK2 are 9x19 parabellum and most rifle are chambered in 7.92x57 mauser.
Few exceptions are PPSh and Mosin Nagant been chambered in 7.62x25 tokarev and 7.62x54R respectively. But ammo stock are kinda available since german actually put 7.62 x 25 mauser for the PPSh early war and rifle ammo are found in soviet outpost set back in late 1939.
And side note for STEN reputation for jamming its because of the bad mag well design. The best way to shoot it is to hold the mag well from the bottom to realign the magazine to the receiver.
Greetings from Poland
11.05 his genuine offguard reaction to that women getting blown across the room !😊
0:15
*- Polish Woman dies brutally and her boyfriend got traumatized -*
HL: Very realistic, I am very Happy!
Shame that creators of this movie forgot about home made weapons of Polish resistance, maybe far from perfect but better than empty hands or a shovel.
6:15 I wouldn't risk entering a barely standing building
its rly nice to watch stuff from someone that actually studied by reading and actually obtaning knowledge and not just spamming out words and facts that they dont know anything about
i relly enjoy watching your videos man
but yes they used 20mm on infantry not as direct fire but aimed at hard structures in this case the building they where in
one exemple is the sdkfz 222 20mm with a 42mg that round would blown half her face and elbow of tho since the explode even the AP version specialy HE
Thank you. You are a not many people that really knew what happened.
F_cking love these videos! thanks for givibg something to watch while doing my Ap history essay
88mm was AA also and turned out to be the best AT gun of the war. Especially with right optics.
5:25 The firearm looks like a Mosin Nagant
The sten was so "popular" back then that my dad gave me two of them to restore.
7:39 he is holding a sten not beacuse of british air drops but beacuse of polish underground production of this weapon.
9:29 can’t believe that’s a reused scene from Saving private Ryan
Your point on the 2cm flak gun is not a good take.
There are a few reasons for this:
First: a 2cm flak gun is not effective against the airdrops, the planes are up in too high an altitude for the gun to be effective, in the later stages of the war the 2cm flak gun was mostly effective in firering tracer rounds to scare the pilots (btw it worked). Where the 2cm flak gun would be effective (and the reason it was used as much as it was) is that it is a decent defensive gun against lowlevel flying ground attack planes, fighters doing strafing runs and so on, but that wasn't something that happened in Warsaw in 44 from the Polish or British side.
Second: a 2cm gun, is an excellent anti-material gun, particular in an urban enviroment. If you have the guns, and they are not really being used for the original job, then you use it for other things. This happened all over Europe and the Pacific, if you have an automatic gun, and the enemy is nearby you use it... It might not have been noted often, because lets face it there are usually more impressive things to talk about, but we know from ammo-expention from all over that the small caliber AA guns were pressed into service against ground targets when needed. That the Germans would use it in Warsaw is very realistic.
As to the PIAT...
The PIAT was named the most useful weapon by a census taken among Canadian infantry officers after the war, this in part because some claimed to have fired mortar rounds from it, and as you point to in an urban battlefield, being able to blast a hole in a wall, without frying everyone in the room, is pretty handy.
When it worked, it also fired really fast for an anti-tank weapon, tree or even four times as fast as a Bazooka. However it had a shorter range, and while the bomb was powerful enough to take out most tanks, it had (at least for a while) quality control issues.
So was it better? Well it was heavy (like really heavy), you had to get really close, and if it malefunctioned, it was a pain in the ass to reloade... On the other hand, it fired a powerful bomb, could shoot fast and was great in both ambush and urban fighting, and was very versital, with reports talking about it working as an extra mortar in extreme cases. I think the hate it got for a long time, might have been unjust, but I don't think it was better than the other man-portable anti-tank options in the war.
The 2cm Flak 38mm gun was definitely effective against the airdrops that took place at only 400-500 ft by RAF, Polish and SAAF aircraft dropping supplies over the burning city at low speed. Records from surviving aircrew mention upto twenty light A/A guns firing at them. Three aircraft were shot down directly over Warsaw by flak during the night of 13th/14th August as one example.
There were numerous 2cm guns in Warsaw and from August 1st were used against attacking insurgents. During one bridge assault on 1st August almost all fifty insurgents were ripped apart by a well positioned 2cm flak gun.
@@paultrickett9691 I wont say that the 2cm didn't shoot down the planes, but the reason I say that they were not effective is that on land (particular in cities) it is often really hard to get the 2cm guns in position to see and shoot at the planes (the heavier AAA had both higher payload and better angels on their guns). Ofc they have been used when planes are inbound, but when that is not the case why not use it?
I do however believe that it was heavier guns like 40mm or 88mm guns that shot down most of the planes over Warsaw (like most other places)... But I wont say the 2cm didn't work in the role.
14:44 and for the Americans at Aachen as well.
This presenter really is knowledgeable bout the facts that he did s talking about. I was impressed with him knowing about the Dirlewanger Brigade of the SS
The civilians being infront of the Panther was an actual thing. The Germans used Polish civilians as an attempt to get Polish uprisers to stop firing
Well i think the PIAT wasnt better than the PzF or the Bazooka because for the reload you hat to stand up wat almost forced you to get out of cover. It also didnt have a good range because ut didnt use explosives to shoot the protectile, because it used a feathering system that you hat to reset every time and thats why you had to stand up to reload. And the rifle was a Mosin Nagant. GOOD VID DUDE LOVE IT! LIKE YOUR CHANNEL👍
My grandfather fought in old city. He told me that they fight goliats by cutting their cables from behind.
7:35 German garrison or prison units often had weapons captured from allies in France.
oh well, only the UK only uses anti-aircraft guns just to shoot planes, they can't be used against tanks, trucks, infantry and buildings. That's why the British troops in North Africa lost in 1941. While the Soviets even used submachine guns to shoot low-flying Stuka planes.
Though I am not 100% sure can imagine that at times women would be there in a firefight. Remember this was a desperate uprising and they needed as much help as they could get. Men, women, children, the elderly, the sick, all participated, and everyone who they could get who was physically capable of firing a weapon probably did
Many women and girls were trained together with men and boys before the uprising. They were taught how to fight along their male colleagues. It wasn't an exception. Many Polish women fought in WWI and earlier in Polish uprisings against Russia. Look up Emilia Plater for the most famous example.
@@sylwiatime thanks for the info
I think you don’t know Munch about the 2e worldwar
It was actually not uncommon for German soldiers to use civilians as human shields. They did it on several occasion in Norway in 1940 during Operation Weserübung. I don't know why this is rarely talked about.
@lati long I assume it is just forgotten about. Those who say that the nazis defended the western civilization are stupid.
That rifle you couldnt recognise was a soviel mosin nagant
5:28 polish mosin nagant. Same as the russian one except from poland. Not sure if it would have existed this early in the war but its cool to see
And you missed to mention the polish Sten Clone ..Błyskawica. would have eben a nice Addition.
at 5:29 that rifle is a Mosin-Nagant
I can promise you the piat was unreliable but when it worked it worked
Yeah true. There is this one story of British Paratroopers I think on Pegasus Bridge in Normandy which blew a Panzer IV to pieces with thing. The Germans then were feared to attack again because they thought the British would have some kind of super weapon. Later the British soldiers said it was pure luck that thing did even work, often it would just not shoot at all. So yes. If it worked it worked.
round reliability was shoddy when it was first used in 1943 in sicily i believe but that improved later on
@@kingstar0084 exact thing I was thinking of
@@kingstar0084 Really ? did they hit it from the sides ? I remember the Piat couldn't pen the front of a Panzer 4 and the sides where hard since most Panzers had side skirts.
@@fren2327 I checked again and it should have been a Panzer IV. But probably without skirts. And that happened during an ambush in which the PIAT was fired at a very close range
8:46 i love how he struggles to pull out the mag like you/he sed they did not all / mostly know how to user them (: (: /8:47 (: (:
The rifle that you didn’t recognize is the Soviet mosin-nagan
5:30 The gun looks like a Mosin-Nagant