Comments by "David Himmelsbach" (@davidhimmelsbach557) on "Paulus's 6th Army ORDER OF BATTLE - Before Stalingrad" video.

It's usually an "A" -- which looks remarkably like, the optical sights used with all FLAK guns. ( Stereo range finder )
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You ought to know that the Germans stopped re-gauging their rail net at the Dnieper: right nearby Zaporozhye. That minor city was the base camp for the construction of the big hydro-electric power project, the Dnieper dam, which was blown to ruin by the retreating Soviets. https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=52940 This was also the spot that von Manstein met Hitler as it was the most eastern major HQ that the Heer ever used. During the Manstein counter-offensive and Stalingrad relief, this was his HQ. Further east, the rails were left with the traditional Russian gauge. At Zapo, the Germans used 100,000+ Soviet prisoners to hump supplies off of European gauge trains and onto trucks... thence to cross the river. ( the rail road atop the dam had been blown to bits ) To an astonishing degree, the German army DID NOT use rail road locomotives to shift supplies. They stayed with trucks -- way too long. Late in the campaign, the Germans FINALLY started to bring a rail line down towards Stalingrad. This spur was LONG. The Germans were able to capture some Russian locomotives, but for the most part, brand new German locomotives -- gauged to the Russian scheme had to be brought forth so that the eastern rail net could be used. There were plenty of captured Russian flat cars -- and they could be easily augmented with brand new German flat cars. This whole project deserves a video. The Germans repeatedly used flat cars for every purpose -- notably to include shipping Russian soldiers back to Germany in the dead of winter. Naturally the prisoners all froze to death as the wind chill put them down at 40C below zero. Any idea that the Germans were in a position to shift troops, prisoners, supplies by rail during the Stalingrad campaign must be dismissed. One would think that Rostov-on-Don and points south would've been well served by barging over locomotives and flat cars. But, AFAIK, the Germans never used the main line that ran from Bake to Rostov. What a goof.
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@Sean C The USAAF did NOT saturation bomb Europe, as a rule. The USAAF made every attempt at precision bombing. Stray bombs were considered a TOTAL waste. Crews were forbidden to bomb cathedrals and many other targets. There were a handful of saturation targets: Caen and the Breakout surely would qualify. There was one last saturation attack... in an attempt to get through the West Wall, IIRC. It was a bust. Saturation bombing was only ever performed directly upon critical front line positions where German forces were bleeding the Allies something painful. You are the first clown I've ever read that asserted that bombing German troop concentrations was a war crime. As for the German PoWs -- most suffered weight gain in American captivity. American prison rations were much fatter than those of a serving German soldier. The insane allegation that Kraut prisoners were dying like their victims did is a false equivalence -- doubly so since such an atrocity never happened. The US Army used farm-deferment boys to man the occupation army. They'd sat out ALL of the hostilities. Consequently there ware no Angry Americans anywhere in Germany. The combat formations were all withdrawn. Do not be misled when you see this of that combat division still in Germany. It's had 100% turn-over in its ranks. No combat vet was required to stay on in Germany. You couldn't even volunteer for such duty. It was official policy to get the war-fighters out of Germany PDQ. This was done for the very reason that tempers figured to run HIGH.
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Von Arnim famously took over Panzer Armee Afrika after Rommel was pulled out of Tunisia to run the store in northern Italy. Hence, it's a name familiar to WWII history buffs.
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@TIK Hitler ruined most of the German infantry divisions across AGS by burning up their engineers. The blood toll was astounding. The engineers had more flame throwers and machine guns than line infantry. So Hitler threw them into tunnel warfare and all the rest. ( rat war ) Later this would bite him, as he ran low on sappers able to set mines.
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BTW, one of the listed divisions XX has the heading for a corps XXX. It may be too late to clean that up.
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Double check 376 Division -- it has XXX symbol.
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@Jen'ari Riebel shows the distinctive double death's head on BOTH collar tabs. Other SS Panzer troops would show the death's head on ONE collar tab -- and then the other ( right ) collar tab would indicate the division, often a Nordic rune... or some such. Only SS men wore death's head insignia. LAH would also have an embroidered legend on the sleeves -- very much in the style of Gross Deutschland -- the show piece army honor guard formation. (These two formations alternated guard duty back in Berlin, literally every other day.) Riebel looks like he has the Iron Cross 2nd class. 1st class would be usually worn around the neck -- even when in combat uniform. But I can't be sure from that photo. He does have the combat badge for tank kills or rescue. (the oval one at the bottom) This requires five tank kills or the rescue from no-man's land of one German tank. The rescue must be performed under enemy fire// extreme hazard of detection.
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That dude is a member of the 3SS. Note his distinctive collar tabs.
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At no time have I EVER heard of 88s being mounted on a truck chassis. It just does not compute. The center of gravity would be driven too high. You should expect the 289th to TOW its 88s -- and fire them limbered or properly set. Rommel famously would fire his 88s from a towed (and limbered) position. This gun was designed expressly with that feature in mind. IIRC, some of the 88s -- not all -- were limbered during the fighting. What this meant was that they 88s could be towed around the battlefield, and then set up for sloppy firing PDQ. There are a TON of photos of Rommel's 88s firing from limbered positions in North Africa. (Probably taken by shutter-bug Rommel, himself.) [ He took more photos than a propaganda company! (But not a whole lot of selfies.)] During Barbarossa, the 11th Panzer had an entire FLAK regiment assigned to it for the battle of Kiev. This was obviously done with the intent of using it as a PAK front against T34 and KV tanks. One must imagine that the Luftwaffe was told to be on the lookout for these heavies so that the 11th could be vectored into their path of advance. Naturally, 88s would be dead meat if exposed to any decent concentration of counter-battery fire. So this must have been very much a bob-and-weave operation.
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@TIK I re-studied 88mm on trucks -- and found more photos. As I suspected, the so-called trucks were TRACKED in every case. They were either fully tracked or at least half-tracked -- and very hefty half-tracks at that. Such machines appear to be optimized for the PAK role, though some of the photos showed 88s aimed skyward. They didn't last very long in service, as the gun crews would've been shredded by counter battery fire -- being both very exposed and very visible. What a crazy design. So much for excellence in German engineering.
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@TIK I went to Google and found a ton of images. Pretty sloppy data set: lots of not-88mm guns. http://nationalinterest.org/files/styles/main_image_on_posts/public/main_images/88_mm_gun_eighty-eight_8.8_cm_flak_flickrjoost_j._bakker_ijmuiden.jpg?itok=Du5U4qY Limbered 88mm guns LOOK like they're on trucks. They have wheels, etc. but no motive power. If you look closely, their out-riggers can be dropped for firing even without un-limbering the gun from its carriage. It's a split carriage BTW. The gun-mount is an integral part of the travelling chassis. It's hard to see, but two of the four supports ride between the tires// axles -- while those going left and right are plain to see. At Arras, Rommel used 88s in both states. When the battle started, a FLAK battery had been already set up to drive off the RAF. This was a crew that didn't want to engage Matildas, BTW. Rommel shows up and orders these crews to shift to a PAK role. The were seriously pissed. This would require them to nix their standing order from on high. Rommel reminded them that he was the boss of their boss -- so get with it -- NOW! This battery opened up Matildas -- much to the amazement of the 88 crews -- they'd never practiced against ground targets even once -- and the leading Matildas 'brewed up' // opened up like tuna cans. As the battle flowed, 88s -- probably these very same fellas -- were towed after the British ( brought to new firing positions ) -- and the situation was so hectic that they started firing from a limbered position. When limbered, the side struts would be dropped -- this takes seconds, and then the crew does their duty. The road wheels are left as-is. This is why MOST distant observers would absolutely take such weapons to be truck-mounted 88s. I think that this is how the reference to truck-mounted 88s got rolling. When limbered, the 88 is no where near as accurate, but it sure is a heck of a lot more mobile. It was after Rommel that the Heer realized that firing 88s while limbered was a VERY viable tactic. Previously, it was not recommended, simply not part of the 'FLAK syllabus.' You'd never use a FLAK36 in a limbered condition to defend against aircraft. It'd be shooting all over the sky. Heh. The Germans DID improvise 20mm and 37mm mounted upon truck chassis. This occurred before they cross-mounted these guns to tracked chassis. It was quickly determined that a truck chassis may be quick and cheap, but is actually quite impractical in combat. 1) It rocks way too much. You can't stay on target. It's hopeless. 2) In rotten weather ( mud ) you lose the machine all together. (Sucks!) If there is one constant with German weapons designs, they couldn't stop changing things. Would you believe that even within major production runs, the Germans were changing this or that before even ten tanks went by? Yup. In practice, virtually every German major weapon was semi-custom. This was WHY so many German tanks were out of the line. They had to constantly phone back to the factory for semi-custom repair parts. With multiple factories, they couldn't even count on MAN's stuff to repair Henschel's. (!!!) The contrast with the American M4 was night and day. In the last twenty-five years tank collectors attempting to rebuild Shermans discovered that you could take a 44 Chrysler tranny and bolt it to a 42 GM Sherman -- and the fit was perfect. Nothing like such repairs was ever possible when restoring German equipment. The Soviets were half-way between. They had a standardized design, but their factory standards were SO sloppy that T34s were a plant, by plant, affair. But with their production numbers, one plant could flesh out an entire tank corps. * ( * The Reds stopped using the term tank division, BTW. So you have to watch out. Many Soviet accounts will refer to the 1st Tank Corps -- when it's the division that they mean. I've read one account of Kursk that transformed the SS Pioneer Corps into three SS tank corps: 1st, 2nd, 3rd. ( BTW, the 3rd arrived so late that it was a surprise to the Russians. They expected only the 1st and 2nd.) ( It had come straight from France, on the QT, and naturally looked to all outside observers to be one or the other of the former.)
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Sorry about the bad link from Google images.
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The 113 ID has a weird graphic... which is nothing more than the unit identification symbol. It may be related to the fact that the 113 ID was deemed a 'wave' division during WWI, as it was re-organized out of pre-existing regiments from other divisions. But, my money is on it being a totally abstract design. The horizontal wavy element was used by the Luftwaffe to designate sections of a staffel. And in such use, the meaning was totally abstract.
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Death bed diary accounts by German troops admit that they, personally, raped Russian girls -- at will -- just because. Further, this behavior was anything but exceptional. The entire army was doing it. Every young girl who had anything going for her had been raped. No-one was ever brought up on charges. Such practices obviated any need for a USO.
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The SS was simply not there. The big figure includes civilians from all around, Stalingrad and points west.
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All of the combatant powers were bombing everything in sight. I contend that it was a terrible idea to bomb Stalingrad, Moscow, Leningrad -- because it's better for Germany to leave them alone. 1) Germany is critically short of avgas -- CRITICALLY. 2) Germany should have every expectation that these cities would be occupied. You'll note that the Red Army never bombed Budapest. Instead, that city was taken with ground forces. It was not flattened into the earth, which the Red Army could've easily done at that time.
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Holy cow, entire video histories have been given over to this. The Soviet archives flatly admit that this was POLICY. Moscow does not dispute a word of it. The actual orders from Zhukov on down spell it all out. As for the German women, there are thousands of diaries, stained with tears, by the rapees. The suicide rate for Germans was epic, raped or not. It went way past just the high Nazis. There is ZERO speculation on this. If you really want to pursue this contact Moscow and the Soviet archives. But, I sense you prefer to live in denial. It was their war, not ours. The Germans were paid in kind for the endless atrocities that they inflicted upon the Jews, Poles, and Russians. They knew it was coming. Hence the fanatical resistance right through to the very end. Then there was mass flight to the American Zone. This mass flight reached such absurd proportions that the US Army finally stepped in and turned the Germans back across the Elbe. The American charity system was crashing from overload.
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Absolutely NOT at this time. Quiet the reverse. Zhukov et. al. actually gave orders to 'get some.' After years of war and privation, some of the boys just went crazy.
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@Alexander Seven Stop living in denial. There are NO END of video histories detailing this. The official Moscow historians flatly admit all of this. Deal with it. I don't live to prove to you that which you can't accept. The idea that the Russians would be restrained after the Germans raped and murdered their parents and sisters going back years -- get real. German death bed accounts flatly admit that such crimes were pervasive all across Russia. Yes, the German troopers ADMIT that they committed staggering crimes. When the Russians got to Germany, it was tit-for-tat. The top commanders EXPLICITLY instructed the troops that they should 'get some.' BTW, such instructions read just like those of the Nazi generals in 1941.
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I don't live to make you happy. Google is your friend. You won't have to go far. This stuff is EVERYWHERE. I'm not going to convince you that the Sun comes up in the east, or that water is wet. Sheesh. You post like a child. Do your own Googling.
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I like that.
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@Jock And the answer is: Little Boy and Fat Man. The atomic bomb was developed because Washington was determined to win whether Britain survived or not. The USSR was already assumed to be a goner -- an opinion that only changed after Uranus// Stalingrad.
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