Greatest Tank Battles | Season 1 | Episode 3 | The Battle of El Alamein

In 1942, Rommel's Desert Afrika Corps faces off against Montgomery's Eighth Army. This is the story of the climax in the struggle for North Africa, which would change the course of the Second World War.
The series show full heat of the mechanized war on screens, analyze arms, protection and tactics of tank troops, using realistic animation. Each series includes interview with participants of fights on both sides of battle. Military historians and other experts analyze tactics of fight and results of battles.
Stars: Robin Ward, Ralf Raths #GreatestTankBattles #Tanks #BreakthroughEntertainment

[@davehodgkins3735]

Proud and priviledged to say I was present when my father Tpr Jack Hodgkins recorded his part in this Epsiode. RIP Dad

[@panchopistol6897]

Lies

[@LibertyPrimed]

@@panchopistol6897 proof?

[@panchopistol6897]

@@LibertyPrimed YOU ARE A RACIST!

[@matthewhall7489]

I believe him, he has the same face

[@manz7860]

I like how your dad didn't shit on the grant tank like most do.

[@tcg1_qc]

This series is probably what made me very interested in tanks and war as a kid. Thanks for putting it on KZbin

[@adamplayz2282]

same! I always come back to thi

[@samuel10125]

Tank Overhual

[@arctic4299]

check out the youtube channel War stories. They somehow have like every SINGLE ww2 tv show out there lol

[@Clementinewoofwoof]

2:59 That transition will always be stunning to me, CGI and graphical technology may get better sure, but this is just a classic and still aged like a fine wine

[@kaycey7361]

What an epic background music. This is my favourite episode of the entire series. Good job Canadians

[@towgod7985]

Really? No one else was there?

[@kaycey7361]

​@@towgod7985I mean the production team. The show is Canadian. I am not talking about the commonwealth soldiers

[@nickdanger3802]

M3 medium "For the first time, the Eighth Army now had a tank armed with a 75mm gun capable of firing a high explosive round, so vital to deal with dug-in German anti-tank guns." M4 "The Sherman was designed for mass production and at last provided Eighth Army with a good all-round tank capable of duelling with the best German tanks available to the Afrika Korps." Mk lV Crusader "The first Crusaders carried the standard 2-pounder gun, but by the time of Alamein the Crusader lll had been introduced which had the much better 57mm/6-pounder (anti-tank) gun. However the Crusader lll still suffered from the same chronic unreliability problems that had plagued the design from the start. Plus, the tank’s small size meant the turret crew had to be reduced from three to two to accommodate the larger gun." Mark lll Valentine "The Valentine was an ‘infantry tank’, designed to accompany the infantry in the assault in line with British pre-war doctrine. As such it was slow but well-armoured, with 65-mm thick frontal armour. But by 1942 its 40mm/2-pounder gun was obsolete. It wasn’t able to fire high explosive shells and was totally out-classed and out-ranged by German guns." History Hit (Canada) 8 Tanks at the Second Battle of El Alamein page

[@freddieclark]

By 1942 the valentine MK IX was being produced with the 6pdr gun.

[@nickdanger3802]

@@freddieclark Crew reduced to three. What was needed was a tank with a gun capable of firing a HE round large enough to knock out AT guns and an effective AT round.

[@freddieclark]

@@nickdanger3802 I am well aware of that, but it does not make my comment any less accurate.

[@aramos3639]

Tank warfare was probably so much scarier back then when the guns were much stronger than armor. I.e- nowadays they add all sorts of layers of protection to mbts so crews can survive even when hit. Back then there was some steel then your face

[@the_earlybirf1170]

Guns are stronger today, way stronger and the shells make em even crazier, thank goodness MBT's were made for sure.

[@raikbarczynski6582]

well we dont really know if our modern MBTs are up for the fight when it comes to the armor right? we never had modern MBTs fight each other in combat only modern MBTs vs older Tanks.

[@the_earlybirf1170]

@@raikbarczynski6582 There are stuff to provide improved protection of the crew, a good example is the Abrams, It has so much new technology and crew protection to the point that the heaviest combat weight is around 73 tons.

[@raikbarczynski6582]

@@the_earlybirf1170 and yet we dont know how effective that stuff is. sure the Dorchester armor of the challenger and the derived Abrams armor are strong.. but do we really know that MBTs of possible enemies dont just go trough that stuff like a hot knife through butter? there are so many unknown weaponsystems around the world

[@tcg1_qc]

@@raikbarczynski6582 Enemy MBTs can and will most certainly go through the armour. You can't make a tank invulnerable to other tanks, just harder to destroy. I don't know the particular armour package you are talking about but if it's ERA it's probably to stop HEAT rockets (like RPGs) or HEAT-FS shells (assuming the enemy tank crew does not know your tank is equipped with ERA)

[@Bangkok-ik1fp]

When you have a continuous supply of new tanks of varying capabilities thrown into a lopsided battle, it can hardly seem like an ally victory. Rommel's strategy and skill were utterly brilliant.

[@funkypsycho1130]

...In what sense was it not an allied victory? Rommel was a skilled commander, no doubt, but the whole continuous supply of material was part of why the allies won and the afrika korps lost.

[@darthrizi7340]

Fools debate tactics, the wise man concerns himself with logistics. That is how wars are won.

[@green4527]

@@darthrizi7340 neglect one and lose the whole. Many forces have fought well but lost due to logistics and many forces were very well supplied but lost due to poor commanding ability.

[@reentrysfs6317]

@@green4527 the Allies were able to hold while they were outnumbered. When the Allie’s gained the advantage in numbers they proceeded to push through Africa.

[@francishooper9548]

Rommel was greatly assisted by a USA Colonel who was imbedded at the highest level in the British Command structure who kept him updated upto five times a day with their troop disposition and strategy. With this information it is not hard to appear brilliant. He lost when this venue of information was closed. He had a special unit created to manage this information but it was overrun by the British and the Colonel was sent home in disgrace but was not prosecuted fornpolitical reasons.

[@lourensswart8445]

The Desert Air Force were the ones that gave the victory to Montgomery. Mary Conningham were brilliant. That and the fact that the Allies finaly figure out inter arms warfare. At Alamein they had gotten the 6 pounder anti tank gun. You dont fight tanks with tanks, you fight tanks with an anti-tank gun screen. Divisions where fighting together. No splitting up for 'Jock Columns' and boxes that Rommel just destroyed one by one. Rommels fuel tankers where being sunk before they could offload. All of these contributed to Montgomery's victory.

[@freddieclark]

The 6pdr first saw action in the battle of Gazala in May 1942, 5 months before El Alamein.

[@nastynate4916]

18:29 ouch, the person who made that used a Panzer III instead of the panzer IV

[@aussieblackhawk123]

you definitely know your tanks. you have a very good eye haha.

[@teenshallot1189]

This was an amazing battle

[@thomascolcord7095]

There were was no battle in human history, such as this one. The British took rommal by the the throat and never let go. You really have to respect those Brits alright. They knew their job and did it, without one complaint. That is what I call bravery, way to go Brits, way to go

[@thesnazzycomet]

@@thomascolcord7095 🫡 🇬🇧

[@evanoconnell9448]

My grandfather was in the battle of El Alamein. His stories were nuts. My other grandfather was on one of the ships in the battle that attacked the graft spe (dont know the spelling) then he re deployed to the pacific and in the solomons he got his hands on a kittyhawk the americans left behind. The mechanics got it going and they cooked the books for fuel for it and he flew their own CAP patrols around the island. Was planning to fly it home to New Zealand but got dinghey fever. He went back there after the war and it was already gone haha.

[@danzielinski5036]

this is some good coverage of history. But what Begiles me is the fact WHY would any one remotely want to own this barren wasteland? An uninhabited dune sea.

[@philipmoores4094]

The Germans wanted to reach the Suez Canal and ultimately the oil fields in Iraq. This wasteland was en route

[@justineallandevelos6491]

Because it's the only available route the germans have into trying to get to the middle east oilfields the only other routes they had was either try to go around africa which would take a long time and probably face attacks at sea as they have to go around South africa which is a commonwealth nation the other was through Turkey but they can't do it since Turkey is Neutral country and would probably declare war on them if they force their way through there and probably open a another front which would drain Germany's resources further since they'll have to divert some their supplies towards there if they're gonna go through Turkey

[@DRAGONSTRIKER887]

Very amazing scenes.

[@aditya11qw]

Wow awesome to know about wars like if you are fighting.

[@user-co1xv9oc2z]

I like that it looks at the two points of view. To win it or not is not the point, men lost there life for what they thought was right. They did what was asked of them by all sides.

[@martinnicholson9365]

Miss of u Yr the best thing that ever happened to me xxxx

[@robstokes174]

Your videos roll!!!!!!

[@rosepiranian7596]

Seems like the German weakness was to always overextend themselves.

[@urielmartinez2161]

Yeah due to the Blitzkrieg tactics

[@beckyfrogers]

@@urielmartinez2161 Blitzkreig had nothing to do when Germany overextending themselves in Africa or Russia. As far as German overextending themselves, a lot of that was had to do with fighting a two front war, Germany's lack of natural resources (fuel-both to power it's war machine and it's industries) played a large role as well as the Allied's naval dominance, which ceased all shipping to re-supply Rommel! In Russia, a late summer pause by Hitler, which was supposed to give the German a chance to resupply, only serve to allow the Russians to regroup and the Eastern front to drag into the dreaded Russian winter. The rest is history!

[@quaxky326]

Yes, not only that. They had the idea of quality over quantity. They were winning in the beginning of the war because they used weaker tanks, at the end they tried using tanks such as the Jagdtiger and other stuff.

[@the_earlybirf1170]

Nah it was because they forgot to listen to their logistics officer

[@kevinimperati8644]

@@quaxky326 and killing off the skilled workers who were the main reason they could produce those tanks. Also Hitler could sorta blame Japan the emperor flew too close to the sun and aggravated the 1 thing Hitler kept trying to avoid at all cost. And brought the US into the war.

[@myassizitchy]

I remember that day

[@kerrydennison7947]

If general Montgomery had to fight this battle with the exact same resources that Winston Churchill provided to the previous Commander and won a great victory I would say he is a great general no matter what uniform he wore but when you receive all of the resources and reinforcements that they previous British commander had been begging for for a long time then you are playing a totally different scenario

[@philipmoores4094]

The British outnumbered the Germans for Operation Battleaxe in June 1941 and lost. They outnumbered the Germans for Operation Crusader in November 1941 and won a pyrrhic victory at best. They outnumbered the Germans at Gazala in May 1942 and got severely beaten. They outnumbered the Germans at 1st Alamein in July 1942 and got a stalemate.

[@user-oc2lu5sv7e]

My great grandfather fought here, he was on 25pdrs

[@user-ci7fe1jj8x]

اللهم صل على محمد وال محمد

[@seransam6578]

0:24 👌

[@SuperchargedSupercharged]

would have liked to watch this, however and advert every 2 to 3 minutes is just more than I am willing to put up with

[@arklat]

How does barrel length affect the cannon's effectiveness? Can somebody explain, please?

[@locspimp]

It like a sniper rifle the longer the barrel the more velocity it can fire at giving it better range and accuracy better penetration and also the shorter the barrel it does less damage the further it shoots

[@arklat]

@@locspimp I still don't get it. Let's say the barrel is, just for fun, a hundred yards in length. Does that give the ammo a huge boost?

[@whispofwords2590]

A longer barrel gives the gasses produced by the round being fired more time to expand behind it, resulting in a higher velocity, harder hitting round that can pierce through more armor and cover more ground in a shorter amount of time, increasing its range as a result. Now obviously if you increased a gun barrel by that much the round would just loose its momentum, especially if its not proportional in length or diameter to the the lenght of the Barrel.

[@stndupforusa8964]

Length of barrel helps with accuracy

[@kellywalker8407]

@@whispofwords2590 nicely explained.

[@thomaslinton5765]

About 200 tanks in Panzer Army Africa were useful. The rest were light tanks with inadequate armor and guns.

[@sontungle2641]

The 50mm PzGr.39 round have velocity of 835m/s penetration from 50 to 70mm of RHA.

[@thomaslinton5765]

Not January, 1942. Late October and early November. After that, it's a fighting retreat.

[@charlesgstudios5545]

Greatest Tank Battles Desert (Season 1/Episode 3)

[@jingranwan4608]

why is the ep picture all the same

[@sontungle2641]

Panzer III max speed on normal road: 40 km/h, on off road: 24 km/h.

[@josephsatricleofevillanuev3194]

I'm confused, why didn't the Grant shoot the Panzer 3 in the side?! It has TWO guns! Did the desert heat fry their brains or did their guns jam?!

[@trentbailey0yiaytokens]

Because to kill the crew, best places to hit are the sides (where the ammo is located) cooking off ammo will literally blow the turret of the tank off the body. Tanks weak spots are the sides and the rear.

[@justineallandevelos6491]

Also the Grant's other gun is just 37mm not strong enough to punch through the panzer 3's armor the sponsoon mounted 75mm gun was the primary anti tank weapon

[@williambush1975]

I believe Rommel was not properly reinforced because of the equipment and men that where being diverted for the russian campaign,otherwise it would have been quite a different story

[@philipmoores4094]

The British sank the ships carrying his oil supply. They sank 9 of the 16 ships carrying oil in August and September 1942 and sank all 3 in October. Without oil it didn't matter how much equipment he had.

[@freddieclark]

Rommel actually received tanks and equipment that were needed on the Eastern Front. Particularly in the later stages of the desert war. Complaints were made by Guderian and Manstein about this.

[@williambush1975]

in the final analyisis ,the nazi's where streched too thin to win the war'though they where obviously very good at what they did.@@freddieclark

[@freddieclark]

@@williambush1975 Some of them were, but by the last two years of the war, fanaticism had taken the place of professionalism. Germany lost the war with a few stupid decisions, Invading the Soviet union, Declaring war on the US. Failing miserably to defeat the RAF and RN and failing to win the battle of the Atlantic, thus guaranteeing a war on (at least) two fronts.

[@williambush1975]

It's always nice to meet a fellow historian. Thank you for your insights.

[@accubond3004]

Fuck yeah lets go shermans!!

[@chd1694]

Rommell was brilliant with little he had.

[@towgod7985]

He was also being given daily intelligence from a spy who stole the British battle plans. Rommel was reading British intentions at the same time as London.

[@KenKaneki69699]

Weren’t the Rats of Tobruk in the Battle of El Alamein

[@philipmoores4094]

yes, 9 Australian Division played a very important part in the battle

[@jjayyoung7335]

Why didn’t that first Grant tank shoot the panzer? What was the Grant going to do, ram the German panzer? Sounds like bullshit to me the Grant would have fired

[@amanrusom9498]

I believe the battle of Moscow was the first defeat of Germany in WII.

[@johnronald6115]

Here’s one for Binkov - what if Rommel had Leopard tanks.

[@David-jt9nt]

nothing would really change bc gas was still an issue and they were using FAR lower quality oil then we have now for our MBTs and they have no way to replace the ammunition bc they do not have the production set up so it would be great for exactly 1 battle then they are just very heavy, and very armored drains on the war effort, now let say he was getting shipped the ammo and everything else they need though the logistic trains, he would have the same issues he had with logistics, because of over exertion. In short Germany started a war they could not and had no REAL chance of winning

[@blrenx]

The first allied victory of the Second World War. Was Midway.

[@michaelrooks4030]

Really the Americans had the first victory lol...midway was 1942 u forget British and commonwealth troops been fighting since 1939 ...if u have a look at ww2 history ..the real one not Americans version...Narvik 1940 ...Tobruk1941...but hey what would I know

[@blrenx]

@@michaelrooks4030 There were no Allies until the USA entered the war. America was staying out of it, that's why hitler declared war on the USA. Remember when the British were fighting alone?

[@michaelrooks4030]

@@blrenx Britain was never alone mate ..they had kiwis Aussies Indians south Africans and other commonwealth troops...

[@riptidegaming8876]

lol they said crusader can go 24 kmph per hour it can go 42 km ph

[@stephenmudiecastles.2938]

Panzer III-I am the tiger of the battlefield.. T34-Welcome to Russia..

[@JackKrei]

COMMIE HYPE

[@ussenterprisecv6231]

War thunder world war events belike:

[@jimfashik]

long live Deutschland 😃

[@thenadonation2664]

The Sherman tank sucked.

[@JackKrei]

The Grant I believe were called the Lee by the British but history is not PC.

[@ct92404]

Yeah, there were slight differences with the M3 tanks that the US sent to the British. So to distinguish them, the British version was called the Grant and the American version was called the Lee.

[@Purplexity-ww8nb]

The worst repercussions of El Alamein was it elevated Montgomery far above his station to command further in the war.

[@freddieclark]

Nonsense, Montgomery was an excellent logistician and planner as evidenced by Eisenhower giving him the command to draw up the Overlord operation. He was also highly instrumental in the British Army's completion of its move towards a truly combined arms force. The constant attacks by 'Hollywood historians' is simply sour grapes that a lower ranking American did not get his way all the time, one of the early American snowflakes.

[@jamesburque5115]

Sorry to say but the M4A1 Sherman was not very powerful compared to the Panzer 4 or the Tiger. Yes the Sherman was fast but the 88mm could hit targets at 2000m or further meaning the Sherman would have to cover a lot of distance while under fire before it could fire back.

[@ct92404]

There weren't any Tigers at El Alamein. The Sherman had pretty much the same armor as the German tanks at that battle (50mm), the only thing that was able to take out the Shermans was the anti-tank guns.

[@jamesburque5115]

@ct92404 oh ok but the Germans still had that match in firepower with the dreaded 88 high velocity gun giving German tanks a pretty big edge. The Sherman's had the advantage of sheer numbers coupled with resupply which is why the Germans lost at El Alamein.

[@ct92404]

@@jamesburque5115 The 88 guns weren't on tanks, they were on stationery anti-aircraft guns that the Germans had converted to use against tanks. As the documentary said, the Shermans were the strongest tanks at the 2nd battle of El Alamein.

[@darthslater6077]

At the end why didnt airsupport just take out the 88's? THis is what I never understood, you see the enemy has a better tank better guns, why just throw out a bunch of substandard shit and get a bunch of men killed because you did supply with equal firepower?

[@philipmoores4094]

locating the enemy is difficult. Once they are located, you have to work out where you, where the enemy is, then contact the air force to send in the planes. The planes then have to navigate over featureless desert to find a pin prick on a map, and might get intercepted by enemy fighters along the way. It was not easy to do this. In fact, the air force was pretty rubbish at this type of attack.

[@justineallandevelos6491]

Asides from attacks from enemy planes there's also the mere fact the germans have AA guns on the ground itself i mean the vid here literally said that they used the 88's which where AA guns against the british