Eastern Front animated: 1942

The initial Axis invasion of the Soviet Union had ended with their forces being overextended and the Red Army counterattacked them during the winter. The fighting eventually became a stalemate. During the summer of 1942 both sides planned to undertake a major offensive in order to inflict a decisive defeat on their opponent. The question was - who would be able to gain the initiative first.

Sources:
David Glantz - When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler.
Earl F. Ziemke, Magna E. Bauer III - Moscow To Stalingrad: Decision In The East.
Gregory Liedtke - Enduring the Whirlwind: The German Army and the Russo-German War 1941-1943.

Unit symbols:

Order of Battle:

Map:
Terrain
Europe: Elevation map of Europe - European Environment Agency.

Infrastructure:
USSR: Europa 1: 2,500,000 Deutsche Heereskarte: Europaische Russland. 1943.
Other: British 1944 1:2000,000 maps of Europe.

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

This video could not seen the light without my Patrons:
aBi, Arma Virumque, aserehuehue, Eric Strachan, Evocati10, gartonschwärt, Håvard Damsberg, hydroxy, Josephine Fernandez, Just A Random Contributor, Kelek72, Leonardo, Rivas, Marc, Nándor Kócsi, omega21, Peoples Heroes, Philip Brain, Pykrete_O.Sages, Reindeer, Street, STRONTJESBERG, Ted Johansson, TheMostEvilCookie, White Privilege, x5tr3m3.

[undeadlegion]

There are documentaries out there with massive budgets and professional directors that aren't nearly as informative and easy to follow as this guy. 10/10

[Supremaque]

"... The amount of prisoners was limited. 22.000 POW..." Image any army in the word nowadays losing 22.000 men in one day.

[SNVampyre]

One of my grand fathers was in 371 division. There is some document that he died near Rzhev, but he survived and lived till 1995. Now I see his "quad" on the screen.
Another great grand father died somewhere in Stalingrad...

[gutsandgears]

This was an excellent documentary of the highest quality. It clearly shows the strategic and tactical thinking of both Germans and Soviets, which other videos could not really convey. Awesome work.

[usun_current]

this is the most detailed info about troop movements I've seen in my entire life presented in such concise format. great work!

[OuterGalaxyLounge]

The German/Soviet conflict on the Eastern front never gets old, never fails to be completely fascinating. I've read tons of books on it, and have many more to go. This animation is a fantastic supplement to the great books.

[Technocratos]

12:00 These 8 seconds costed 2, 5m dead men to both sides. Rzhev battle is called Rzhev Meatgrinder for a reason.

[kdlmfnt]

welcome to YouTube comments, where everyone suddenly becomes a logistic and strategic genius

[aserehuehue]

It's like History channel, but now with actual History :D

[parthiancapitalist]

Keep in mind whenever you see a square disappear that's thousands of lives lost

[breadthatsred]

Can we talk about the fact that this guy provided subtitles of 8 different languages (including Arabic!)?! This is very rare on YouTube.

[mebeasensei]

I would love to see this sort of detail applied to an animated map of the Stalingrad pocket. Anyone else? Please vote this up so the wonderful creator(s) might do it.

[BERENCEV]

No time wasted for repeating all the boring facts as in the most documentaries, but rather actual historical events seen here like never before, in such interactive way that allows to understand and see the whole picture of the war on Eastern Front like no documentaries would tell... Great work.

[quietus]

I almost never comment, but I am moved to make an exception for these exceptional animations of the Eastern front. You have better articulated the nuances and massive scale of this conflict in your 12 minute videos than I've seen hour-long, "professional" documentaries accomplish. Well done.

[chrisanon]

Until watching these videos I never realized just how wide the Eastern Front was and just how many men, tanks and battles there were. There was so much going on.

[Heisenpaper]

This channel is the most detailed and helpful I have ever seen. It makes stuff way more affascinating than other random mapping videos and I really have to say good job. 10/10

[Chiaros]

How can this guy have so few Patreons? We must quickly deal with that error and support his war effort against click baiters and general idiocy!

[frjoethesecond]

I knew it'd be worth the wait. Great work.

[umurkaragoz]

It is really hard to overstate how much I enjoy these videos.

[jaeger]

This teaches so much about deployment and encirclement tactics, thank you.