Men were men back then, unlike now.

@@BattlestarDamocles they could acctually repair something fast

@@Mitch_N_Monty_get_fuked the amphetamines probably helped alot lol.

@@cowgoesmoo3850 true

Josh ... military v. civilian, that's why.

Yes indeed. I have never thought that much about just how important the maintenance crews were before this video. I'm guessing that Tigers were possibly in need of more maintenance, due to their weight, engine performance and maybe because the allies were keen to rid themselves of the Tiger threat.

Field mechanics are worth their weight in gold.

The narrator is to be praised even more for his neutral and unbiased explanations when you consider he is a Belgian citizen, whose country was occupied by the Germans. Congratulations, Monsieur !

@@pedrolistacarey4880 First I think he was a German.

Neutral perspective? Whatever. He is being kind when it comes to Citadel. The Wehrmacht had lost the war even before the operation. That's not bias or political. These valuable Wehrmacht personnel were sacrificed for a cause of no virtue.

Mdv8611 he does dig deep! Really opens my eyes to the brutal details of it.

@Dave Ad Only 2 dead commander, Zimmermann not death but receive wounded on one of his arm and have to evacuated.

True. But since we're talking about Das Reich here, I'm not going to be sad about it.

I agree! Ace you've done an amazing job on this battle as a surgeon, hats off!!

meh, the intro was a bit much

@Jack Sullivan no

@Jack Sullivan no

@Jack Sullivan no, lol

Yep.

lame

The worst enemy is..the enemy in within.

Plato

@@morokolli8700 you high

Lame

Nice insight

The Germans had no mine clearing tanks even though they had been suggested during the planning stage. Both sides had inflated figures of tanks killed, as stated, the German repair crews did inceedible work. The Soviet artillery and defence was too much and ground the Germans down... the argument that the invasion of Sicily resulted in the pause at Kursk is dubious...military records indicate the Germans fought on for another 3 or 4 days...

@@panzervalkyrie9299 Interestingly, the claims that Allied airpower destroyed very few tanks misses this point. While a tank is a " hard target ", the repair crews in their unarmoured vehicles were not. So the Typhoons and Thunderbolts " killed " the panzer divisions by destroying it's supply and support units, not by killing it's tanks.

@@ericgrace9995 Then the losses would be more evenly distributed in Pz Divisions which they are not but mainly in the PzGren Regiments. As a matter of fact even at the best circumstances like the pocket of falaise only 2,5-8,9% of all shorties flown resulted in a hit motor vehicle. I recommend Normandy 44 by Zetterling which has an chapter about the effects on allied airpower. Generally all nations close air support in WW2 was besides a moral factor not really good in causing damage and losses.

@@_Jago_-bj6kr The exception that I can find is Stuka support - that seems to have been routinely more effective but that aircraft is an outlier.

My great uncle willie was a stuka pilot on the eastern front and great opa karl a gebirgsjäger who fought in Crete later died on the eastern front in 1944

Wow. That’s some history there.

Does he play Warthunder?

buddy there is nothing to be proud of.

Tons to be proud of.

I've thought that each time I have came across this haha

@@MICHAEL-wg2lh badass intro for a badass tank

@@kjragg1099 yes especially the tiger 🐯 👌

The Soviets were not "worse than the Germans" lol. Imagine trying to equivocate over a nation that invaded another for the explicit purpose of committing genocide.

Thank you very much! It really means a lot!

My pleasure! I'm glad to see that you enjoyed it!

@@TheAceDestroyer I like that you actually don't call the Soviets "Russians" as many who are ignorant do.

John Appleyard the volunteer fire department lost the house but saved the well

@@epicgta5btctutorialsyrd353 Yet, many of these tanks were repeared and by 3 August, 2750 soviet tanks were operationnal at Kursk due to repears of damaged véhicules. Also, the Lutfwaffe lost 420 aircrafts written off only from 5th July to 31th July at Kursk.

@@epicgta5btctutorialsyrd353 Bernie who? I'm not American and I don't care about the US politics!

@@epicgta5btctutorialsyrd353 The third Reich probably definitively lost 1000 aircrafts during the whole Kursk strategic operation (which ended by the way at August, 23th).

@@epicgta5btctutorialsyrd353 So you're basically claiming that the third reich lost no aircraft at Kursk after August, 1st. You're a moron.

Also, they really didn't have a reliable transmission for the Panther until the transmission in the Jagdpanther, which arrived too late to go into the Panthers themselves.

@William Vagabond I'm sorry if I contradict you but the transmission of the Tiger is completely different from that of the Panther. The Tiger had an hydraulic operated transmission with an epicyclic final drive whilst the Panther had a synchronized manual transmission that operated the very unreliable final drive that could roughly last only 150 km. From the start the Germans was very unhappy this weak final drive but there was too few machines to produce the epicyclic drive. If was possible it would have been a much better proposition for the Panther but I understood that it was very expensive and wasted many man hours to produce it...

Im not so sure about the second part, the Panther I never have read vet stories moaning too much about the Panther's maintenance and reliability outside mentions of tracks popping off when going through rubble which limited mobility in areas, however I endlessly have read vet stories of the horrors of working on the "Heavys" as I see them refer to them, the VI and VII and 'Elefant' whatever it's designation was, I forget, in fact one accout from I think the book 'The German Art of War' 1993 (I think, might have the year published wrong), has a very experienced mechanic that stated he actually prayed physically prayed to not get pushed into working on the VII due to how batshit it was designed, he said only the smallest and well coordinated guys could work on a lot of it due to the incomprehensible way the gearbox/train and sprockets were setup and required going back to the factory for a multi month replacement of the train system which usually the tanks never returned to the same front after early to mid 44, he said and never to the same unit unless it was one of the rarer ones, he continued to gripe about the redic amount of weight causing so many problems, and how slow, cumbersome, and later in the war, dangerous it was to ship them on trains and get them ready to ship out, same thing had to be done to the Panther as far as roadwheels/tracks put on so trains could pass each other but he doesnt complain nearly as much about the V as he did the VI and especially VII which he admits he never worked on the King but knew many guys who did, everyone hated it even the guys manning it late in the war late 44 due to how fat of a target it was for daytime rocket firing typoons and P47's, just a death trap and wasnt even easy to hide, basicslly there is a never ending list of complaints about the Heavys from those that used them, but not so much the later model Panthers, tho the early ones were so poor like you said, I even read they could catch fire without getting hit due to bad design of fuel line placement X.x

Yeah......but the Panther looks cooler, and the Tiger is already cool

The tiger was 2 years older so ofcourse its more reliable. Panther in 45 was decent reliable too.

Cannons, or artillery, Paolo?

@@bluerock4456 basically anti-tank cannons traps that was very difficult to locate so well hidden they were. Normally a tank commander will locate them when is too late as the Russians will shoot only when they were darn sure. The artillery was used but not particularly effective against against tanks but was far more effective having tank killers armed with anti-tank rifles and Molotov...

To znaczy ze szanowny tatus byl bandyta.

Did he survive the war?

Wow, I certainly wouldn't want to attack hull-down T-34's in a halftrack even if it did have a 20mm Flak gun!

R B1229 Yeah, Dad said they advanced until they got to that ridge. Stopped . . and then pulled back again a few days later. THEIR sector didn't make it into the newsreels

@@blobboflava yes he did. In june of 1944, after Normandy, my Dad's unit got pulled out of Russia and sent to France. After he got there, they immediately put him alongside the SS units that attacked towards Coutances to split the allies. After that advance got stopped, my Dad's halftrack was knocked out in the Falaise gap and he was captured by Canadian troops along with about 50 other men hiding out from the bombing and strafing aircraft in a barn. He spent the next four years in an English POW camp south of London. As quickly and as ferociously as my Dad's unit got attacked in Falaise . . . He still said Russia was FAR worse

Or that the Soviets were preparing for war much longer than the Germans, which is evident when the Germans captured the immense amount of equipment in the initial stages of Operation Barbarossa, so much was captured that even German/Italian units in Africa were fitted with Russian captured military weaponry.

@@hoyschelsilversteinberg4521 yea but alot of the russian equipment captured was old and outdated like BT tanks and many more other older model tanks, SP guns, & artillery etc

@@joyceblackmon1745 Still widely superior to what the Germans had and they had more KV-1 tanks in 1941 than the Germans had armoured fighting vehicles at the start of WW2 in 1939. Those numbers are incredible.

@@joyceblackmon1745 Old and outdated? No they were as modern as everything else made at the time. They had more T-34s in 1941 than Germany had Armoured Fighting Vehicles in 1939.

I like their camouflage; I believe green and tan over the base of grey.

Thanks! I'm very glad too see that you enjoyed it!

By strange coincidence Germany survives and prosper nowadays and USSR collapses and demise...

@Großösterreichisches Reich It sounds to me like having a lot of territory and a big military machine does not mean you have a country that is good to live in.

@@annapavlenko9617 Ukraine is falling apart. Everything is normal with Russia.

Алексей П Удивительно и невероятно! А мы в Украине ждем что Россия скоро развалится. Прямо таки искренняя братская дружба и любовь в действии.

@@annapavlenko9617wait, but rather look at reality and see that it is Ukraine that is falling apart and that fascist fervor is killing its former fellow citizens.

My pleasure! I'm glad to see that you enjoyed it!

My pleasure! I'm glad to see that you enjoyed it!

Yes, the maintenance teams performed miracles during this Feldzug.

Green Devils Monte Cassino

Yes, they got smashed on Crete so let's hear about that.

Yes, but that was due to their short numbers, NOT, to their effectiveness against the enemy, as is very clearly shown on this video.

Well, thank you for watching! I'm glad to see that you enjoyed it!

@@TheAceDestroyer Keep up the great effort--well done!

Thanks! I'm glad you like them! Danke!

Thank you very much!

Thanks! I'm very pleased to hear that you like my content!

My pleasure! I'm absolutely delighted to hear that!

Good chap, look forward to the next instalment 🇬🇧

IS-2. Tiger crews were instructed not to engage it unless number superiority. This is t 34 76, not even 85 variant, which was much better

Which tank could fight tiger: T34 85 Su 85 Isu 152 Su 152 Su 100 Is 2 T 34 57 Sherman firefly Sherman 76mm long gun Its not like its some kind of miracle vehicle

@@user-me5oq3kl4h A tank is only as good as the people who crew it and the leader who takes it into battle, with a good crew a Tiger I could tear the rectal cavity out of every last one of those tanks. Just like the Yanks tanks crews in Gulf war 1&2, the Iraqi's never stood a snowballs chance in hell against those crews manning them tanks, even if the Yanks had the T72's and the Iraqi's the M1A1's the Yanks still would have tore them up, it's all in the crews.

@@oveidasinclair982 sure, and the more war progressed, the worse crews were. German lost astounding 16 king tigers in Lvov-Sandomir operation in single engagement against t-34-85. From them 3 were captured fully operational, 1 now is in Kubinka museum. Its nowhere near situation when every german crew were seasoned veterans, and soviet crews - unexperienced

@Son Gohan - The Germans built a total of 1,347 Tiger 1's between August 1942 and August 1944. The peak number of Tiger 1's deployed on ALL fronts was 671 in July 1944. The Tiger was the best tank of the war - and it DID NOT make a difference.

Everyone forgets that the Russians cheated.

Oh thank God for the UK...we couldn’t have done it without them. Or do I have that backwards...?

@@edt8535 No you have it the right way. Without Britain, Germany wins the war.

Tiger1AuasfE . Das Reich was possibly the most formidable division, in the entire German army.

Yeah, who doesn't have a favourite panzer division, right?

Are they your favorite because of the prisoners they murdered, or the civilians they murdered?

Bob James Not all of them have commit war crimes,plus those who commit this were really a minority within the division (company & in rarer case battalion),so before spewing bullshit like that inform yourself,there is no problem to like this division,it was a great fighting unit who during all the longevity of the war destroyed 3,000 allied tanks by himself,it was one of the most decorated Waffen-SS units.

@@docan6817 correct

Indeed, 25 April is always a special day for me here in Belgium as well.

My pleasure! I'm glad to hear that!

My pleasure! I'm happy to see that you enjoyed it!

There is a determined effort amongst American military historians and commentators to marginalize German capabilities in WW II that includes, but is hardly limited to, the quality of German armor. To make a long story short, American superiority is always to be advocated over the Wehrmacht and even the SS. This is a symptom of an aging and insecure empire that has a near pathological need to believe it's the best at, well, everything. It's interesting to note that there is no similar effort to denigrate the Japanese military establishment - this is due to the fact that the Japanese will never be mistaken for bringing the same qualities to the battlefield that the Germans did. There are some impartial historians out there but they are significantly outnumbered by the propagandists and apologists. Cheers!

@@kw19193 : The US military was embarrassed by many of it's failures against the Germans, commencing with the debacle at the Kasserine Pass. Top US brass, including Eisenhower, commissioned a study on the capabilities of the Wehrmacht, in 1944 and 1945. The came to the conclusion that the Wehrmacht possessed better weapons, better tactics, they had better training, higher morale, their officer corp was more professional, and given roughly equal numbers of US and Wehrmacht troops meeting in a given battle, the Wehrmacht would prevail EVERY SINGLE TIME. The US was very lucky 80% of the Wehrmacht, including most of the armored corp, had been destroyed on the Eastern front. Also, the US had overwhelming air superiority, and an unlimited supply of fuel. By 1944, the Luftwaffe was all but finished and the entire German war machine was desperately short of fuel.

@@Gallagherfreak100 Very well put mate, can't argue with a jot of what you wrote. An additional note to your mention about how the Wehrmacht was able to maintain a high level of morale until very near the end, to wit: German officers were trained to lead from the front an ethos that extended all the way to corps and army group commanders. Little wonder that the common German soldier so admired their officers. Too, if you ever get the opportunity read German after action reports, you will almost immediately notice the absence of complaints about officers or leadership. Easily the most competent and professional army of modern times. Cheers!

I read Ottos book, can only recommend it. Besides- why a waste of ressources? Germany did not have the steel or gasoline to do what russians or armericans did... But the winner writes history

@@onepunchbud1472 And usually very poorly. Cheers!

Thanks! I'm happy to see that you enjoyed it!

The tanks in 1941 were mostly tiny Bts, T-26 vs Panzer IIs and 38ts. No comparison to Kursk.

@@lyndoncmp5751 - that wasn't my point. My point was that most historians say that Kursk was the largest tank battle in history, and now we have proof that Brody has been ignored on that point. It also drew German troops away from the advance on Moscow.

@@petersouthernboy6327 I know. Your point is noted. My point is that in tonnage Kursk was larger because the tanks were larger. Not any BTs T-26s, 38Ts, Panzer IIs etc at Kursk, which is what the majority of the tanks in 1941 were.

Endless victories?? And final defeat of the aggressors!

@@zarkomodric6509 Although the Russians got huge supplies off America & Britain, their courage & determination to defeat the Wehrmacht was extraordinary. I think Hitler's tactical interference helped them a lot as well.

Endless lies of German aces about shooting down more planes and knocking out more tanks than there were in total on the entire front - sure, why not, Russia is infinity!

@@paulrimmer2853 Russians started getting those supplies in decent volumes only by autumn-winter of 1943 when all the main battles that turned back the Nazis, incl. Kursk, had already happened - without any Allied help to speak of! Allies waited during Russia's toughest fights until it was obvious Russia would win on its own - and only then started supplying useful stuff, like toluene for explosives (instead of such crap as a few Matildas with 45 mm guns and "get stuck in the mud or snow after travelling 10 m" sideskirts).

Vadesi Saloku The Lend-Lease Act was signed in March 1941, before the Germans even invaded. Unoficially before that the U.S. had been supplying the Soviets and built up at least a third of it’s industry with private companies like Ford and GM. Stalin even acknowledged it himself that the industry of the United States won the USSR the war against Germany

Wayne Fletcher , the Germans still losing the war even if it was more reliable

Imagine if they had 10-20000 Tiger machines instead of around 1000