- 2天前
类别
📚
学习文字稿
00:00中文字幕志愿者 中文字幕志愿者 中文字幕志愿者 中文字幕志愿者 杨茜茜
00:30中文字幕志愿者 杨茜茜
01:00中文字幕志愿者 杨茜茜
01:29中文字幕志愿者 杨茜茜
01:33中文字幕志愿者 杨茜茜
01:39它們在將軍人的戰略中拖延了一場戰略的戰略
01:42一場戰略的戰略和其他拖延的戰略
01:45和其他拖延的戰略
01:55軍人的戰略失了兩百萬人
01:59它們需要回撃了一場戰略
02:01The battlefront is redrawn along the 1,500 km between Leningrad and the Black Sea
02:13Hitler demands revenge
02:24He hands the job of masterminding a new offensive to the most brilliant German tactician of the war
02:3255-year-old Field Marshal Erich von Manstein
02:37Von Manstein stands out absolutely head and shoulders above almost any other German general field
02:50He is undoubtedly one of the finest operational level commanders you could find in history
02:57Major General Simon Mayle, a distinguished commander in both Gulf Wars, believes von Manstein was destined to become a great general
03:07Von Manstein comes from a very traditional Prussian family
03:13Soldiers in his blood
03:15His family motto is steadfast in loyalty
03:19So he arrives in the army with a very strong sense of duty
03:23A great strong sense of obedience
03:25A great strong sense of Germanic history
03:28Across the planning table from von Manstein is his adversary
03:3646-year-old Marshal Georgi Zhukov
03:39Deputy Supreme Commander of the Red Army
03:42With the fearsome reputation of being one of the few men who can say no to Stalin
03:47Zhukov is from a poor background, a peasant background
03:52He joins as a private, the Red Army during the revolution, so he works his way up through the ranks
03:57This is a very very different background to that we see for his German counterpart
04:01Military historian Professor Philip Sabin has closely studied Zhukov's war
04:07Zhukov was a very much general in the Soviet mold
04:12He's willing to expend lives, you don't want to cross him, you don't want to disobey him
04:16Otherwise you really are inferior of your life
04:18The stark contrast in background and temperament of these two generals has an immense impact on the unfolding battle
04:31Zhukov would like nothing better than to draw Manstein into close-quarter combat once again
04:35Zhukov would like nothing better than to draw Manstein into close-quarter combat once again
04:37Zhukov would like nothing better than to draw Manstein into close-quarter combat once again
04:42But Manstein is determined to fight the Red Army in open country
04:50His battleground will be the large bulge in the front line separating the Germans in the west from the Russians in the east
05:02This is an area of land half the size of England
05:07Von Manstein will lead army group south, a force of 300,000 men, into the bulge from below
05:15Meanwhile, army group center will tear into the bulge from above
05:21These two pincers will meet at the city of Kursk to enclose hundreds of thousands of Red Army soldiers
05:29And allow the Germans to annihilate them at their leisure
05:32Hitler believes they can achieve victory through superior technology
05:42His engineers have been working hard to improve what is already one of the most fearsome weapons in the German arsenal
05:49A powerful gun designed to shoot down aircraft
05:56The 88 flat gun started life as an anti-aircraft gun
06:03Because it could sling a 21-pound shell at 840 meters per second
06:09However, the German generals realized that if you lowered the gun and you aimed straight down it
06:15You could take out enemy tanks at well over 2,000 meters
06:20But moving the 88 into position on a battlefield isn't easy
06:29This gun is a seven-ton monster, it needs a big truck to pull it anywhere
06:35Once that truck disengages and clears off, the crew are left here on their own
06:45Waiting at the beck and call of that big truck
06:48And then it takes time to prepare the 88 gun for action
06:52Every time you stop this gun, you've got to bring down the stabilizers
06:57And then getting the fire control into position ready to fire accurately at the enemy
07:02And that all takes a lot of time
07:04They're totally vulnerable to any enemy attack
07:07So it weighs over seven tons and it's got absolutely no protection
07:11Well, German designers came up with the solution
07:14They decided to pack this amazing gun into a turret
07:18Surround the crew for protection with up to 10-centimeter thick armor plating
07:23And then for mobility, put tracks and a huge engine on it
07:27Turning this super gun into a super tank
07:30Known as the Mark VI, but better known to you and me as the Tiger
07:34The Tiger can fire further than any Soviet tank
07:45And its thick armor makes it practically impenetrable to enemy shells
07:50By putting the most feared gun of the Second World War onto a tank
07:56The Germans believe they have a world beater
08:00But the Russians are quietly confident that they have something that will neutralize the high-tech Tiger
08:15The humble shovel
08:18Hitler is so enamored with his new wonder weapons like the Tiger tank
08:30That he orders von Manstein to hold back launching the offensive towards Kursk
08:35Until enough of them have been delivered to the front line
08:38This will delay the attack for three months
08:42Going completely against von Manstein's military instinct
08:51He is master of Blitzkrieg
08:53A tactic invented by the Germans in response to the fatal stalemate
08:57That characterized trench warfare in World War I
09:00When opposing armies would send wave after wave of their soldiers onto the battlefield
09:05And into a hail of machine gun bullets
09:12Blitzkrieg replaces men with machines
09:16Massive air power and fast tanks attack with lightning speed to catch the enemy off guard
09:24Quick-witted officers coordinate these attacks
09:29Concentrating their firepower on weak spots in the enemy's lines
09:34All their best commanders were imbued with the idea of moving fast
09:40Attacking the enemy's flanks, getting behind him, breaking up his cohesion
09:45You've got to hold him by the nose while kicking him in the backside
09:49Von Manstein knows that delaying the date of attack might ruin any chance of surprising the enemy
10:10But Hitler is adamant von Manstein will have to wait for the new tanks to arrive
10:16I think van Manstein would have been utterly frustrated
10:21Manstein would definitely have worked on the principle
10:25Where the Germans were at their most effective was seizing the opportunity
10:31And getting into as quickly as possible into a free-flowing battle
10:37On the other hand, of course, you have Hitler who's obsessed with planning
10:41There's a certain amount of loathing of taking decisions
10:45Hitler hated, to an extent, taking decisions
10:48And so the months begin to go by
10:50Despite his outstanding military record
10:54Von Manstein never manages to command Hitler's full respect
10:58Their relationship is fundamentally tainted by Manstein's aristocratic upbringing
11:04Manstein had very little time for Hitler as a man
11:10And Hitler never totally believed that this, to use shorthand really
11:14The Prussian officer corps could really be trusted
11:18To carry through the political agenda of Nazism
11:21On the Russian side of the planning table, master and commander are also divided
11:32Here, Stalin insists that they attack the Germans straight away
11:36But Zhukov wants to wait
11:43The options for the Soviets, in the spring of 1943, are either to attack or to defend
11:49They now have a stabilized front line
11:53Should they push on, or should they wait for the Germans to attack them?
11:58Stalin very much is inclined towards attack
12:01Essentially his solution throughout from 1941 had been, when in doubt, attack
12:05Zhukov is a cautious man
12:08Who wants to get all his ducks in a row first
12:11Let the Germans attack, wear them down, and then succeed in the counter-attack
12:15So he very much is in favor of waiting, letting the Germans attack
12:19And then striking back
12:21Zhukov argues that instead of attacking straight away
12:25They should build a defensive buffer
12:27To put the brakes on the blitzkrieg juggernaut
12:30He knows that in a war of attrition
12:33It is numbers that count
12:35And his side outnumbers the Germans in both men and machines
12:39If they can force von Manstein into a static slogging match
12:47He is confident that the Russians will have the upper hand
12:59Zhukov wins Stalin round
13:01He orders the Red Army together with 300,000 civilians
13:07To prepare the biggest offensive works ever seen
13:18Kursk is a massive battlefield
13:20The sheer scale of this is enormous
13:22Hundreds of kilometers
13:23And it's largely open step
13:25This is ideal country for armoured operations
13:30And sadly that's what the Germans have historically been best at
13:33What he wants instead is to bog the Germans down in fixed defences
13:37Hundreds of kilometers deep
13:39With multiple defence lines
13:41Zhukov knows the simplest way to stop a charging tank
13:46Is to dig a ditch in front of it
13:48And there's a ditch in front of it
13:53Our trench is one sixth scale
13:55But the principle is exactly the same
13:58An immobilising drop on one side
14:01And an insurmountable barricade on the other
14:04Battle of Kursk
14:14From a tank commander's point of view
14:15Is an absolute nightmare
14:17They have anti-tank ditches
14:19Dug-in infantry
14:20They had obstacles everywhere
14:22Along the axis of advance
14:24So what would happen
14:26If a tank was advancing towards a ditch like this?
14:29He's stuck in the trench
14:36Can he reverse himself out?
14:41Okay
14:44Trench one, tiger nil
14:54But these ditches are just part of Zhukov's plan
14:57They're designed to slow down the German advance
15:00And while their tanks are held up
15:02They can be picked off by Russian artillery
15:08These clusters of anti-tank guns and obstacles
15:11Are laid out like a checkerboard
15:13And connected by trenches to form a defensive belt
15:16Some six kilometers deep in places
15:21Each kilometer of belt contains as many as 4,500 men
15:2545 tanks
15:27And 100 guns
15:28There are eight of these defensive bands stretching back almost 200 kilometers into Russia
15:44Zhukov is transforming the open country
15:47So perfect for von Manstein's lightning blitzkrieg attack
15:51Into a dense web of traps
15:53To entangle the approaching enemy
16:01In preparation for his main offensive
16:03Von Manstein sends in reconnaissance aircraft
16:06To seek out Russian artillery positions
16:08And then he sends in his stukas to bomb them
16:19From the air the Russian positions appear easy targets
16:22But Zhukov, alert to the threat, has a trick up his sleeve
16:34What the Russians are trying to achieve here
16:48中文字幕志愿者 李宗盛
17:18李宗盛
17:48李宗盛
18:18李宗盛
18:22In the early hours of the 5th of July, Hitler finally allows von Manstein to attack.
18:27Hitler sends his men into battle with a grave message.
18:39This day, you are to take part in an offensive of such importance that the whole future of the war may depend on its outcome.
18:47The greatest concentration of German tanks and assault guns ever employed storm across the Russian steppe, from the north and south in a pincer movement.
19:06But the attack is immediately slowed down by Zhukov's lethal obstacle course.
19:16Scattered throughout the defences are these, the scourge of every tank driver, anti-tank mines.
19:25So, let us place it under this representative vehicle.
19:30Explosives engineer, Dr. Sidney Alford, has to make do with a clapped-out car for his demonstration of an anti-tank mine.
19:41I cannot deny this is not really a tank, but it was a working vehicle before we pressed the button.
20:01You can see that it has separated main components. It has shredded the body. It has dispersed the body.
20:08There is body 50 meters over there. There is body over there. There is body over here.
20:14And there is the steering section over here.
20:19Here we have an unusually neat crater. That is beautiful.
20:25But that will give you some idea of the power of the mines.
20:30No one, of course, would have survived in a vehicle like that.
20:34If they were in a tank, and it was only one tread that touched the mine, with luck, some people inside may have survived a bang.
20:43They would probably have died as a result of being immobilized, and the concussion could well have killed them.
20:50Even as the German tanks advance, the Russians lay more mines in their path.
20:58Over the entire Kursk bulge, the Red Army lays 40,000 mines. In some places, they are just 30 centimeters apart.
21:07It's hardly surprising that von Manstein is finding that his advance isn't as easy as he had hoped.
21:15Tanks in minefields, infantry in minefields, are under quite severe psychological pressure.
21:34Having been through a minefield myself, you know that if the enemy is laying his minefields out, well, you are going to get caught.
21:43Some of you are going to get caught on minefields.
21:46They are absolutely designed to slow you down, break you up, create battlefield debris, and set you up to be taken out by other elements of the defensive force.
21:58Von Manstein's engineers attempt to clear lanes through the minefields.
22:03But clearing mines by hand takes time and costs lives.
22:09And von Manstein simply doesn't have the men to lose.
22:15So he turns to technology, a bomb on tracks called a Goliath.
22:22A combat engineer steers the Goliath by remote control into the minefield and then detonates it.
22:37The force of the explosion causing the buried mines all around to blow up.
22:41The Russians try to stop the march of the Goliath with their rifles, but the Germans steadily carve their way through the minefields.
22:56Von Manstein arranges his 700 tanks into wedge-shaped formations to charge through the gaps he has blown open in the minefields.
23:11He goes for wedges, where he tries to put the tip of the spear, not simply tanks, but the most heavily armoured tanks.
23:18Because he is hoping that they will be heavy enough, supported by engineers, to break through.
23:23And behind him he has this wedge of Panthers and then the rather older Mark 3s and 4s.
23:29And he hopes to push enough through that that he will overwhelm the defences.
23:46Von Manstein's tanks burst through the Russian lines.
23:50But in the north, the second German pincer does not lead with tanks, and the Russians prevail.
23:57In the north of the Salient, the Soviet defensive tactics worked very well.
24:02The Germans attacked with infantry in the lead, hoping that they would keep the panzers ready for a breakthrough,
24:07which actually never took place.
24:09Very soon, a stalemate was reached, so very quickly the northern attack had effectively to be called off.
24:19In the south, the force balance was rather different.
24:22The Germans had more tanks, they attacked with their tanks in the lead and took the hits that that entailed.
24:26And so the Germans were able to make a rather greater penetration.
24:35By the end of the first day, Von Manstein's tanks in the south have smashed through the first Russian line of defence,
24:41and advanced about ten kilometres.
24:43Von Manstein's plan did need both pincers to succeed.
24:48and he'd be more and more aware that the great plan of the encirclement was not going to be achieved.
24:58Can he still, with a single pincer driving up from the south, unsettle the Soviet defensive plan?
25:07Von Manstein's mission has suddenly become even harder.
25:11Von Manstein's mission has suddenly become even harder.
25:14With the pincer movement in the north floundering, Von Manstein has to call upon all his strategizing prowess to keep the pressure on the Russians.
25:21With the pincer movement in the north floundering, Von Manstein has to call upon all his strategizing prowess to keep the pressure on the Russians.
25:42He darts forward in sudden night attacks, taking the enemy by surprise.
25:55He even sends sorties behind enemy lines to sow panic and confusion.
26:05On one occasion, the Germans commandeer some Russian tanks and move deep into Soviet territory.
26:12When they meet a genuine Russian tank column, they seize the chance to exploit a weakness they discovered earlier in the war.
26:20Only the command tank in a Russian column can transmit radio messages.
26:26Knock this one out, and the other tanks can't communicate to coordinate their next move.
26:33Some German tanks destroy as many as 18 Russian tanks in a day, but the Soviet factories are able to replace the lost tanks with ease.
27:02The Germans are not equipped for such a slogging match.
27:08From Von Manstein's point of view, an attrition battle, fighting tanks through a really difficult minefield area up against superior number of tanks, massed artillery coming down is just not the battle.
27:21They really want to fight.
27:23So Manstein knows that he and his commanders, if they can have any hope of success, have got to keep grinding away until they break through this hard outer crust of the Russian defenses.
27:35If they can do it, they're back into the type of battle that they are all absolutely brilliant at.
27:42The maneuver battle using the blitzkrieg tactics.
27:45Von Manstein loses patience with chipping away at the crust.
27:57He decides to abandon the direct approach to Kursk and go round the Red Army's main defenses.
28:03This route will take him through the town of Prohorovka into the Russian heartland.
28:08For Zhukov, this is too close for comfort.
28:12I think the crisis point of the battle for the Soviets comes when their first few defense lines in the south, the main defense lines, have been penetrated, that the Germans are 35, 40 kilometers into their lines.
28:26Zhukov knows, however, that the Soviet forces compared to them are stronger.
28:31He knows that it's not going to be in any way an easy fight, but he still thinks that if the battle is shaped according to his perceptions, he can win.
28:41Von Manstein's deep incursion forces Zhukov's hand.
28:46Behind the Kursk bulge, waiting to be summoned, he has an entire army of reserves.
28:52The steppe front, 400,000 men strong.
28:56Zhukov's dilemma is when to release these reinforcements.
29:06Timing is crucial.
29:08Zhukov needs to be sure the Germans are sufficiently weakened after seven days of fighting for his reserve forces to beat them.
29:16If not, and the reserves are sent in too soon, the Germans could simply overpower them.
29:23The main role of the steppe front was to launch the counter-offensive, the major counter-offensive that Zhukov had been planning once the initial German attack had been absorbed.
29:32But now it looked as though the Germans might actually be breaking through.
29:36That became perilous, because you really did need to stop the Germans.
29:41The fateful decision was therefore made to actually release the steppe front reserves.
29:48The reserves represent the Russians' last line of defense.
29:52If the Germans break through, the road is clear all the way to Kursk.
29:57On the morning of the 12th of July, Zhukov's steppe front tanks meet head-to-head with von Manstein's tanks near the town of Prokhorovka.
30:18This is the start of the single largest tank engagement in the history of warfare.
30:33Squaring up to the 56-ton German Tiger is the Russian featherweight, the 31-ton T-34.
30:54The T-34. It was easy to make, easy to maintain, and could be driven by practically anyone, and quite often was.
31:04In some cases, they drove it straight off the production line and straight into battle.
31:09They didn't modify it, really, throughout the war, which meant they could keep churning them out, and churn them out they did.
31:17One of the key design considerations was how to protect the tank, but not weigh it down with so much heavy armor that it loses speed and agility.
31:27The solution is simple, but ingenious.
31:30The Tiger's armor plate on the front was 100 millimeters thick.
31:39Now on the T-34, it was only 60 millimeters thick.
31:43But unlike the vertical armor on the Tiger, on the T-34, it's sloped.
31:49One of the advantages of sloped armor is that some anti-tank rounds simply glance off.
31:56But what if an anti-tank round actually penetrates the sloped armor?
32:01How does that compare with vertical armor?
32:05We're about to find out, using two identical copies of a very thick book and an air rifle.
32:15Now for our second round.
32:22Okay, so let's see how far the bullet got through on our vertical armor equivalent.
32:36240, 200, it's penetrated to 248, 250.
32:49Now let's see our sloped armor equivalent.
32:53Okay, that's only gone to 111.
33:01The tank designers found that sloping the armor increases the amount of steel a round has to travel through.
33:13An angle of 60 degrees doubles the effective thickness of the armor without increasing the weight.
33:20Less weight gives the T-34 tank more speed, which Zhukov immediately exploits.
33:26Zhukov turns the blitzkrieg tactic back upon von Manstein, launching a fast, concentrated attack.
33:39Von Manstein is hoping to pick off the T-34s with his Tiger tank's long-range guns.
33:45But Zhukov doesn't give him the opportunity to fight at a distance.
33:54Instead, he sends his T-34s in close to swarm among the Tigers and fire at point-blank range.
34:04The big advantage of the Soviet T-34s is there's so many of them, that they can literally charge through with committed crews.
34:11They can take their losses and get to close quarters, get to the flanks and rear of the German tanks,
34:17where even the T-34's 76-millimeter gun is easily able to penetrate.
34:22The forces are actually intermingled before they know it.
34:25It's exactly the kind of battle that the Germans didn't really want to fight,
34:28because their tanks are best equipped to stand off at long range and pick off the Soviet tanks before the Soviet can even do anything.
34:35Instead, they find themselves cheap by jowl with the Soviets, engaging in this very close-range tactical maneuvering.
34:45The battle degenerates into a gruesome slogging match.
34:49This is not going according to von Manstein's plans.
34:53What he's hoping to do, of course, is hit a Soviet organization that's either on the back foot or static,
35:00to achieve shock action, breakthrough.
35:03At the same time, the Russians are trying to use their tanks in a similar manner, in a cavalry charge.
35:09And what you get, of course, around Prokhorovka, is this great cavalry melee.
35:14And it's almost impossible to really visualize.
35:24The wheat field's on fire, with tanks exploding, turrets flying off, tank crew bailing out, the infantry dis- disorientated.
35:37Absolute chaos inside the tank.
35:39There'd be cordite.
35:40There'd be fear.
35:41There'd be sweat.
35:42There'd be blood.
35:43There'd be the sight and sound of your fellow tank crew being blown up in other tanks.
35:48There'd be cries coming over your ear sets.
35:50The thing is, it is just a gargantuan.
35:54And it is.
35:55It is the greatest, largest single tank battle in history.
35:59It is almost impossible to imagine fighting one like that again.
36:09Any clever strategizing and pre-planning is totally discarded.
36:19Now, Zhukov and von Manstein can only stand back and watch, as it becomes every man for himself, caught up in an almost medieval scene of pure violence.
36:30This is no gentlemanly standoff at long distance.
36:36Every weapon is fired from point-blank range, and every fight is hand-to-hand.
36:43At such close quarters, even the Tiger tank with its impenetrable armor is vulnerable to attack.
36:55It could even be knocked out by a humble infantryman armed with a vodka bottle.
37:02The Molotov cocktail, in its basic form, is a burning rag in a bottle of petrol that explodes on impact.
37:15Explosives engineer Sidney Allford will demonstrate its power.
37:32The Russian tank hunters at Kursk have a more sophisticated version of the Molotov cocktail.
37:41One that doesn't take vital time to light in the heat of battle.
37:45Instead, it relies on a chemical reaction.
37:50I have a bottle of petrol, which is thickened slightly with some rubber.
37:57There's also a layer of sulfuric acid.
38:00I just taped to the surface a little packet of a substance which ignites and burns quite vigorously in contact with sulfuric acid.
38:13The Russians aim their Molotov cocktails at the air vents leading into the tank's engine compartment.
38:19When the bottle smashes, the two substances meet and react.
38:35The hot petrol in the tank's engine easily catches fire, making this a simple but highly effective weapon.
38:41That will be getting quite hot inside already.
38:46And if it had more fuel in and oil in than that thing has, it would not be a nice place to be.
38:51And if it were a tank, it would almost certainly have blown up by now because of its ammunition.
38:56About five or six meters away, but it's getting rather uncountably warm.
39:11I think I'll evacuate.
39:12The crew of a Tiger tank has little chance to evacuate.
39:24And even if they do manage to escape, they can be picked off by enemy infantry.
39:35But it's not just tank crews and foot soldiers that fight at close quarters.
39:40Pilots from both sides discover if they fly low enough, they can drop their bombs right on the tank's most vulnerable spot.
39:49On top, where its armor is thinnest.
39:57But at this low altitude, the planes are easy targets for anti-aircraft guns.
40:05The Russian pilots are surprisingly confident.
40:10Their aircraft is the T-34 of the skies, the Sturmovik.
40:17Nicknamed the flying tank, this heavily armored plane is still light enough to be agile.
40:24The secret of its success lies beneath its skin.
40:29To save weight, the armor is built into the airframe, rather than being added later to the finished plane.
40:34A lighter aircraft can carry more weapons and fuel.
40:37The armor is so effective, the plane can withstand direct hits from anti-aircraft shells.
40:50Cocooned in their flying tanks, the Russian pilots bravely press home their low-level attacks.
41:01They put enough armor in the Sturmovik that it could resist a certain degree of small arms fire.
41:06And that emboldened the aircrew and made them more willing to come in to stay over the battlefield.
41:12And then to be able to launch attacks on targets that they could find.
41:16The Battle of Kursk has been raging for seven days, and the landscape has become a living hell.
41:23But amongst this carnage, it's hard to tell which side is emerging victorious.
41:30The evening of July 12th, 1943.
41:42Russian and German forces have been locked in grim combat for a week.
41:47The titanic clash of tanks at Prohorovka is taking a huge toll on both men and machines.
41:53The armies fall back a bit to lick their wounds.
42:03And people assume that they're going to take this up the next day and move on forward.
42:07And there's a feeling, probably on both sides, that they've got the better of the encounter.
42:15And then waiting to see what the next day is going to bring.
42:23Although the German forces are totally exhausted, von Manstein remains determined, gearing them up for the next onslaught.
42:40His belief, and it's unlike him to want to keep stuck in an attritional battle,
42:45is that one last heave could get them through to the country beyond.
42:49Then Hitler delivers some news that scuppers von Manstein's plans.
42:58The Allies have invaded Sicily, and Italy is in danger of being lost.
43:06Hitler wants to withdraw tanks from Kursk and send them west to reinforce Italy, over 2,000 kilometers away.
43:13Von Manstein is devastated.
43:22To his horror, Hitler begins to lose interest in the Eastern Front, begins to draw off, instead of reinforcing Manstein, begins to draw elements off.
43:39Manstein just knows that the initiative has been passed to the saviors.
43:47Manstein argues for a continued offensive.
43:50In his true Prussian tradition, he'd have been fairly forceful, but polite.
43:55Von Manstein negotiates a compromise.
44:00Hitler allows him to continue his attacks in the south, to inflict at least a partial defeat on the Russians.
44:06But the Russians have other ideas.
44:09Remember the bigger picture, it's not just Sicily, it's not just the withdrawal of German forces to try to counter what the Allies are doing in the west.
44:15It's also that the Soviets are launching massive counter-offences themselves.
44:20The Germans have to withdraw the forces from the Kursk attack in order to protect themselves against the Soviets elsewhere on the front.
44:28Fighting between the exhausted troops continues for several days.
44:32But on July 17th, Hitler orders the 2nd Panzer Corps, which has borne the brunt of the fighting at Prohorovka, out of the line.
44:42The battle is over.
44:44Within days, the Soviets recover all the ground they have lost to the Germans.
45:09The victorious Red Army have lost almost 180,000 men.
45:14in two weeks.
45:15Missing, wounded or dead.
45:18The defeated Germans lose less than a third of that.
45:2250,000 are killed or injured.
45:29Both sides suffer tremendous losses.
45:31The Soviets lose more.
45:33But then, as is the case throughout the Kursk and indeed throughout the Eastern Front,
45:37they can afford to take the losses and the Germans can't.
45:40Zhukov relishes his victory.
45:42The Germans are now compelled to taste the bitter cup of crippling defeat,
45:47and to feel the might of the Soviet arms,
45:50which the people had made to crush a strong and much hated enemy.
45:54Zhukov is a great general for his circumstances.
45:56He's exactly the general that the Soviets need.
46:00He is ruthless. He is willing to launch attacks, regardless of cost, even if some of them fail,
46:07to use superior resources to overwhelm an enemy in a battle of attrition.
46:11That's the way the Soviets effectively win and defeat the Germans.
46:14He's not as good a general in terms of clever manoeuvres as someone like Mannstein.
46:20He doesn't win cheap victories. In pretty much all of his battles, he loses more men than the enemy does.
46:25But he has more men to spare.
46:27I still believe, because of the delay, that it becomes a Soviet victory.
46:31So yes, the Germans do lose at Kursk.
46:36The question is, could they have won at Kursk?
46:40Or did actually all they do is conform to a Soviet plan,
46:44which has them attacking a vastly superior defensive position?
46:47Von Mannstein blames the humiliating defeat on Hitler and withdraws from the battlefield a broken man.
47:17by Kursk.
推荐视频
47:27
|
接下来播放
Be the first to write a comment