Why Did Operation Barbarossa Fail? | Tanks! | War Stories

An excellent documentary. Please accept the sincere thanks of an 87 year old Englishman with a great interest in WW2 having lived through the blitz.

"We have liberated Europe from fascism, but they will never forgive us for it." Marshal Zhukov

I found these to books complement this video. Russia's War by Richard Overy and When Titans Clased by David M Glantz and Johathan M. House

10:27 "You could always tell it was a good tank because the British Army never ordered it" god, british humor always just comes out of nowhere lol.

An, the irascible David Fletcher, what a wonderful and much missed Tank Museum expert and analyst

The simple answer is Germany attacked with only a third of its army able to move without horses. Germany employed over 630,000 horses. This meant a third of the stores moving forward was horse food and harness items. This restricted vehicle fuel movements that caused real problems in quick movements of infantry and tanks.

Love and Respect from Bangladesh ❤

Germany, like Japan underestimated the great distances that had to be traveled between the front and the next town/city. If you can't get there from here, even a well-supplied army will become a starving mob, grubbing for food and freezing to death.

Winter and a bridge to far

It's fun watching Bob Carruthers when he is talking. Whatever tank he is standing next to, he is stroking, petting, rubbing, constantly. I have seen him on other documentaries and it gets even worse.

Short answer = Logistics or lack there of.

Excellent stuff❤

10:53 David Fletcher (now retired) it’s the best part of the documentary. Legend!

Mistake: Guderian’s 2nd Panzer Group was not diverted to Ukraine in August 1941 “to link up with Hoth” (3rd Panzer Group), as this documentary asserts, but instead to link up with Kleist’s 1st Panzer Group to complete the Kiev pocket encirclement.

Logistics is something that the Germans or the Japanese seemed to have no concept or respect for a concept that has (maybe the easy early victories robbed them of that concept ) existed since before even Alexander and other great military leaders of the past.

I agree with what others have said, that Germany underestimated the vast size of Russia. I think interestingly as well operation Barbarossa shows that Germany really didn’t embrace Blitzkreig. They attacked Russia on a massive broad front that ended up being 1000 miles long. They should have focused on going straight to Moscow and driven a dagger straight into the the heart of Russia. Moscow, somewhat like Chicago is the rail hub of Russia. They could have crippled their transportation net and divided the country in two north and south.

The Germans overestimated their capabilities and underestimated the Russians. It all comes down to logistics. In the beginning of the war, the distances that had to be covered were not that far from their starting points. But in Russia, the distances to be traversed were vast beyond belief.

Simple math equation 195 million Russians to Germany's 80 million that's a huge difference

It was an informative and wonderful historical coverage video about Barbarossa operations, military circumstances of both enmity sides

It was a gamble that the SU would collapse before the German army run out of fuel for large scale operations. And they learn the wrong lesson from the Finnish Winter War, that the soviets were subhumans. When instead the lesson was that no matter the casualties, the soviets kept going.