The Wehrmacht & 1943 - Defense without Strategy

[@HistoryGameV]

The last time I was this late Steiner was also late for saving Berlin...

[@hazzmati]

DAS WAR EIN BEFEHL

[@nathannn6584]

Lmao

[@BabyGreen162]

DER ANGRIFF STEINERS WAR EIN BEFEHL

[@nitro_st1460]

WER SIND SIE , DASS SIE ES WAGEN SICH MEINEM BEFEHL ZU WIDERSETZEN?

[@mangalores-x_x]

Main reason: The army detachment he supposedly commanded did not exist and most of the units he did have were barely capable of defensive operations with nothing to organize an offensive.

[@TheQuestionMarkWasEmphasized]

3:57 Bank tattle.

[@pixelwortel9578]

Tank battle?

[@thatoneguynextdoor8794]

Sou, yood Gir, made my day

[@simohayho8622]

@@thatoneguynextdoor8794 dade my may

[@anderskorsback4104]

Though the usual caveats about Manstein and grains of salt apply, one might say that the Wehrmacht did have a plan, just not one premised on capturing certain areas, but rather on trying to bring about decisive battles of annihilation against the Red Army. I think Manstein said something along the lines of the Wehrmacht needing three more victories like Kharkov #3 to break the back of the Red Army. A strategy that is questionably efficient, but I can't really think of anything better, not with any amount of hindsight. The Soviet Union was the only major Allied power that was within reach to be knocked out of the war. What do Moscow 1941, Stalingrad 1942 and Kursk 1943 have in common? They were all offensives against obvious high-value targets, offensives that could be seen coming well in advance, allowing the Red Army to turn them into attrition meatgrinders, in which the Wehrmacht forfeited its greatest strength (the ability at mobile warfare popularly known as blitzkrieg), and the Red Army was able to play to its own (heug industrial output of armaments). One thing that often gets overlooked in discussions about the Eastern Front is that the Soviet Union fought 1942 and 1943 with a significant fraction of its population under German occupation and unavailable for the war effort, something like 40% at its peak. Once the Red Army got rolling and regaining territory, it was able to keep up its momentum by drafting the military-age men of the recently recaptured territories to replace its losses. If the Red Army hadn't gotten rolling when it did, but instead suffered large losses for little to no gain in territory in 1943, it wouldn't have gotten an ever-growing manpower advantage over the Wehrmacht like it historically did.

[@coffeecat9854]

Interesting point

[@Ebergerud]

I'm not going to argue that the German suffered strategic "drift" in 1943 - and if command really thought things through - the certain conclusion was that Germany was going to lose the war in the relatively near future. Hard thoughts especially as they implied that the Red Army was going to end in in Berlin - or maybe the Rhine. I'd argue, however, that quite a bit happened in the Ost. It was the vicious dynamic of modern war that things kept getting worse the longer the war lasted. So 1942 was worse than 41, 43 worse than 42 and 44 gets the blood tax prize. (Had 1945 lasted a year, it would have been the worst.) Look at the map of the German lines in late November 41: then compare it with March 42. Wehrmacht was pushed back a goodly ways. Look at the German lines on June 1 1942 and compare them to March 43. The Germans had lost more territory than the year before. Now look at the lines as they existed on July 1 1943 and compare it to the line on October 1 1943. The Wehrmacht was being chased to the Dnieper, had lost Kharkov for good and worse, Smolensk. That was the worst territorial defeat of the war so far. The Russians expected and accepted huge losses and they got them. But the summer/fall 1943 campaign was a solid and impressive victory showing clearly that the initiative lay with the Reds and would stay there. (Of course 44 was even worse for the Germans - or better for the Russians - but this reflected this continual upward push in violence and mobilization - a kind of race that Germany could not possibly draw much less win.)

[@RandolphCthulhu]

The US was gearing up their production of Liberty and Victory ships in 42. By 43 they hit their stride at slightly under 2,000 merchant vessels built that year. The most ships the Germans had sunk in a year was around 1600-1700 (1942). Add in the improved equipment, strategies and tactics the Allies used to protect shipping and hunt subs, as you mentioned, and the Germans were never going to stop allied shipping to a critical level in 43 and beyond.

[@Ralphieboy]

Mathematicians also helped win the Battle of the Atlantic: they worked out optimized patterns for ships searching a particular area as well as for dropping depth charges once the subs were located. Their chances of escaping were considerably diminished as a result.

[@zeitgeistx5239]

Eh, hunter killer groups with American supplied carriers that actively hunted down Nazi wolfpacks due to Uktra decrypts was what won the battle of the Atlantic.

[@thomasvandevelde8157]

One thing almost never mentioned, is that the drastic expansion of the U-Boot Fleet in 1942 (from around 300) towards the >300 strong fleet in 1943 had been achieved by drastically cutting on the training program for new crews. Also, a lot of old-timer ´Aces´ crews were split up, and distributed with these all green crews, which made the losses in May so horrendous: Unexperienced captains, 2/3 sailors never having seen actual active combat, on paper the U-Waffe was stronger than it was ever before, but in reality, the experience had been bled out of it. And experience is what it took to operate an U-Boot, especially for effective damage control. The British first noticed this trend in 1941, when they captured U-570, that a rookie crew had abandoned... And nothing happened, they thought they were gonna die, but in reality it was just a power outage caused by a few blown fuses and small leakage. I´ve put a ton of time trying to find out ´what went wrong´ and it´s always comes down to this: if a U-Boot crew managed to survive a single patrol, even in 1945, they usually made it trough a 2nd and a third, even sinking some ships that late in the war. Problem was: 9 out of 10 got sunk on their first patrol, because these crew were 100% green, just paper tigers (or sharks, if you want). Also, in September 1944 reserves got depleted so badly, combined with the loss of the French bases, that they started sending out Old Aces again, with as much equipment and crew as possible, for running the Gauntlet from France to Norway and North Sea ports in Germany. Again, losses on this Exodus were minimal. And in fact, May 1943 was far from the worst convoy slaughter, the worst slaughter was in February or April, when a single wolfpack lost 21 U-boats for 3 freighters over the course of a few days. A lot of narrative and story goes lost by not writing, or reading, about the U-Waffe post-1943. But the expansion program, the fact Dönitz was moved to Berlin, which made his control over the U-Boat Fleet day to day operations minimal (including technical problems feedback he got *directly from crews and captains* which he took *very* seriously, unlike figures like Göring or Hitler), all of these things combined turned summer-autumn 1943 into a disaster. I can write you a 20 page analysis on this subject if you want, but for now, enough is enough. The same vicious circle that struck the IJN carrier Air Arm (and later the Luftwaffe Home Defense fighters) plagued the U-waffe from 1942 onwards, and exploded in 1943 with the enormous slaughter of Black May. Also, there was the transition towards the Snorkel: a lot of accidents and CO poisonings caused by faulty operations caused deaths, even the loss of entire boats and their crews. This shows that technical innovation had it´s cost too. But enough for now, if I ever get the time, I´d love to write a book on this subject: ´The U-Waffe and it´s demise..?´ because there were multiple returns (and defeats) post Black May. Regards, Thomas PS. I like the terminology ´the Wehrmacht reacts´ because that´s what the U-Waffe did in September 1943 too: they returned with more firepower than ever installed on their U-Boote. Vierling Flaks, 37mm autocannon, even ´Flak Traps´ (U-Boote converted to carry up to 3 or 4 AA-mounts -usually 20mm Vierlings- and assorted crew, RADAR and other stuff to escort ordinary combat boats trough the Bay of Biscay) and last but not least the introduction of homing torpedoes like the T-IV Falcke and T-V Zaunkönig (which sunk at least 2 of their own boats, because of faulty handling) and this September Offensive also ended with the same, if somewhat less painful, disaster. Only this time, Dönitz his own son was among the fallen, and he again withdrew his U-Boats, and started focusing on improving the stealth capacities of their U-Boote. And obviously, launched entirely new types altogether, like the VII-C/41 and all sorts of extra gadgets for them. But I still have to read up on the Inshore Campaign launched in September 1944, it´s only recently I found out there´s actually a good book on this near-forgotten offensive out there that I have not yet acquired!

[@alexrennison8070]

Ummm. Have you written the book yet!?…..

[@MrArtbv]

Re: Greatest tank battle Dubno/Brody vs. Kursk. I think Glanz started this a couple of years ago with his presentation on KZbin about "Forgotten Battles" etc. Glanz got his source materials from the Soviet archives at Frunze and extrapolated from those. The problem was while ON PAPER more tanks might have been at Brody... They weren't "there-there". He relied on the "manning strengths" and after the fact reports by surviving Red Army officers and political Commisars being honest about what happened... The actual facts seem to indicate that up to 40% of the Soviet armor never made it to the actual battlefield. That a combination of confused orders, mechanical breakdowns, and fuel and POL shortages led to almost half of the Red Army units never being committed... Later the Germans counted the abandoned and self-destroyed armor as "battle casualties", thus pumping up the numbers. It's almost impossible to say for certain what specifically happened because of the massive confusion on the Russian side; and the reluctance of Red Army commanders to report anything, other than "Valiant stand, Overwhelming German forces ..." etc. So you get a knock-on effect of Russian commanders saying there were more Germans than there actually were, and German commanders counting as battle kills abandoned and self-destoyed armor that never actually fought. At Kursk there's a much higher degree of certainty of who did what with how many. Yet even there the Russians only counted as tank losses those beyond repair after the battle. As a result there were yet again, really big differences between German and Russian numbers...

[@tomtom34b]

I heard a joke recently: For some it is Dubno, for others it is the longest tank battle of the world. It is making fun of Duplo, and their advertisement: For some it is Duplo, for others it is the longest "Praline" of the world... :-) Duplo is a long chocolate and waffle thingy :-p

[@alexrennison8070]

What is “POL”?

[@alanpennie8013]

@@alexrennison8070 Petrol, oil, lubricants. A jargonistic way of saying "fuel".

[@alexrennison8070]

@@alanpennie8013 Ahh, thank you!

[@Nitroaereus]

Yeah, it's much easier and possibly more helpful to talk about the largest tank battle of each year of the war, especially given how greatly the dynamic of each year shifts. So for 1941, Dubno is clearly the largest as Kursk is for 1943. For 1944, it's probably the often overlooked German Warsaw/Vistula counteroffensive of August. And for 1940, it was likely the Battle of Hannut in Belgium. I'm not sure about 1942, but I imagine it was somewhere on the Eastern Front. Perhaps one of the Rzhev battles? Don't know if it's really worth considering either 39 or 45 given the much shorter length and rather one-sided nature of the fighting of both of those years of the war.

[@Ralphieboy]

The thing that makes Kursk stand out as a tank battle is a bit like what made Waterloo so dramatic: so many tanks in such a limited space slogging it out nearly point-blank.

[@dannyn.6933]

1943 - the year where the Germans said "Wait what do you mean we havent won yet"

[@sgtmayhem7567]

Military History (Not) & Visualized has some of the best researched and most detailed information about German WWII military operations I’ve ever seen, read etc... Plus he’s got the coolest accent on all of KZbin.

[@darkoneforce2]

Given they lacked men, equipment/industry and resources, a strategy wouldn't have changed the outcome. The war was lost by late '41 with the failure of Barbarossa and the US entering the war.

[@TheIzroda]

The Soviet Union actually destroyed 80% of everything apart from the Kriegsmarine. USSR pilots were not all that great, but there were a lot of them and their planes were not bad either. By the time the US and British started their massive bombing raids the Luftwaffe was already decimated and fully occupied on the Eastern front, so no way could they effectively defend against the Allied air raids. The US just stood on the sidelines and punched the Germans from time to time when they were too busy fighting the Soviets. Hitler not declaring war on the US would have done absolutely no difference, because the US would have declared war on him eventually, no doubt. Why wouldn't they? Anyone who thinks he's smarter than Hitler, I'd like to see you conquering most of Europe by early 1941 against all odds. What will you do then? Nothing? Not attack the USSR and everything is good? Oh wait a massive wave of 30 000 Soviet tanks and millions of Red Army soldiers sweeping through all of Europe like a lightning in early 1942 disagrees with that :(

[@darkoneforce2]

Second front ? So N. Africa -Sicily - Italy (the Mediterranean theater) what were they exactly ? Not to mention the Atlantic U-boat war, the aerial campaign, the partisan "rebellions" in the Balkans. Germany lacked men power since the winter counter attack in '41, for the 1942 campaign nearly half the manpower was non-german (italians, hungarians, romanians, croats).

[@phaenon4217]

Panis Angelicus FDR was already sending the USA into WW2 when he Joint board plan 355 with his own signature. It would have been a first strike that would launch the American people in war with the Axis powers by early 1942. People seem to point out this, or Japans attack as some turning point, but in reality none of these 'what ifs' actually would change much.

[@PelicanIslandLabs]

@Mstislaw AA You sort of forgot about N. Africa, Sicily, and Italy. I see now that AMVM already mentioned this. Doh!

[@pixelwortel9578]

@Irina it was lol

[@Lukeee91]

Just as playing the game of ice hockey, if you can make the opponent react to your game plan, rather than being able to implement their own, you are in a very good spot.

[@deinekes9]

The popular argument I've always heard about 1943 was not so much any decisive defeats (though there were such as Tunisia) but rather the passing of the strategic initiative to the Allies. One could argue that the Germans lost the initiative by 1942 simply because of the American entry into the war and the real possibility of the 2nd front. However, a strong enough Wehrmacht could still have some say in the strategic flow of the war say by thrashing the Red Army at Kursk; though the Soviets would recover, the time bought would allow The Wehrmacht to effectively juggle its reserves between east and west. The cumilative losses of the Wehrmacht meant that the Allies now completely set the pace and terms of the remaining years of the war.

[@UnintentionalSubmarine]

Anyone who has played SH3 know just how much more brutal it got in mid 1943. Planes and little evil escorts everywhere and brutal hunter-killer groups. It is interesting to note that the highest sunk tonnage happened in April, and then May happened. April was like the last gasp, as the U-boat losses were pretty extensive there too, but I guess most planners sort of only really saw the tonnage sunk. Not considering the sunk tonnage even April was not really sustainable.

[@HaloFTW55]

1943 is when the tide is consider to have changed in the Battle of the Atlantic.

[@Flow86767]

Silent Hunter three RULE

[@ReaderOfThreads]

SH3

[@tnlaw2004]

One should be VERY careful about basing one's knowledge of history on a game, ANY game - even good ones.

[@QuizmasterLaw]

The mid-1943 tonnage differences between spring and summer were mostly due to ULTRA but no one even knew about that officially until about ... 1974.

[@federalfarmer8174]

There are more comments about the “ incoming wehraboos” here than actual wehraboos, come to think about it thats the case on any WW2 video like this

[@twirlipofthemists3201]

Suits me.

[@neilwilson5785]

I like ice cream and hot custard.

[@shellshockedgerman3947]

Meh, its because they get very annoying.

[@flipierfatalbina4757]

check TIK comment sections

[@SmokeDog1871]

pretty sure wehrmacht fanboys are generally conservative

[@EstParum]

0:40 THANK YOU! People I discuss with never believe me that the 350-400,000 surrendered in Tunisia, or want to know about their importance! What a waste of millitary personell.

[@legalvampire8136]

It was a waste of German personnel, but many of those who surrendered were Italians who while not useless were less effective

[@Skoogplay125]

Anyone else watched this video at 19:43?

[@LiviuFloreaRo]

Do a Video on Manstein's claim of Elastic Defence! Also please do some videos on Stavka Doctrine. I am referring to Soviet Deep Battle Doctrine!

[@redhausser7492]

Pretty interesting video. This helps a lot to understand was was happening in the Wehrmacht in the critical year of 1943. Even if you know what happens in each theater, you usually don't get the full picture of the war.

[@wow664112]

Finally someone can accurately pronounce “Bagration”

[@looinrims]

I get it’s a Russian name but in English the “tion” sound is “shin” damnit

[@GTAandApplechannel]

Bag Ra tion

[@looinrims]

@@GTAandApplechannel Bah gray shin is how I pronounce it

[@GTAandApplechannel]

@@looinrims ok

[@steventhompson399]

^^he has one of the best user pics on KZbin lol... reminded me of someone who had the death in june totenkopf on gay rainbow flag, I think it's funny

[@rahulupadhyaya705]

Military History i really enjoy watching your videos. So much detail and easy to understand. I would really like to watch a video by you on your opinions about Hitler and how Germans could have won the war

[@konsyjes]

Lindy made a great video on the British effort on developing counter-submarine tactics which seems to have contributed decisively to the shift in the Atlantic, y'all should check it out. It's called Wargames something something. maybe couple months ago.

[@sapperjaeger]

mehrere Punkte, die mir nicht bekannt waren oder die ich nie in Betracht gezogen habe ... wiedermal Ausgezeichnet Arbeit

[@HistoryOfSocialism]

loving the shoutout to TIK my two favourite ww2 youtubers cooperating!

[@TheImperatorKnight]

Yes, it was very good of MHV to do that :)

[@DemitechHD]

@MHV es gibt einen interessanten Vortrag zur Panzerschlacht bei Dubno von Dr. Roman Toeppel auf dem Kanal des dt. Panzermuseums

[@MilitaryHistoryNotVisualized]

danke, hab ihn mir vor ein paar Tagen angesehen.

[@MakeMeThinkAgain]

I don't know how I missed this. I would say that 1943, in both the Pacific and Europe, was the Year of Denial for the Axis nations. 1942 was the last time they could see a path to victory, now they were just hoping to put off defeat. 10:30 You should mention Enigma here as well.

[@BlueIceAce2015]

Beard looking real slick. Nice video!

[@simohayho8622]

I thik his beard looks healthy UHAHAHA

[@TheYoGhurtE]

A short resume of every war year just like this would be very cool.

[@GeographyCzar]

Someone explain to me how Leningrad was an impossible goal... the resources were not deployed to make it happen, but the main weaknesses of the Wermacht on the Eastern Front during the first half of 1943 - fuel shortages and numerical inferiority - were irrelevant to the Leningrad situation. The distances involved were smaller than those at Kursk, and the Soviets could only pack in as many troops as they could feed and equip between Lake Ladoga and the Gulf of Finland. Put another way, it's April 1943, you are Stalin, you get a grave new intelligence report suggesting the German strategic focus for the summer months has shifted from the Kursk salient to Leningrad. How do you prepare to prevent the city from falling? Is it easier or harder than preparing to defend Kursk? Moreover, I have always seen Leningrad (going on 40 years of study now) as potentially a superior "political" target to Kursk, and believed it a typical Nazi blind spot to overlook this fact. Nevertheless, after Stalingrad, I would seriously question the strategic value of "psychological" or propaganda targets in general. The bigger question is, what strategy should (or could) the European Axis have pursued in order to achieve even a modicum of success in 1943. My guess is that the real reason there was no guiding strategy for that year is that the German administration was focused on implementing the Final Solution before it was too late. I would guess that Hitler had basically accepted that the war was lost, or would be eventually, but the window of opportunity was still open to exterminate the Jewish population of occupied Europe. If the German people had been politically capable of acting in their own best interests in 1943 as they were in the fall of 1918, Hitler's administration might have been forced from power and an end to the war negotiated before it was too late to get a settlement from Stalin short of the unconditional surrender demanded by the Western Allies.

[@chandarsundaram1394]

Excellent as always. Your videos are a resl treat. You put a lot of work into them and your analyses are alwsys sober and even-handed. Bravo!!

[@MilitaryHistoryNotVisualized]

Thank you very much!

[@Primitarian]

One might say that year 1943 for Germany marked the end of the Drang nach Osten (Drive to the East) and a return to Drang nach Suden (Drive to the South).

[@HiroshiT34]

What about the Panther-Wotan line??? Do you have information on this. It gets so little attention but I have heard the Dneiper was supposed to be hold back the Soviets.

[@mcfontaine]

Great point about German Naval intelligence. They had broken many of the Royal Navy’s codes which Bletchley Park knew because of Ultra decrypts. Also in by 1943 they had managed to break back into the 4 Rotor Enigma machine.

[@fulcrum2951]

Your comment section is more calmed compared to TIK s comment section

[@looinrims]

Average Tik fans vs Average MHV enjoyers

[@Grondorn]

In 1943 there was the major Battle of the Dnieper. More troops were committed there, and almost more troops perished there (significantly more Soviet troops did perish) than in Stalingrad. Definitely a very intense and bloody year.

[@thiagolourenco4020]

This video was very good! As I am not native speaker is hard to understand sometimes English in a different accent of the "normal" without subtitles. But this video I understood the most. Keep doing like this!

[@PlacidDragon]

Kursk is certainly the biggest in terms of actual "hardware" that the sides possessed. It is technically possible that Dubno - Brody was bigger in the sense that the Soviets had so many more vehicles in the early stages of the war (BT-5's, BT-7's, T-26's, etc etc), but accurate records was not a Soviet strong point in those days :)

[@PlacidDragon]

@John Beige Well, yes. Its really quite simple. The Soviets had more manpower, and they had vastly more armor. In 1941, the Soviet's didn't build many T-34's, because they had to relocate most of their factories (but they already had 20.000 or so armored vehicles prior to the war, including 500'ish T-34's and 500'ish KV-1's and KV-2's). They built just over 3000 T-34's in 1941. But in 1942 and onwards, they built them in ever increasing numbers.. over 12.000 in 1942, and about 15.000 each in 1943 and 1944, and over 12.000 in 1945. for a total of over 50.000 tanks. And thats just the T-34 in its 2 variants. Germany, over the course of the entire war, built 8500 Panzer IV's, 6000 Panthers, and less than 2000 Tigers / King Tigers.

[@zackhartley4718]

Really enjoy your videos man!

[@jonathansandoval3474]

The Germans had also broken several of the different British naval codes. For example, British and Allied Merchants Ships (BAMS) code and Naval Cypher No. 5. I think I remember reading or watching that the Brits changed their codes in 1943, but they did not learn til after the war that it had been broken. This would also have had an effect, along with the things you mentioned.

[@Wien1938]

One of the problems I have with some of the modern historical analyses of the war is the failure to distinguish between the tactical, operational and strategic layers of war. We have a problem from our Western perspective in that we don't really understand the concept of "operational" and tend to confuse it with the upper and lower layers of warfare; for example, Kursk is not a strategic offensive - that would be better applied to Barbarossa and Blau, which sought a fundamental transformation of the strategic (high-level) position. Rather, Zitadelle was an operational offensive, which would (hopefully) have strategic consequences, by destroying a number of Soviet armies *and* drawing out the Soviet armoured reserves and defeating these in open battle, instead of allowing the Soviets to use these to create operational-level breakthroughs that would destabilise the German front. Excellent video and, yes, I agree with the concept of 1943 for the Wehrmacht as "defence without strategy". To be fair to Manstein et al, they were constantly trying to find the opportunity to seize back the initiative during the fighting after Zitadelle but were met with a combination of massive Russian reserves and the high commands refusal to give ground in order to free up troops and regain mobility. Ziemke's history of the eastern war is excellent for getting a sense of the operational and strategic developments that lead to the encirclements in early 1944. For the most part, the German armies were able to break out but with heavy losses in equipment and lesser but not light losses in manpower but that would change. It is very notable that the high commands response to the Army being forced back was to insist more on holding ground rather than risking manoeuvre (i.e. moving from the tactical to the operational). Lastly, I believe that Manstein argued in the period after the third battle of Kharkov that Germany should have a strategy in the East but this was rejected in favour of the strategic defensive.

[@thethirdman225]

10:40 Yes but as you said, they had no plan. No plan sounds like a holding action to be. But it follows the old adage that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

[@NiumeLTU]

Great love your vids. I would love to see more vids about u boats, or maybe german resupply ships

[@ieuanhunt552]

The title is clickbait done right

[@mcfontaine]

Yet another great episode. I’ve just recently released this months Bletchley Park Podcast looking back to mid 1943, looking at Kursk, Sicily and how the Lorenz machine was broken.

[@MilitaryHistoryNotVisualized]

do you have a link?

[@mcfontaine]

Military History not Visualized sorry, I only just saw your reply. itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/bletchley-park/id550861736?mt=2&i=1000411054062

[@Primitarian]

Very insightful, to the extent it has changed my view of World War II in important details.

[@I_am_Diogenes]

Does anyone know the reason that US usage of blimps along convoy lines is never mentioned ? I know they were only used on the US side of the mid Atlantic gap but early on they were used quite a bit . They were mostly used as spotters if I remember right . I was watching a documentary on blimps where they talked about this quite a bit but I have never heard any mention of it in a "war" documentary .

[@hugosowder4474]

Read Robert Citino's book recently. 1943 is super fascinating to me with regards to the Eastern Front.

[@z_actual]

So in May 43 basically the biggest difference in the Atlantic is the appearance of radar equipped long range B24 Liberators filling the air gap between Newfoundland, Iceland and Ireland. These aircraft have heavier guns, depth charges, and a lamp light for attacking at night. At the same time hunter killer groups of ships were put together to hunt U Boats in the same places and ahead of convoys, and Collosus was up to speed code breaking Enigma at Bletchley. A division of the Royal Navy under Captain Gilbert Roberts established the Western Approaches Tactical Unit (WATU) in Liverpool. The unit got ahead of U Boat tactics, and discovered how U Boat wolf packs were operating. WATU analysts discovered this by wargaming attacks and possible defences. The unit comprised a number of young women, one in particular an ingenious young lady little more than a school girl, Jean Laidlaw. Laidlaw is quite probably the hero of The Royal Navy U Boat offensive along with Elizabeth Drake, Jane Howes and Nan Wailes. It is one of the most interesting untold stories of the war. mobile.timesnews.net/mediaFiles?type=image&url=/image/2019/05/22/watu-jpg.jpg&caption=Shown%20here%20is%20the%20Western%20Approaches%20Tactical%20Unit,%20where%20the%20problems%20of%20anti-Uboat%20warfare%20were%20fought%20out.%20At%20a%20one%20week%20tactical%20course,%20commands%20and%20other%20officers%20of%20British%20and%20allied%20escort%20vessels%20%E2%80%98played%20games%E2%80%99%20which%20enabled%20them%20to%20combat%20the%20U-boat%20menace.

[@spartandud3]

This may be a stupid question but why where aircraft good against submarines?

[@douglasstrother6584]

Airplanes had the "high ground" over the U-boats: www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2013/november/navys-escort-carrier-offensive

[@WildBillCox13]

Interesting as always. My take is that Zitadel left the most powerful force in the German order of battle: the SS Panzergrenadiere Korps (later retitled .2 SS PanzerKorps); both depleted and exhausted. Since this was the only fully manned and equipped corps on the Eastern front, its withdrawal after Zitadel (well, partial withdrawal) for rest and refit in France eliminated the German ability to take the strategical initiative in the East. The three divisionen of the SS Korps had organic Tiger Companies--a major component of any Panzerglocke or schwerepunkt. They were incredibly effective when used as the breakthrough component of any drive or envelopment.

[@WildBillCox13]

And their loss to the order of battle was a severe blow to German initiative.

[@TheSmsawyer]

A video on U-boat tactics and intelligence mentioned at 7:40 would be a great video.

[@glhf8047]

3:57 Bank Tattle

[@TheIfifi]

A request I suppose. I understand the wolfpack ideas but you describe German intelligence as being "good" despite Enigma being cracked. So... How good was German intelligence and counter-intelligence?

[@nattygsbord]

The insurance companies had all the information on paper about the allied convoys that the Germans needed to know.. what time the ships were going and where and so on. So all the Germans needed to do was to position their uboats for taking out those convoys.

[@nattygsbord]

I would say that the German intelligence was not that good. In both world wars it failed to prevent their own codes from falling into allied hands. In the first war it could have had very dire consequnces for the mighty German navy, and only sloppy co-ordination among the British ships made the battle of Jutland a small victory for the Germans while this battle easily could have ended up in a disaster for the Germans. And the 2nd world war and the enigma code fiasco, the failed guesswork of Russia's strenght in the prelude to Barbarossa, and the crazy underestimation of the strenght of the USA tells me that Germany had very much to learn when it comes to the secret war. German intelligence could of course score some minor victories here and there, but overall am I deeply critical of their work.

[@alganhar1]

The insurance companies did not have all that much, they certainly would not have been informed when the convoys were leaving. The main issue is that the Germans knew two main things, the first was where the convoys would gather before making their way across the Atlantic, the second being the probable destination. As a result they could pretty easily postulate probable routes and place U Boat packs on the most likely routes. It is actually here that Intelligence and Counter Intelligence came into play. It is important to realise that the most critical times for Britain, when the most tonnage of merchant shipping was being sunk by the UBoats were those times either prior to the Kreigsmarines Enigma being cracked, or after they had changed their code. The primary method of reducing the numbers of merchant ships being sunk by the UBoats was not through sinking UBoats, it was by redirecting the convoys away from the positions of known UBoat packs. If a UBoat packs position was located, and it was lay in the direction the Convoy was heading, they simply redirected the convoy.... This redirection was much harder during those periods the British were not able to read the Enigma. There were of course times when the Germans did break British Codes, and American ones. They (or rather the Italians) broke the US Diplomatic codes in 1940 - 1941 which the US Military Observers were using to inform the US Government of pretty much EVERYTHING the British were doing in North Africa, information that Rommel in particular made very good use of. The British however did change their codes far more often, and German code breaking was no where near as advanced as British Code breaking. In fact its safe to say that the entire German Intelligence services were no where near as effective as the Allied. What is harder to determine is how much of this was down to the interferance, or possibly even the direct sabotage of the Abwehrs own commander, Willhelm Canaris and his command team.

[@tylerv9906]

I'm no expert in the subject, but I think it was less of the Abwehr's doing but the Kriegsmarine's own intelligent network. They cracked the British convoy ciphers relatively early, which weren't significantly updated until 1943. I also read that the Kriegsmarine was much better at detecting when their codes were broken and changing ciphers. It also said that since there were so many U-boats patrolling in 1943, it was difficult for the British to actually divert convoys away from known U-boats.

[@alganhar1]

Save 1943 was when the Uboats were finally broken. After 1943 they were no longer a viable threat. While it *is* true the Kreigsmarine did change codes more often, they still did not change them often enough, and even the Kreigsmarine made the mistake of assuming Enigma was unbreakable. They changed the codes on occasion not because they thought their codes had been broken, but that is what their OpSec demanded. Had they detected their codes had been broken they would have come up with an entirely new system. Still, no matter which way you look at it, when it comes to SigInt, Code Breaking and Traffic Analysis, the Allies, specifically Britain, were so far ahead of Germany they were not on the same planet, let alone the same ballpark....

[@RemoteViewr1]

Top german general was asked when he first realized the war was lost. He said when they didnt capture Moscow. 1941. The initiative passed over to the enemy. The "plan" was defined by its enemies. There is no strategy for losing. They were overwhelmed on all sides.

[@shooterrick1]

Remote Viewer 1 How would capturing Moscow have helped win the war?

[@glhf8047]

Defence with a plan would be something like the Finns where doing. Defence Tactics for Troops, playing yours strengths, use you're terrain, guerilla, you know something like that.

[@maxkraus7063]

Remote Viewer 1 who and when? Source please

[@RemoteViewr1]

max kraus Glantz refers to him in a lecture. Sorry I dont recall, but he was very very senior, you would recognize his name immediately if you heard it.

[@RemoteViewr1]

King Rottennoggin For what its worth, the Pentagon war games a lot. Their view is yours, precisely. As related to ne, had Hitler wintered his troops in the Crimea, in the south, znd not outside Moscow, he would have seized those oil resources for his use, depriving the Soviets, then turn north, war over. I think your view has a lot of professionals agreeing.

[@felixnilsson9579]

Have you done a video on the actual battle of Kursk?

[@charlesmaeger9962]

British inteligence at Blethtchley Park broke the german Enigma Code for the german navy including their submarines. There is a very good movie about this called - "Enigma."

[@sahhaf1234]

Actually, can you make a program about operations research in ww2?

[@killerhedgehog69]

i love you late war eastern front videos! do you think you could try to do some sort of video on the third battle of kharkov and how that gave the germans hope after the stalingrad disaster or something similar?

[@samstewart4807]

A great perspective of the year. Can you do a video about the debate to attack Kursk? Some generals argued to let it sit there- there was no point attacking it.Attack them when they left their position. Did fuel supplies cause them to change their war of maneuver strategy? AKA small steps for 1943?

[@StPaul76]

The highest number of U-boats out and taking the highest casualties at the same time is quite clear.. there was much more 'meat to bite' for the increased Allied air-and naval forces since the tactical capabilies of the U-boats had not increased parallel with the amount of boats out on the sea. More targets for the overpowered enemy to shoot at.

[@genericpersonx333]

I think Citino's reason for saying the Wehrmacht retreats rather than reacts is because the 1943 campaigning season is the first where the Germans end up losing much ground contrary to their strategic or operational wishes and fail to gain any valuable new ground in compensation. They simply lose ground without any advantage being garnered.

[@nattygsbord]

David Glantz says that the Russians attacked at multiple fronts simultanously throughout the war. So the Germans were always put into dilemma: if they put their troops to defend the north, then they wouldn't have enough troops to defend the south and beat back the Russian assault. And if they defend the south, then they wouldn't have enough men to beat the Russians back in the north. It was all a Whack-A-Mole game. Should the Germans take Stalingrad, or should they take Moscow, or should Leningrad be taken first? Where was the situation most urgent in late 1942? in Leningrad? Rzhev or Stalingrad? And this did of course create much wear and tear on the Ost Heer. But it also did it on the Russians. According to one book ("Korsun Pocket" by Niklas Zetterling) did the Russians gain much ground in late 1943 in the offensives following the offensives launched after the battle of Kursk. But those gains had come at a high price in blood and the Russians were losing manpower in such a high rate that if they would continue on this phase they would run out of manpower much sooner than the Germans. So the gains of territory on the map from late 1943- to early 1944 looks impressive, but when one looks on how high the losses were one realize that this type of warfare was pretty much unsubstainable. The Russians would eventually fill the gap in their ranks with Ukrainians they had liberated. And those people were quite angry for what the Germans had done to their country as they retreated and burned everything to the ground. So my own personal guess would be that this maybe can be one reason why the red army commited so much atrocities in Germany.

[@Warspite1]

+nattygsbord About Soviet atrocities in Nazi Germany; Max Hasting's covered this subject quite well in Armageddon. Essentially, he concluded two of the biggest reason for the events that occurred in Germany were that Soviet units did not get leave, so you'd have units fighting on the front for 4 years unless they were shattered or destroyed, which might have led to a feeling of "claiming the spoils" since the Soviet's were now repaying the German's for Barbarossa, and also the "dehumanisation" of enemy forces by propaganda during those 4 years. This was a certainly a factor in the bitter fighting that resulted on the eastern front; an NKVD memo to the front requested that they stop shooting prisoners, because it made the rest of the Whermact fight harder against the Red Army. I can definitely see the German's actions in Ukraine and Byelorussia as inspiring some of the events. The Ukrainians liberated by the Red Army would've likely contributed to the actions of the Red Army in Germany, as between 1943-45 Ukrainians made up about 16% of the Red Army's soldiers.

[@genericpersonx333]

The brutality of the Eastern Front can be summed up simply as the logical consequence of two ideologies built on genocide and authoritarian domination being pitted in a winner-takes-all conflict. Stalin's Communism and Hitler's Nazism both asserted that only the "right people" deserved to be prosperous. Everyone else either needed to die or be dominated by the proper people. Once it became clear to the people on both sides that anything less than total victory risked the complete destruction of their society and people, those societies increasingly embraced more and more extreme measures to ensure that they were the ones who won.

[@fuzzydunlop7928]

"OH BUGGER, ZE REICH IS ON FIRE"

[@Kanovskiy]

ZE REICH ZE REICH ZE REICH IST ON FEUER, VE DON'T NEED NO VATER LET THE MUTTERFICKI BURN, BURN MUTTERFICKI BURN

[@guate4]

I think you forgot the effects of ULTRA, particularly in the battle of the Atlantic.

[@creatoruser736]

The largest tank battle of the war and history was the Battle of Brody at the onset of Operation Barbarossa.

[@graemes813]

Interesting thanks. Wasn't some three quarters of the German Army itself engaged in the East in July 1943 though? Isn't too much emphasis being placed by historians on only the German attack at Kursk? Would like to know more about the Red Army counter offensives in the summer and autumn of 1943. These are also some of the consequences of the failure of the German offensive. What do Axis losses in the East look like for that period? Interestingly, I have read that the Luftwaffe was losing more fighter aircraft in the West than in the East by 1943.

[@jkoeberlein1]

Great title, makes all kinds of sense.

[@diedertspijkerboer]

If you don't divide the war into calendar years, but in other multi-month periods, is it possible to divide up the war in a better, more clear-cut way?

[@timlipinski2571]

Great video ! For the submarine war read "Force Ten" about Admiral King. Also Task Force Ten had NO ships and helped end the submarine problem ! As I think you said "OIL"" Why did not Hitler go after the Russian oil fields in SW Russia sooner and cut oil supplies to Russia in half ? (And fuel the German War Machine) tjl

[@ianwhitchurch864]

King was the son of a bitch who sent the VLR Liberators to the Pacific because he didnt see ASW as important. The Germans tried to go after the oilfields, but you cant do it without getting your flank smashed from Stalingrad, and that means you have to take Stalingrad, and we saw how that worked.

[@looinrims]

How could he? Operation typhoon went, that far from the starting point and to get to Baku was a lot further, winter equipment wasn’t available in October 1941 and the supply lines were still in shambles Summer 1942 was the earliest they could push into the caucuses, granted I still am of the opinion that had the Orsha conference actually listened to the front commanders and ceased offensive operations in late November that the chance for success would still be high in taking Moscow, sacking morale and severing the heart of the rail network But the oil fields were attacked as early as they could be

[@SuperLeosid]

Please do a video on Third Battle of Kharkov or Backhand Blow

[@AlexanderSeven]

That tank looks tired and exhausted.

[@shrshred2323]

this guy is like a summoner who calls a ballrog :O

[@davidjarkeld2333]

10:40 The Wehrmacht certainly did retreat in 43, Citino got it spot on - almost the entire front in Russia was pushed back hundreds of kilometres.

[@looinrims]

Yeah but they were retreating every year after 1941

[@looinrims]

2:40-2:43 what the hell did you say? “Hitler says we need the ?” Oil, nickel, something else?

[@MaxSluiman]

Interesting video! Again!

[@Johnnycdrums]

I hope you show maps in other videos, I love maps.

[@ericcook1201]

I would be tempted to argue that the Axis defeat in North Africa was more of a significant "turning point" than Stalingrad,as it's results probably had more of an affect on a much broader scale in terms of a more obvious "beginning of the end". Thoughts???

[@nattygsbord]

Nope. Not many German troops were involved in North Africa. While Stalingrad was a defeat too huge to hide for even the German propaganda as an entire army had been trapped and lost, and millions of German were wondering what had happened to their son, brother, father, uncle, friend or whatever. North Africa had always been an unimportant sideshow for Germany while Stalingrad was the peak of the 1942 campaign that had a realistic hope to bring Russia to her knees. Nothing of importance could have been gained by sending the 4th panzer army and the 6th Army to north Africa instead. Only useless sand. (And those who gonna talk about arabian oil, please don't respond to me. I will not reply to such nonsense. I have better things to do than debating clueless flat earthers)

[@ComissarZhukov]

Well. Maybe the germans pulled some divisions back to defend italy from Kursk. But the main reason they cancelled the zitadelle was the Soviet counter offensives on their flanks.

[@dallesamllhals9161]

10:00 So breaking Enigma didn't do anything?

[@Johnnycdrums]

Already liking this channel, and only a few minutes into it. I hope you cover The Pacific War also.

[@ur2c8]

Just found out that one of the U-boats sunk in May 1943 (U-176) was sunk by the Cuban navy. I had forgotten Cuba was on our side.

[@ianwhitchurch864]

The "minor allies" of the United Nations were collectively more important than people think. When the British are literally disbanding divisions in late 1944, two divisions of Brazillians make a difference.

[@tomtom34b]

7:34 Iirc the allies developed a good radar that they could be implement on their aircraft enabling them to spot surfaced U-boats (they would surface in the night to recharge the batteries, and the night was safe, so they thought). Allied airplanes could now bomb Uboats without alerting them with spotlights and the Uboats would be caught off guard in the middle of the "safe" night. The allies achieved a technological breakthrough that resulted in huge losses for the german Uboat arm and made the safe nights unsafe as well, further diminishing the Uboat´s strategic role.

[@ricktimmons458]

250,000 1st class solders stuck in Findland; same amount lost in North Afika and again in Stalingrad; assume the total loss of solders to date was the same in 1943. over 1 million were lost. Why Italy committed so few troops is bad.

[@kiowhatta1]

Manstein's southern sector proposal for the summer '43 offensive was aimed at isolating and destroying the ENTIRE Soviet armoured vanguard, not just a few divisions or even just corps. This has to be a better plan (except in consumption of fuel) as it breaks with the usual battles of encirclement - which Kursk was of the most depressing type. 'Lambs to the slaughter'. Manstein's newer tactics although fuel hungry, and challenging logistically, if could be pulled off successfully, then the Red Army would at least be put on the backfoot by a 'new type of armoured warfare' - whereas Kursk demonstrated the Red Army had completely figured out how to defeat a classic local blitzkrieg offensive with Northern and Southern pincers. The MAIN point here is that the Red Army would have had to assume the old battle tactics of the Wehrmacht had evolved, changed, and therefore leaving the Red Army somewhat in the dark as to what to expect. This, in itself, would have been a tremendous boost to German initiative, flexibility and tactics, as long as Hitler gave his generals time and resources to demonstrate this new elastic defence In any case, it would have been superior to romanticised 'hold at all costs' Kessel rings, or inadequate and doomed offensives against an immovable force.

[@ianwhitchurch864]

Mantein's elastic defence only works if the opponent is nice enough to repeatedly and heavily overextend themselves - it works really well against the early 1942 Soviet army on the offensive, for example. On the other hand, if you have offensives that are planned to stop at their culminating point, and then a new offensive starts on another sector of the front, then we get Bite and Hold all over again ... and thats what destroyed the German Army in the last war.

[@dongately2817]

All the Lend-Lease fuel and trucks really came into play for the Soviets in 1943 too. They were much better equipped for mobile warfare than the Germans at this point.

[@Crumphorn]

What is the battle you mention at 3:43 please? I couldn't decipher it.

[@nattygsbord]

brody dubno

[@Crumphorn]

God, I have never even heard of that. I must look it up.

[@JamesBond-ns8di]

Why you dont upload this on your main channel

[@kasparkannel3108]

>tfw there are more people complaining about wheraboos than actual wheraboos the pendulum theory is real

[@PowellPeraltask8er]

There are wheraboos in every comment section of every video. So what are you talking about??

[@mladtheimpaler]

Another good video

[@korona3103]

Manstein's "backhand blow" wasn't a follow-up to Kursk, it was instead of it. He wanted a phased withdrawl to lure the Soviets into a trap against the Black Sea. He didn't think the Germans could win in '43, his aim was for attrition to the point of stalemate. He did advocate continuing Zitadelle but that was because the Soviet losses were much more severe than the German's. His argument was that it fed into the overall plan to deal mass casualties to the Reds. IIRC losses were about 5:1 and they were nearly through the Russian lines do so it makes sense.

[@nottoday3817]

Well, it kinda makes sense for him. In Hindsight, The Soviets actually kept much of their forces in reserve at the battle of Kursk. They were perhaps expecting the germans to break through their lines even if they had massed all their forces at the frontline(which can be counter productive, as more forces in a smaller area means higher casualities to bombers and artillery, defensive position harder to hide etc.) To sum up, even if they continued Zitadelle and even if they broke through the soviet lines, they would have been smashed in the back by the soviet reserves

[@HaloFTW55]

The only line that was close to breaking was the south of Kursk. The north held firmly while Pokorhovka happened.

[@hexcrystalmeth2433]

love this

[@davidmeehan4486]

Some say the Germans lost when they invaded Poland. That made eventual war with the USSR inevitable, and precluded an alliance with France, the UK etc.

[@lek1223]

can you cover the german/axis reaction to the allied landing in sicilly (and later naples) did they anticipate it? were they shocked?

[@ianwhitchurch864]

Briefly, no they werent shocked, but they were unsure about what to do about it. Plan A was to withdraw to a line in Northern Italy, but Kesselring convinced people a line further south could be held. www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-MTO-Sicily/index.html is somewhere to start ...

[@FifinatorKlon]

It's a bit off topic. But Military History dude (don't know you name): Did you go to Grundwehr- or Zivildienst (Basic Army or Civil Service, for our non-German speakers)? Just curious.

[@MilitaryHistoryNotVisualized]

I have some videos particularly dealing with it, maybe take a look at the titles.

[@erictaylor5462]

I wonder if Hitler had focused on building carriers rather than battleships if it would have made much difference. The carrier would have been there to protect the U-boats from enemy aircraft rather than attacking the merchants themselves. It could not have failed more than Bismarck failed.

[@black-uh1df]

they tried to build a carrier, the graf zeppline, but they never completed it. Not that it would have mattered as Britian and America Ludicrously outnumbered them in carriers, even with the zeppline

[@bigbaba1111]

Can you please bring something about the red army 1943-1945?

[@joechang8696]

My thoughts: the best German strategy for 43 on the eastern front would have been to fortify the Dnieper. This would entail a very long front due the course of the river, but the west bank is an excellent position. Manstein could execute his sword and shield counter east of the river to allow time for the fortifications to be built. Hitler would not allow the building of fortifications behind the front because this would imply that they would withdraw behind the fortified line. Hence defending everything means defending nothing.

[@aekaralagonisi]

Joe Chang this is what they tried to do and failed.

[@joechang8696]

yes and no, Hitler had lines or cities declared as fortified positions that were to be defended to the last, but never allowed work to be done on it ahead of time because that would imply the forces in front would withdraw to the fortified line.

[@aekaralagonisi]

You're dreaming. Fortifications were useless in WW2, plus there was never going to be a period of months in 1943 to invest in fortifications which were gonna be destroyed in days of fighting anyway.

[@nattygsbord]

No George, this was not the strategy that the German used. The idea behind a flexible defence in depth was to let the enemy overextent its supply lines during an advance, while your own troops are shortening it. And then you launch a great counterpunch and encircle and easily destroy your undersupplied enemy. This happened at Kharkov both in 1942 and in 1943. But Hitler didn't like the idea because he was a man of the first world war, and his beliefs was that every man should be in the frontline instead. And all retreats should be forbidden. Not a step back would be allowed. 1943 started well for the Red Army: after the victory at Stalingrad, it had crossed two major rivers and driven 500 miles into the vast open spaces of the southern Soviet Union in a very short time and had become overstretched. And the Germans had just evacuated the Caucausus with Army Group A, and the 1st and 4th Panzer Armies (which Hitler didn't wanna evacuate at first until Manstein convinced him, and had Hitlers initial decision been kept would probably had been left in the Caucausus and destroyed). And few people assumed that the German army had any strenght left after the disaster at Stalingrad. And the Russian had pushed forward in the middle of february to try encircle and destroy what was left of Army group South, by coming from the north and pushing towards the black Sea. And contrary to what you claim did the Germans have any mobile defence. On the contrary, Hitler strongly opposed the idea of retreating from the Donbass region - which Von Manstein wanted, in order to shorten his frontline and thereby get more men available for his counter-offensive in the north towards Kharkov. Von Rundstedt had lost his job after outraging Hitler by suggesting the same thing a year earlier. Hitler and Manstein argued against each other for 5 hours, and Hitler said that it was absolutly vital for the war effort to defend the area for the Ukrainian coal mines and the diplomatic relations with Turkey. Manstein knew very little of the economic aspects of the war, but he responded that Hitlers choice was now to lose the Ukrainian coal mines with or without Army group Don. And surprisingly did that argument finally convince Hitler to allow a retreat. And Manstein moved back and created a new frontline behind Mius river, and used the rest of his forces to launch a counter-offensive in the north around Kharkov. The overextended Russians were completly taken by surprised and the got outflanked encircled and destroyed. And this battle gives a vital lesson of the importance of being economical with your forces. If you try to be strong everyware you will also be weak everyware, as Sun Tzu said. And it was Mansteins retreat and shortening of the frontline that gave him enough forces available for his succesful counterattack, even when the situation was dire. And Germany could never hope to win a defensive war with Hitlers tactic of letting all troops sit at the frontline along the entire Russian front. Because the Russians were numerically superior and could counter the German all along the frontline and still have enough troops over to concentrate for offensives in certain areas - where the German defensives would probably the weakest.

[@nattygsbord]

Fortifications was not useless. The Siegfried line did a good job of defending Germany against a large scale French attack during the invasion of Poland. And Patton and his superior forces failed to take Metz for months, despite their opposition was made up by some volksturm in old fortications from the 1800s. And the unimpressive fortifications of the Mannerheim line served Finland very well during their wars against the Soviet union. And the many defensive lines in Italy prevented the allies from taking the country before the war ended.. and the Italian campaign was a failure for the allies in that sense that it didn't make the allied landings in France easier. Instead the contrary was true, the allies had to commit disproportionally large amounts of troops to the fighting in Italy so less resources were available for the campaign in France. So are fortifications a bad idea? no. They are not that useful in themselves, but only an idiot would use fortications and minefields in that way. No minefields, barbedwires, dragoon teeths, anti-tank mines, boobytraps, trenches and bunkers are best when they are used togheter with defending troops. And they can tie up disproportionatly large enemy forces for a long time and thereby giving the defenders time to organize a defence or a counterattack. And meanwhile will the prepared defensive positions keep the own losses low, while they can inflict disproportionally high losses on the enemy. Just ask the German machine gunner Heinrich Severloh, on Omaha beach. He killed 2000 Americans on D-day.

[@kaiwenchen3384]

Wehr are the boos?

[@maarten9272]

Kaiwen Chen Says the Prussian.

[@maarten9272]

Kodiak #1 Geez, it was just a joke.

[@neilwilson5785]

Bohr R the Wooze?

[@Alpostpone]

Show me where they touched yon Spaghetti ,

[@EstParum]

5 Shermans to 1 Tiger! ...The SS was a counter-terrorist organisation... Goebbels

[@old_guard2431]

Some very interesting points. A couple of observations: 1. So, there was this guy in charge who was actually a pretty good corporal in a previous war who now fancied himself a general. Lack of "strategy" could have originated because OKH could not come up with an actual, viable, strategy that would have been satisfactory to the Corporal-General. So the general staff came up with objectives and passed the strategy ball to the army/division etc. commanders. (Who were not in a position to actually run with it.) 2. The value of aircraft for harassment/suppression. There seems to be a parallel between patrol bombers in the Atlantic in early 1943 and fighter-bombers over Normandy in 1944. I.e. - counting actual "kills" does not encompass the total, or even the major, value of the respective air operations.

[@geoffdearth8575]

Could the U Boot losses have been mitigated? E.g. by the use of the Schnorkel?

[@looinrims]

Wasn’t invented yet, it only started trials in May 44 that’s why there were no uboats at DDay

[@outlander4502]

43 was the year that everybody knew Germany had lost the war, but who could say that? We are using the logic w/o looking the context. If you have been selling you will win w/o any doubt and now you need to surrender? Heavy transition