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Infantry versus Tank Combat
A Video Heads Up on Stalingrad, 1993, the Tank Scene, from Dominick Mattero
© 2014 Dominick Mattero
JUL/31/14
This link cuts out the initial scene where the soldiers first see the Russian tanks swinging towards them and how scared they look. This is inaccurate as these are later T-34 85's the ones made to try and compete with Panthers and Tigers (not quite achieving that though but they had more of them by far. US Pershing tanks whipped these things easily in Korea). Note the use of the tank treads to grind up the German soldier that gets stuck in his foxhole. This was a common tactic.
Still it is the best tank battle scene due to the realism and brutality mixed with the undeniable truth that no soldier was better at knocking out tanks with anything than the German soldier of WW2. With 88mm antiaircraft guns, panzer main guns, from the air as pilots, and on the ground with handheld weapons, German soldiers and airmen accounted for more tank kills than the Russian, U.S. and allied forces combined, easily.
The American view that the Germans were primarily tankers at the head of a heavily mechanized force is false. They first figured out how to best use the tank. In reality the German military was poorly mechanized—still relying on draft horses—and they were primarily an infantry force. This does not quite jive with our ‘Darth Vader’ view of the WW2 German military.
Ironically German mechanized warfare tactics were based on studies of the Mongol military [which overran Russia] and the career of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forest, who lost only 1 of over 30 battles. A double irony is the fact that German infantry doctrine, which was ahead of the allies as far back as 1916, was based on the light infantry tactics of the American Indians. [See Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger]
Thanks Dom. Look, after seeing this and trying to figure out whether I would rather be a German or a Russian on the Eastern Front, I came to the conclusion that the hypothetical choice basically amounts to deciding whether you’d rather be the hotdog or the hamburger when Adolf and Joe fire up their megalomaniac grill.
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