Keep that weapon clean soldier!

Absolute truth there!!

 

Yes, the Red Army won with pure massive man power. No matter what the losses were there were two men to replace the single dead fighter.

 

That, and German incompetence.

 

You mean Hitler, I guess. At one time it was Leningrad or Moscow, then Caucasus, and once again Moscow. What madness to move the Panzer groups every two months.

 

Hitler of course made all the big, costly, strategic blunders for sure. But there were many other blunders as you go down the chain of command that exacerbated their problems. Kursk was mostly a failure of planning for the Germans on any number of levels, right at a time the Soviets were bringing their A game.

And as the old saying goes… “Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics”. Well, German logistics were questionable in 1939, and never really improved to match the realities of 1943 and beyond. Much of that blame goes straight to the top, but there's a good deal that's far removed from Hitler...All the way down the supply chain.

 

Stalin wanted to attack in the summer of 1943 but Zhukov made him accept the 5 defensive belts instead in Kursk area. Hitler thought that the Red Army could not start a new campaign after Kursk but how wrong he was...