Soviet Defensive Tactics - Kursk 43

My grandma, may the Lord be with her, took part in this battle being a 17 y. o. girl. She was a radio officer in the Red Army's engineering battalion. After the battle only 16 persons including her had survived out of the whole battalion.

German: "That mine is mine" Russian: "Oh, yeah? No, it's mine. But ok, what's mine is yours"

Ardennes 1940: they'll never expect us to attack here, so we'll roll their flank and completely cut them off. Kursk 1943: they're expecting us to attack here and have built massive defence in depth; let's attack them anyway. Pretty stark difference, isn't it?

Hitler to Model: Okay this is gonna be pretty difficult, but once we get past the first 20 km it should be smooth sailing. Other 90km of defences: Allow us to introduce ourselves

When you have a lot of money in a tower defense game

My grandfather commanded a machine gun crew during that battle. He went all the way from Almaty, Kazakhstan and joined the fight in Voronezh in march 1943. He passed away in 2008. He met the end of war at Elba river near Prague. Great video 👍

I love that the ant tank mines illustrated @ 5:36 look like lego pieces, cause everyone knows walking though a pile of legos is like walking through a mine field.

Lol like how you mentioned the artillery only hoi4 meme.

if anyone is interested. I recently read Soviet manuals for tactical officers of the 1950s and 1960s, which are still being studied. I was very surprised by the fact that all the techniques in them are real examples from World War 2. Most often in 1944-1945, but also in 1941-1943. Those. these are records of real battles and analysis of them for the purpose of teaching a lesson. Back in that book in the preface, it was said in plain text that "we were very bad in tactics in 1941, but the war forced us to change, and now this book so that there would not be a second 1941." Very interesting reading for the fuck like me. For every possible situation a real example of a good experience was found there.

Soviet doctrine be like: "yo dawg! I heard you like frontlines, so i put a frontline, in your frontline, in your frontline!"

Even a modern army would struggle through those defensive lines....an anti-tank mine is no joke

Honestly I'm insanely impressed you took the time at the end to specify that any errors are your own errors and no one elses, very refreshing to see people actually take responsibility for somethig

"Even after the war [General Breith - III Panzer Corps] was convinced that the III Panzer Corps had actually achieved the operational breakthrough [---] *In truth, the corps had only penetrated the second Soviet army defence line.*" I think this highlights the problem with so many history books dealing with the Eastern Front that heavily rely on testimonies from German generals given after the war. Even generals misunderstand conditions, especially in failure, understanding what happened will be very difficult to get to unless you carefully compare accounts and the circumstances these accounts were formed in.

My grandfather was killed in Kursk battle. He was a machine gun operator. When I visited those places (actual place of death is unknown) about 40 years later, one could pick a piece of shrapnel every step in the open field.

Its amazing how the Soviets got their act together by the summer of 43! We can argue about "turning points" all day, but I'd say Kursk demonstrated without a doubt the Red Army was ready to haul themselves across Eastern Europe. I hope to cover Kursk myself in a future video.

Sees defence lines. Panzer starts sweating profusely

Приятно видеть, что хоть кто-то из англоговорящих, при обсуждении восточного фронта оперирует документами, а не сказками про "генерал Мороз", "Одна винтовка на двоих", "Заградотряды" и т.д. Уверенный лайк, спасибо!

Soviet sappers moving Germans mines. This would explain the first day on the northern attack the Ferdinands ran into their own minefield and were delayed half a day.

glad to see that artillery only is not dead