Battle of Kursk: The Largest Tank Battle in History
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- Опубліковано 3 чер 2024
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Simon? Could you pretty please show a couple of maps with a few arrows and (front) lines on them to give even some kind of idea what is going on, without having to open google earth and guestimate? The archive footage was great and all, but I feel it's more valuable to understand who-is-going-where than to know what the individual types of tanks looked like... I think this goes for all of these mighty battles. Unless some specific technology is the decisive force multiplier, then focusing graphic aids on the tactical movement of each party is probably going to give a better general understanding.
This isnt kings and generals, we are learning about the conflict itself. Sure specific battles being drawn out are nice. But simon has always had a human focus on all of his channels. Warographics follows that curve
I was thinking the same thing about maps. It would make the battle easier to understand for those interested. In fact, I can’t find a video about the Kursk battle that include maps. Consequently, I don’t have a full understanding of the battle. I just know it was a huge tank battle 🤷♀️
@@TheWorld-xs8ly check out a BBC series called Battlefield, they have a long episode on Kursk, lot's of maps. Very detailed.
Yes please! The name WaroGRAPHICS brought to mind glorious tactical, or at least strategic, maps of WAR. With GRAPHICS! Even just a Google Earth map with colored blobs (Axis, Allies, etc) showing where the front lines are, and if u wanna really get me excited, big red arrows would speak volumes. That's all the graphics you need to live true to your name, o Warographics! Either that, or change your name to WaroBRAIN 🤣🤣🤣
Completely agreed. Even just basic maps would be super helpful
When Model, Guderian, and Manstein are all skeptical, that probably a good indication that it’s a really bad idea
Dearest Simon,
If I have to keep commenting in every one of these until you make it please do the battle from August 8th, 1915 for Osowiec Fort. It has all the makings of a great story and even has a great eye catching title as it is colloquially known as the Attack of The Dead Men for the Russians zombie like appearance after being gassed for days. 100 Russian soldiers who were assumed dead by the Germans went on to lay waste to 7 German battalions and turned the tide of the war to the Russians favour. Pleeeeease make it happen.
Excellent as always, Simon and team 👍👍 storytelling on point as always, but may I request more maps/diagrams from the editor? Big thanks for your all work on Warographics🏆
0:40 - Chapter 1 - The fuhrer's hesitation
5:25 - Chapter 2 - Imminent attack
8:35 - Chapter 3 - Clash of titans
11:50 - Chapter 4 - Battle of prokhorovka
15:05 - Chapter 5 - Shifting tides
The channel is called War-O-Graphics, and yet an actual graphic is rarely seen. Although well written and described here, a simple MAP would have worked wonders.
The name is to show the relationship to 2 of his other channels. If it's any consolation Geographics rarely focuses on actual maps.
You're looking at the word Graph incorrectly. Think of Biography and Geography. Warography isn't a real word, yes, but use the same logic for it.
@@Roovka_ Understood. My central point though remains: A video on a battle without a map or two is missing something fundamental.
The Operations Room does a cracking job of using graphics.
Graphic like biographic
Rest In Peace to those that passed away. I hope we can end all wars and battles so we can all live in peace.
Actually, the largest tank battle in history would be the Battle of Brody in 1941, pitting 750 German tanks against 3500 Soviet tanks. By comparison the actual tank battle part of the Battle of Kursk, the Battle of Pokharovka, pitted 294 German tanks and AFVs against 616 Soviet ones. Of course the Soviets were decisively defeated at Brody and won Kursk, so it's no surprise which battle is more famous...
Literally came here to say this. It's a common myth stemming from the fact operation citadel had more tanks involved - just not at any one place or time. (Or often, at all, as the Panthers and T34's etc broke down in droves.)
You should write a script about it and let's get Simon to do a video on it.
@@timmystwin you could help him write it
True. But if you go by weight the vehicles were much heavier in 1943 than only 2 years ago. The Elephants alone could make up the difference lol ! Thus making Kursk the ‘biggest’
Goddammit, you beat me to it.
Conveniently TimeGhost's World War 2 week by week documemtary series is just around the corner of Operation Citadel.
I know. I feel like I shouldn't watch this because it will ruin it.
Never forget. Excelsior!
@@sandybarnes887 Excelsior!
I agree with the comment that when discussing battles a few battle maps would not go astray
Simon, this channel is turning into one I press the like button before even watching the vid. Well done. Brilliant. Thanks.
Omg I remember recommending this battle a few months back, huzzah and thank you Fact Boi.
I'm not sure that winning Kursk would even have given Germany the initiative. They were already losing a war of attrition and, as 1942 had already shown, their Blitzkrieg tactics were no longer working against the now experienced Soviet army.
Pretty much. Germany had no significant offence offensive capacity left after kursk and post kursk they lost control of the sky, Soviets factories moved in 1941 to the urals were churning out resources and weapons by 1942 so even if Germany won at kursk it would only delay the inevitable, they had already abandoned their positions near Moscow just to gather men for kursk.
Potential history did a good video on kursk as well.
In 1942 their tactics worked perfectly well. They had no trouble at all gaining operational freedom in the summer of 1942. Part of the immense achievement at Kursk was that it was the first time any army faced a major German offensive in the summer and stopped it before they gained an operational level breakthrough. The Germans at Kursk never penetrated out of the soviet tactical zone. That was an accomplishment the soviets were not confident they could pull off....good thing they did.
I can only imagine the amount of relicts that could still be under the dirst in and around kursk.
“Mines are placed in darkness, in the cover of the night.
Waiting to be triggered when the time is right.”
To summarise German offensive capabilities up until 1943:
1941: Three main offensives with 3 million men
1942: One main offensive
1943: one major battle
Been waiting for this video. Very interesting battle.
People don’t realize how MASSIVE the eastern front was compared to the Western. Losing 6,000 tanks (and just on one side) is insane. Such a number would’ve been disastrous for most countries
18:26 when you can finally exhale relax and know you aren’t going to be sent beaten and shoeless to a Siberian Gulag
There was a big tank battle in the early days of the German invasion of Russia called the battle of Dubno that had more tanks in it.
Nice piece mate. As an aside
Counter Penetration - small unit tactic to dislodge a small enemy force within a position
Counter Attack - a larger tactical offensive to re-take ground lost
Counter Offensive - an operational level battle (some say strategic, depending on force assignment) to shift/dislodge larger forces
Counter Stroke - an operational level/quasi strategic, combined arms attack; led, at a minimum, by a MBT division employing an indirect approach (supported by arty, combat engineers, attack aviation and, of course, infantry).
As has been said, I enjoyed the archival footage but would love to see more maps and diagrams that more clearly show what was happening on the ground. I think the majority of us war history nerds are super into maps and diagrams. As always, though, this video was a nice addition to the Whistlerverse.
As we should be ;) It's impossible to understand a ground battle without a map.
Love this video. It would be cool if you did one on the Dehomey wars.
Excellent video! Please feature the First Persian Gulf War
Glad to see this channel taking off. Great work as always to Simon and the crew. Hopefully Simon doesn't engage in Ironing for new basement "recruits".
The three SS divisions fighting at Prochorovka would go on to each commit massacres in France. Their leader, Paul Hausser, survived the war and the war trials and kept insisting that the SS was a non-political organisation...
true, although it must be said that the atrocities they committed in France were miniscule compared to what they did in the USSR, Poland, etc. There were thousands of Ouradours in the USSR.
great video as usual
My compliments in including the soviet counteroffensives in the video. So many analysts ignore the second phase of the campaign, which makes no sense really - from April 1943 it was the soviet plan to do a 'backhand blow' as described in your video.
Also great that you deal with the difficulty of knowing anything about the raw data on losses. People argue about this all the time as if the raw loss data was even known at the time.
Excellent video
Excellent! Would you do one of the unknown? Thought to be the second largest tank battles WW2, Tali-Ihantala.
Thank you, as always, for the incredible work you are doing! I just wanted to let you know that you mistakenly put this video into the "World War I" playlist.
Nice job!
Panzerkampf by Sabaton, for those who are not aware, is about the Battle of Kursk. An absolute banger of a song, and very accurate to the events of the battle.
And they cover the history of it on Sabaton History here: Sabaton history covers this with maps here: ua-cam.com/video/snJ6phce4To/v-deo.html
SOLDIERS OF THE UNION
Very nice video!
I disagree, the tide had changed in the Eastern Front with Stalingrad. Kursk was an attempt by the Germans to get back the initiative, but I doubt it would have won them the war. It could have set the Soviets back and meant the Western allies would have reached Berlin first instead of the Red Army.
this guy should be on in every histry class...
Loved it, great as always. Can you cover the problems with Serbia/Yugoslavia in the 90s? Crazy stuff that doesn't really get talked about anymore
Good video 👍
I’ve been waiting for this one, the last major German offensive on the Eastern front, before the Soviets rolled them all the way back to Berlin.
well wasn't easy. Millions of men died
@@joeywheelerii9136 So? It took the Germans Millions of men to get as far as they did. Of course it would take millions more to push them back to their capital city, no one is disputing this. Even at the time, the Generals all the way to the common solider knew what kind of sacrifices would have to be made in order to defeat the Nazis.
I wouldn’t word it that way given Soviets relied so heavily on Lend Lease Act from US otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to throw their military to the meat grinder in a true case of cannon fodder, Soviets leadership disgusting and animalistic just like Putin but at least USSR was feared where Russia has set their military morale back to civil war levels like it was 1917=1922. Slava Ukraine.
@@vegitoblue5000 I wouldn't day they really rolled over them. Look at the horrendous losses they took. By the end it was boys and old men being used as replacements similar to the Germans.
@@joeywheelerii9136 Nope. They used (mostly) fit, elite troops.
The Battle of Brody is the largest actual tank battle… while Kursk has looooots of soldiers and other equipment involved, Brody by numbers, was the largest tank on tank battle.
Yeah I just commented saying the same thing, it's like all their WW2 books are 16 years out of date.
That was the largest tank OPERATION in history. Not battle. The largest battle was at Dubno-Brody 1941.
I was looking for someone to comment this thank you lol
@@chuck1135
I am in army for almost 15 years. And, instead of that idiot, I know the difference between battle and operation.
Time Ghost Army is doing WWII in real time with weekly summaries. they're almost to the Battle of Kursk
Do a vid on the battle of Kokoda in Papua New Guinea during World War II
The Soviet defence of Kursk wouldn't have been possible without British code breaking revealing the German plans and then passing them on to Stalin.
Without that fact, the Soviets would have been completely caught off guard, and likely defeated.
As with most of the "Soviet victories" it was only possible because of massive western help.
😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣U RE SO FUNNY DUDE REALLY NEVER READ SUCH A FUNNY COMMENT 😂😂😂
I am not quite sure how one particular conflict escaped my memory but it had a significant enough impact when it came to major power dynamics. If it would not be out of the realm of possibility, The Crimean War ?
The Battles of Kawanakajima would be an epic video
Edit: this was an epic video
If I may add another point: the Germans started the war vastly better trained, better led and better organized than all their opponents. The lull before Kursk allowed the red army some breathing room/time to absorb the lessons of the war so far and really bring up their standard of training and leadership. When you are starting from a pretty low point, as the soviets were, even small improvements can make a big difference. Those few months of 1943 when the intensity of the fighting really dropped off was very well exploited by the red army. They closed some of the quality gap that they had been suffering from. Of course they didn't totally catch up - not even close - but the gap got quite a bit smaller.
a little pronunciation help for fact boy: if you see " ei " in a word, pronounce it like " I ". love your vids mate
It seems that the Russians tanks of today aren't really living up to their former glory..
The tanks haven’t changed. But the anti tank weapons have been innovated immensely, making tanks all but useless today, especially considering their cost & fuel consumption
In St. Javelin we trust 🔥
It is the future warfare depends on infentry mainly
@@cannon0587 true
It's a numbers issue. Their overall design philosophy hasn't changed much, they just aren't fielding the near the same kind of numbers.
Please do the battle of stalingrad
Mr. Whistler, I know this is off-topic, I had a suggestion. This was the latest video I could find posted by you and this is your main channel-o-war so that’s why I posted it here, I realize that it may belong in the geographics channel. I was watching a video on another channel about Napalm and it led me to ponder the subject of a place called China Lake the place they call ‘Rocket Town’ they developed napalm and mass produced scores of other weapons systems including but not limited too, the atomic bomb (the site’s original purpose), the tomahawk missile, the sidewinder ata systems.
Antietam next good sir?
Not the largest tank battle in history Simon. Historians have already corrected that factual error.
Kursk is an example why attackers need to bring 3x the numbers of the defender if they hope to win. Soviets may have lost more, but Germany couldn't replace theirs.
It also illustrates russian tactics to this day - just keep throwing meet in the grinder and hope it will overwhelm your opponent...
Repeat of the old myth that the Sicily invasion affected the Kursk campaign. It didn't. The Germans moved one division, without its equipment, to Italy and then brough tit back a few months later.
As Stalin himself said, quantity has a quality all of its own.
Bzzt! Wrong! He never actually said that, though I will admit that casualties were a matter of indifference to him. Plus, if you have more men and equipment, it would be suicidal not to use them. War isn't a sport. You WANT to rig it in your favor in any way you can.
@@pyromania1018 As someone attributed to Stalin (and it doesn't seem like he disagreed with the assessment): quantity has a quality all of its own. :P
Especially if you don't give a flying shit about human life lost anyways
At 4:01, Manstein is the guy on the right, slightly in the background. No idea who the guy in the foreground is.
A not so well known but utterly devastating conflict was the Paraguay war between Paraguay and her neighbours Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. Some sources mention that up to 90% of Paraguayan men died in this war.
I don't think many channels are touching on this topic, certainly one to consider Simon et al?
If you're looking for another WW2 subject, I suggest operation Bagration. In this operation, the Soviet army destroyed one whole German battle group in a few months (about one third of the whole Eastern army). Incredibile stuff.
Everyone thinks Kursk was the largest tank battle in history, well maybe over months and months. The battle of Brody was the largest and fought within 11 days. ArmyGroup South 1941.
Zhukov worked out the basic elements of the defensive and offensive operation in April 1943.....he didn't need 'Lucy' to tell him anything. It was pretty obvious.
Now do a video on 73 Easting.
Watch the video from The Operations Room, does not disappoint
General Guderian actually studied in the Kurst Tank School
Good video but Brody was actually the largest tank battle in history
The Battle of Brody was the largest tank battle in history.
Hey Simon, in German an "ei" is pronounced more or less as an "ai" in English would be
Or as the "i" in "iron"
in my head canon you have a ton of twin brothers and each of you have your own channel
Good video overall.
However, it says that the Germans never launched another offensive on the Eastern Front after Kursk.
What about Operation Spring Awakening in March 1945? It was a German/Hungarian offensive to secure some of the last Axis oil reserves around Lake Balaton in Hungary.
The Germans obviously failed, but they still managed to launch a few offensives after Kursk.
Maps, please!
At 6:36, those soldiers are lifting mines, not laying them ;)
It's kinda amazing that the Russian had the power, logistic and courage to fight these colossal battles. Now the Russian army is so incompetent
We should be happy that they are incompetent with they invasion of Ukraine.
It was the Red Army, not Russian. USSR was 15 countries and a high amount of ethnicities. This was literally a war of survival. Either win or become literal slaves or death, so the moral was on their side. Plus the USSR had endless resources.
Now Russian leaders still try to play World Power just to keep somewhat of a influence and keep their positions (Example Putin). Costing Russian soldiers their lives in Wars with incompetence. The after effects of communism is ever so present
Anyone else notic that Simon's copy-past links for his other channels still had Business Blaze? XD
4:30 well done my old fool friend........ To make a world big Armageddon I had to do unimaginable ugly things in order to make history lessons
how can you script such a video without thinking of including a single map? What an extraordinary oversight! How many of your viewers can locate Kursk?
Easy with a mobile
Many of the participants actually called this the battle of Orel
Sometimes called "Kursk-Orel" but I've never heard it called merely 'orel'.
In the mid-1943 the Axis lost Kursk and Sicily. However, Germany was determined to continue the war for two long years more. That helps to find a clear answer how long Putin will continue the obviously invincible war in Ukraine.
I give it six months more tops. There are a number of key differences here. One chiefly being that Putin is on the brink of the realization that he is fighting every single economic powerhouse except China. This is, by now, openly a proxy war against the US, UK, France, Germany, Poland, Italy, all the Nordics, all the Baltics, about two thirds of of the smaller former Eastern European countries, Israel, Turkey and the (rapidly growing) Free Russia Brigade internally.
Hitler still had most the production capability of central Europe while Stalin got massive aid from the US. Putin is having a hard time producing anything but basic ammunition because Taiwan, France and Switzerland has cut him off from electronics and optical equipment supplies while all the American chipmakers have even cut off consumer level chips. All he can get is god awfully slow Chinese ARM clones. And the most funny thing is that a lot of key components for Russian military gear... was supplied by Ukraine...
Sad that this will probably prove to be right
Sabaton History, a collaboration between power metal band Sabaton and UA-cam historian Indy Neidell, cover the Battle of Kursk here: ua-cam.com/video/snJ6phce4To/v-deo.html
For those interested in seeing maps of the battle, this video has them. And some awesome music!
A repeat of the old myths of Prokorovka.
Yes new Eastern Front Episode
A warographic about Rzhev, please
Please visit Micahistory 2, it would mean a lot!
Recent scholarship tells us that the Kursk campaign was not the largest 'tank battle' (a pretty meaningless term anyway) in WW2. The 1941 frontier battles in Ukraine around Brody were even larger.
Kursk was of course incredibly important so it's a trivial point.
The Soviets liberating cities!? That’s a peach
Soviets were brutal but not as brutal as the nazis.
@@Nice-ck7rq you were absolutely insane. Stalin and Mao made Hitler look like a choir boy In terms of people rounded up and slaughtered
@@Nice-ck7rq The Soviets were immensely cruel.
@@Nice-ck7rq mmh, grandpa told otherwise, though we have saying in Lithuania about both armies, one is brown as a mongrel, other red like a devil and i think that perfectly encapsulate share lack of humanity of both.
@@rogerpenske2411 Nope. Hitler was worse. An idealist who made cruelty his end goal, whereas for Stalin, cruelty was simply a means to an end. The German Army invaded the USSR for explicitly genocidal purposes, but when the Soviets pushed them back, they could, occasionally, be merciful. Rear-echelon troops did the bulk of the pillaging and raping, usually when they were drunk, but even then, it never reached the same level of depravity inflicted by the Nazis.
Don't know if the title was troll bait, but Brody/Dubno/Dubna/Rovne (Several names for the battle) was the biggest tank battle in history to date.
Up next;Bellieu Woods.
Please do the bosnian war
One of the most fascinating things about WWII to me is how German technology (and sometimes Japanese Technology) became detriments oftentimes. Such sophisticated tech was hard to replace and fix while the Americans and Russians could lose whatever and replace it. Quality has its downsides
I feel like whoever had air superiority at the moment would win the battle regardless of who had more tanks.
Unless there was fog; or smoke, or dust.
It was factor in why Barbrarossa failed, soviets gained air superiority rather quickly. Same with the battle of Britian. Thier planes were great, they just couldn't make enough of them.
But that wasn't how it worked.
No Panthers at Prokorovka as SS Pz Divs only had one Panzer Baatalion each (90) and a Company of Tigers (12) each plus Assault Guns (40) , each of the 3 SS Pz Divs wete awaiting their Panther Battalions much of war between Kursk and Normandy can be explained by German Pz Divs awaiting their Panther Battalion, 21st Pz Div at Normandy (only one ptesent on D Day) also did not have its Panther Battalion only their Mk 4 Nattalion
Where is exactly Diem Bien Phu?
French Indochina
I wonder whether the world will see the likes of Kursk ever again, where tanks gather en masse to slug it out in a battle of attrition.
This is because of the increasing use of asymmetric and hybrid warfare seen in the current, ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.
The Liebstarte??? (14:14) Waht is that?
A murdering gang of atrocity-committing half-trained fanatics who like to believe they were elite.
Could've used a map.
"SS Totenkopf". Hey, I've seen this one before
Back when the Russians were AGAINST fascism.
Yes. They were also against indiscriminately bombing civilians. They also didn't like raping and pillaging... That is, until they pushed the Germans back to Poland. Then they instantly turned into The Red version of Fascism. And it hasn't really changed since...
Ha ha facism do actually research. They have similarities but are not facists they are nothing like the Italian facists. Which was facism in its truest form.
@@andersjjensen People conveniently forget about what the Russians did after the Germans lost.
@@andersjjensen Well, when you face an enemy who explicitly intends to kill your entire ethnicity for the "crime" of existing, you can't be expected to be a boy scout when the tables have turned. And yet some did. I won't condone what the Soviets did, but the Germans reaped what they sewed.
@@pyromania1018 Let's be absolutely clear here: My statement was 100% directed at what they did to the Poles during the USSR years. But by a strange twist of events you just legitimized it if the Poles had started raping, murdering and torturing Russians after the collapse of the USSR.... Yet they didn't.
There is a saying for the allies "before el alamein we have nothing but defeats, after el alamein we have nothing but victory's" I think the same can be said for kursk if not stalingrad too
The Soviet Afghan war was linked at the end. Not the allied invasion of Italy. Might want to fix that.
Battle of Brody was the largest ?
The occasional map would be helpful.
Soldiers of the union
broke the citadel,
Ruins of an army,
AXIS REST IN HELL