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World War II: The Battle of Kursk - I: Operation Barbarossa - Extra History

We've teamed up with Wargaming to bring you an extra series of Extra History about World War II: The Battle of Kursk!

Make sure you watch the additional video with a comment from James: http://bit.ly/1Pzy1k5

World War II: The Battle of Kursk - I: Operation Barbarossa - Extra History

Comments

Also allowed for control over large oilfields. Thing about fuel is that it's hard to have a mechanized army without it

JT Barrett

This will be a 4 part series! Currently, there are no plans for a Lies episode.

Extra History

Answered this partially elsewhere - mainly the Baltic/Balkan mix-up, which was a mistake we've already corrected. As for the rest, I'm totally fine with people finding and pointing out errors. We do it ourselves in the Lies episode (which this may not get, being a sponsored series, because even Lies episodes take time and quite frankly our team is stretched to the limit with this).

Extra History

I don't think it would be a bad idea to take these criticisms into account: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/45y7nt/world_war_ii_the_battle_of_kursk_i_operation/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/45y7nt/world_war_ii_the_battle_of_kursk_i_operation/</a>

Peter Melling

There was legitimate strategic value in Stalingrad, mainly the sheer volume of industry, and controlling the mouth of the Volga strangles one of the main Russian waterways. The effort expended in the assault outweighed such considerations however.

RMS Oceanic

Was there any reason that they choose Stalingrad other than the name? It is protected by a river and if Civ 5 has taught me anything is not to send your forces over a river of you can avoid it.

Parker

will the battle of kursk be a 4 5 or 6 part and will there be a lies.

schuyler

Stalingrad within the first few months was taken down to, if rumors of German officers in field can be trusted, a single street was all the Russians held in the entire city. Of course since that one street was right up against the Volga river, there's no wonder why the Germans had trouble at the last second taking the city.

Sean Sarff

A fact worth mentioning, relating to the subject of Russian reinforcements to Moscow, was that they were originally meant to guard against a Japanese attack from Manchuria(Northern China). These troops were stationed in Siberia, hence they were well prepared for the Russian winter. Fortunately a soviet spy in Tokyo informed Stalin, that the Japanese had no plans to attack Russia as they were preparing for Pearl Harbor and their attack across the pacific.

Thomb

Thanks, I was aware this was not likely to actually be a sharkman based on the subject matter of the episode (though I guess until I saw the episode "Marvel's Juggernaut" wasn't much more likely) The misinterpretation of the imagery was intentional but still, thanks, I guess.

Tommy Laukkanen

Pretty sure it's supposed to be Marvel's Juggernaut

Hasan Mahmood

It might help put things in perspective to mention that the distance from Berlin to Moscow is equivalent to the distance from Denver to Chicago. Also, one of the issues that affected getting supplies to the front was that the Russian railway gauge was much wider than the gauge used by the Germans.

barefoot James

Couple of nitpicks: The comparative maps of Germany and USSR at the beginning seem to be their 1939 configurations, both lacking the territory they grabbed in Poland and the Baltic region. And speaking of the Baltic, is that what you meant when you said the Balkans greeted the Germans as liberators? The Axis forces had already launched campaigns in the Balkans by the time of Barbarossa, and they sure as hell weren't greeted as liberators. The Balkans didn't play a role in the Eastern Front until the USSR reached them in 1944. Also it wasn't just the Baltic lands greeting false liberators, there were also Polish and Belorussian and Ukrainian groups who were essentially duped into thinking they'd be delivered from Moscow. Still, a great summary of the first 18 months. Onward to not learning any lessons from the counter-offensive at Kharkov!

RMS Oceanic

The only thing that makes sense is that the degrees for frozen oil and gas should say "-40°C"and "-50°C" respectively (and that right is the negative direction)

Tommy Laukkanen

Not sure what that graphic with the different temperatures is supposed to be saying. It says -48C at the top but it's placed between the (above-zero) freezing points of other materials, suggesting that either those values are below zero (despite not being labelled as such and being to the right of 0C, typically the direction reserved for the positive direction on an axis) or the -48 temperature should be above zero.

Luna

Thumbnail of a sharkman punching some books? Count me in.

Tommy Laukkanen


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