Thanks to the folks over at Wargaming.
Over the next few weeks we'll be bringing you...
...an additional set of extra extra history episodes...
...to talk about the Battle of Kursk.
The largest tank battle in history.
But first we need to set the scene.
It's June 1941.
Nazi Germany’s forces have been building along the eastern frontier.
Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia have been working together...
...since the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of 1939, but that's all about to change.
The ideologies, policies and goals have always been opposed.
Tension has been mounting since the exclusion of the USSR...
...from the Axis alliance between Japan, Italy and the German Reich.
Conflicts over the Balkans have been escalating.
Peace cannot last.
On the 21st of June, it's time.
Panzers race eastward, tearing through the Russian lines.
Surprise is total.
Moscow is in a state of shock at the invasion.
The Soviet troops fight bravely...
...but their leadership has been gutted by the vicious Stalinist purges.
The Wehrmacht juggernaut cannot be stopped.
Thousands of Soviet planes are destroyed while still on the ground.
Within hours, the Germans have decimated any semblance of command.
Suicidal orders from Moscow demand a counter attack.
Troops either attempt counter-assaults...
...or withdraw piecemeal.
Over the next few weeks, thousands of Soviets are captured...
...and sent back to serve as slave labor in the German camps.
In the Balkans, the Germans are hailed as liberators from the Soviet Regime.
But not all was quite as rosy as it seemed for the Nazi Reich.
Despite the incredible losses suffered by the Soviet army...
...an unacceptably large number of Soviet troops had been able to slip...
...between the racing panzers and the infantry...
...mired in crossing the muddy roads of the rural European east.
And despite the destruction of so many Soviet aircraft...
...the front the Germans were fighting on was simply too expansive to control.
They had lost too many planes in the Battle of Britain.
The Luftwaffe simply couldnot maintain total air superiority in the east.
Whatever goodwill the Balkans had towards the invading troops...
...was lost instantly due to the mounting number of Nazi atrocities...
...crimes against what they considered to be an inhuman race.
For the rest of the war, there would be constant resistance...
...striking behind the front lines as the army tried to push further east.
As the push east continued...
...and summer rains set in, the advance slowed.
Meanwhile, the Soviets began to reorganize.
The holes in the leadership left by Stalin’s purges were filled.
Competence began to trump ideology when appointing officers.
The communication structure was improved.
And some semblance of a coordinated battle plan was drawn.
The first coordinated resistance came at Smolensk.
Thousands of Soviet tanks rushed west in attempt to halt the German advance.
Half a million men....
...on each side clashed in one of the largest operations.
It was a disaster for the Russians.
Hundreds of thousands more Soviet soldiers were cut off...
...and shipped back to Germany as slave labor.
Thousands of tanks were left burning in the Russian fields.
But as much as this might have appeared to be a total German victory
the attack had slowed the German advance...
...costing them time and material they could not afford.
And splitting their command.
Many of the German generals wanted to race for Moscow...
...to keep their forces focused on the objective that might end the war.
Hitler instead ordered the army...
...to disperse and capture industrial and agricultural centers in the USSR.
By September, Nazi German forces were surrounding Leningrad...
...in what would become one of the most deadly sieges in history.
What the Germans hoped to be a quick victory...
...would drag out in a brutal battle of attrition for years.
By October, bad weather began to set in.
And the Luftwaffe’s ability to control the sky...
...became severely stretched.
By December, the Soviets had achieved superiority in some sections.
Though offenses had stalled on other fronts...
...having culled the Soviet army until the Wehrmacht matched it in sheer manpower...
...Hitler ordered one final push on Moscow in the fall before winter set in.
At this point, supply lines were a problem.
Fuel, munitions and warm clothing…
…couldn't be transported over the vast distance…
…between the German heartland and the Moscow frontier in time.
German divisions were under-manned,
and replacements, when they could be found,
struggled to make it across the bombed out roads…
…from Europe to the front.
Still, the initial month of the offensive seemed a success.
German troops pushed through the defensive rings around Moscow.
By the beginning of November, forces of the Third Reich…
…were at the very gates.
But the troops were exhausted.
There were no reserves.
They had been fighting continually,
in the worsening Russian weather, for months.
The troops needed to rest.
But every day, the Soviets drew in reserves…
…from its vast territory to the east,
regaining strength.
By mid November, the ground froze,
and the final push into Moscow began.
But the temperature dropped.
In early December, it was sometimes as cold as -48 degrees Celsius.
The fighting was brutal,
and the Winter itself claimed many lives.
It was too much. The drive on Moscow stopped.
Operation Barbarossa had failed.
Then the Soviet counter attack began.
Week after week, they rolled back the German line.
The Soviet forces were better prepared for the harsh winter,
and began to regain their footing…
…against the freezing and exhausted forces…
…of the once unshakable German army.
But even as the German offensive stalled in the north,
a new objective was decided upon in the south:
*August 1942* Stalingrad.
By Summer 1942,
the Wehrmacht began driving towards its new goal,
and towards oil fields in the south of Soviet territory.
By the fall of 1942,
*Not happening* ...it was clear that the oil fields...
...wouldn't be captured by Winter, so all eyes turned to Stalingrad.
The leaders of both nations decided:
this was the line.
“No land beyond the Volga” declared Stalin.
Hitler demanded that the city named after their foe must fall.
Within days of the offensive’s beginning,
the Luftwaffe had reduced the city to rubble,
but rather than surrender, the Soviets dug into the ruins of the city.
Fighting was brutal house to house combat.
Grand strategy broke down…
…into a thousand small actions of a handful men…
…fighting for the bombed out remains of a factory or an apartment building.
But both sides just kept sending men…
…into the meat grinder that was Stalingrad.
By November 1942, the Germans had pushed up to the very banks of the Volga,
but as German troops were approaching the Volga,
the Soviets had another plan taking shape.
The Germans had been so focused on the city…
…that their defensive line along the front around the city had weakened.
The German army had been so used to being on the offensive…
…that it had let its defenses slip, *We'll call it Operation Uranus. Really.*
and the Soviets planned to make them pay for that mistake.
Soviet forces smashed through the thinly defended lines around the city,
crushing the Romanian forces, that were supposed to serve as the flank…
…for the German 6th army in Stalingrad.
Rapidly, the Soviets closed the circle.
The 6th army was now pinned,
with the forces from Stalingrad on one side…
…and the Soviet counter offensive push on the other.
Initially a breakout was suggested,
…but members of the Luftwaffe convinced Hitler…
…that they could provide supplies by air…
…to help the pinned army fight on.
But it was nowhere near enough.
The trapped forces began to starve.
Every day, more of the planes, so desperately needed…
…for resupply, were shot down.
A push to relieve the forces was made but stalled out,
as the trapped forces were too exhausted to make a breakout,
and their commander was unwilling to defy Hitler's order to hold firm.
At last, the Soviets offered surrender terms to the 6th army,
but the offer was rejected because of Hitler's order.
The trapped, hopeless troops fought on.
Finally, by the first days of February, resistance collapsed.
But even when personally captured,
the commander of the 6th army group refused to surrender.
As 1942 turned into 1943,
with setbacks in North Africa…
…and the imminent possibility of an Allied front in Italy,
there was one last possibility for the Germans to regain the offensive…
…and prevent a collapse in the East.
Join us next time for the real beginning…
…of the battle of Kursk.
Subtitles by Wargaming.net