Sabaton is a heavy metal band from Germany. The guy likes to do a lot of songs dedicated to war and war of all periods. I like his song panzerkampf and apparently so do a lot of Russians as someone there took his song and made a video from different war films mainly Russian. They start with lines of German tanks approaching the Russian defense as they get close then lines of Russian tanks move forward to engage. Now the Russian lines are mostly t34 85s the m1960'or 1969 refer used model with the t54/55 wheels along with su85s and some other tanks. The Germans are taking a beating before the Russian tanks even get there by lines of 76.2 anti tank guns when the Russian tanks arrive they do their typical charge in and mix, funny as they get in besides tiger ones on the field already knocked out and burning I swear I saw a few t54/55s, lol. I was kinda impressed with the number of tanks on both sides made me wonder how many were real and mock ups. I was also wondering if like some movies they used large scale models to make some scenes. Anyway it looked pretty interesting and one I don't think I've seen yet. I e seen the white tiger and tankers both Russian productions. They have great shots of the tanks and good action scenes. Anyway sabaton has a bunch of great songs coupled with movie clips, however their are so many versions done by fans. There's just the plain music ones with the lyrics and then there could be two or three fan edited ones. I like the one with roukes rift from Zulus the music is kewl. As I said I also like panzerkampf he's saying in his song that going into the motherland was the end of the third reich and it was. I think it really didn't matter, Stalin was rebuilding and needed another year. I think if hitler had waited and gave Stalin that year it would have been Stalin ordering his troops to invade. You can find many of the music videos on YouTube free streaming.
Anyway, I am amazed the Red Army Lost 3,5 million men to Germans during the 1941-42 battles as prisoners and still won. Name another country who Lost as many men and won...
I think that was one of hitters short sights not only did he underestimate the power of soviet industry at the time but the huge reserves of the population. Russia was able to lose that number if people and replace them. The Germans could not replace such losses as easily. I think the high losses was one of the reasons the soviets started letting women into the military the night witches and other women pilots and I've seen pics of whole tank platoons of women crews. I'm guessing they like putting women in tanks as most are slimmer and smaller than men and one of the biggest complaints about the t34 was it was very cramped and hard for crews to work in. The biggest reason for the t44 was to make a tank that was easier for the tankers to work in they widened and made the sides straight wider tracks for better cross country ability. Originally it had the t34-85 turret but I read they were already considering turrets like on the IS tanks with more firepower so I guess it was natural to make the t54 as the design was suppose to replace the t34 as front line tanks. It's still amazing that the t34 proved itself in many wars long after the end of wwii. As well as the Sherman fighting on long after and being upgraded by the Israelis to serve for years later. Didn't the soviets report their losses at like six or seven million in both military and civilian but later historians said they lied and soviet losses were much higher like at least ten million or even higher. Another thing that doomed hitler was the vast natural resources of Russia, they had lots of oil and mineral reserves like iron and copper the two things Germany was in short supply. Like Germany was so short of steel look at how many planes were going to wood the Volksjeager was mostly wood and the control stabilizers and props of many planes were being marked out of wood. Considering how the British mosquito was wood and did so well I can see that they felt they could do as well and keep production high and save on precious steel. Maybe that's one of hitlers short comings he should of stocked up on as much steel as he could find before the war I'm surprised they didn't salvage and reuse the steel from that pocket battleship that got sunk in the harbor but instead they just filled up that part and buried it. Some guy in Germany now wants the government to excavate it and preserve it as a historical site. I would think it's probably corroded quite a bit being buried in moist earth, but who knows maybe it sealed it from the air and it's actually fairly intact guess we'll know if they ever actually dig it up. Anyway that would have built like lots of panders for hitler.
I pretty impressed how the Finnish army captured many soviet tanks and put them into service. I really like the BT 42 build its a kewl looking spg and gave them mobile artillery. They even captured some KVs and I knew the Germans gave them stug IIIs but I didn't know they got some panzer IVJs as well.
Hey Petri, been reading more about the Finnish army they had a number of Czech built tanks and they were pretty effective but the Russians started to employ their KVs and early t34s and these proved to be a bit tough for them. The Finnish army then designed the patria m42 they took great lengths in the design and the gun. The tank,was superior to most anything on the battle field quick maneuverable and the 76 auto cannon was the most powerful,of any 76 at the time I like it looks like a m60'turret on a medium chassis. They built quite a number and then upgraded then to m52 with a 105 gun production started in early 43 and continued till the 60s at some point the isrealimarmy aquired a large number of them as well as a large number of shermanntsnks. The hull,is suppose to be Czech originally but copied in,Finland trying to figure out what the original Czech vehicle was seems they also,got some t38'type tanks but the m38 and m43 look like a t35 hull but the running gear is different so it's hard to figure out what the primary vehicle they started with. Need to do more research.
Petri, what do you know about the Finnish m38 and m39'tanks. It says they were based on Italian tanks but I can't find out what tank it was based on and the running gear the road wheels in particular does not look like typical Italian. I'm really impressed with the m42 and later the m52. Says the tank was so well built it was kept in,production till the 60s. The Israelis were impressed with it and bought a large number as well,as a large number of Sherman's the Finnish army had stocked piled in storage yards. Says the Israelis got it all cheap for scrap prices. Anyway any info would be great. I'm impressed they had the industry to do it. Says it was all because of a new steel mill they built in the 1930s the Finnish army had made sure the mill was going to be able to provide the military with the steel they needed for war if need be the m42 turrets were all cashed at the mill as well as plate steel needed to build new hulls. The Finland may not be a big country or heavily populated but they sure made up with it by careful planning and a very productive industry. They say the m42 was probably on of the best medium tanks if the war well able to takeout the t34 and KVs that the soviets were sending against them and later well able to hold off the Germans. I think I read they were kept in service till,the 70s. That's pretty good for a small nation to build such an effective armor that didn't have the industry to begin with but fostered their own industry in a short time building their own . weapons and tanks. The 76 gun was considered a amazing weapon high penetrating power and the auto loader was far a head of its time. The gun could fire faster than anything else on the field the idea to fire so many rounds as to devastate the enemy. However the high fire rate also meant they went thru their ammo rather fast and reloading the auto loader or even manuelly took a long time. The loader had to constantly reload the feed bins. The ammo was stored in the bustle and the floor. Anybody else with any info please let me know. Oops i apologize I guess doing too many over lapping reading, the tank was based on a Czech tank but again the road wheels don't match anything and the front bow on the Finnish tanks is rounded while on Czech tanks have a flat slab angled bow. Rather confusing wondering if they just started with a Czech tank and did their own mechanicals and what and then started to build their own just seems strange can't find anything historically on the net.
I start with what I know and have read. During early Winter War we practically had 40-50 mm AT guns, Molotov cocktails, put ropes around trees and once the tanks started pulling the trees they stopped due to the tree weight, and Finnish soldiers pour gasoline over the tank, and the tank crew ran away from the tank because they feared the tank would soon be in flames. Also we had help from the Red Army strategy, that the tanks may not leave the roads and Finnish ski troops also surrounded the Soviet convoys, destroying the vehicles one by one by shooting the first and last vehicle, and the troops could not move on. We have the advantage that the roads were narrow through the forests so the other vehicles could not escape and we got loads of light tanks, artillery, trucks, guns and ammo by destroying the convoy or the Red Army soldiers escaped without their food,guns, equipment,trucks etc through the forests. We did not have practically our own tank army, so we had to use the Red Army tanks and all the convoy material for warfare. The BT-42 was the only Finnish made and planned tank ( Howitzer) but we built only 18 of them and we lost them almost all if not all in the summer 1944 in Vyborg. The T-34 was tested for the first time, as well KV-1 during the last days of Winter War, ca early March 1940, so we did not get much info about them, neither did we capture any of them. Practically we used Molotov cocktails, put logs between the wheeels, and used light at guns to destroy the wheels as well, and used guerilla tactics which caused some 1 million losses to the Red Army in the Winter War incl MIA,KIA,POW´s etc. We did also have some AT rifles but they were not that effective.To be continued....
I think it was von Manstin who ordered to develope Stug III Ausf G. The Finnish army bought StugIII´s and later StugIV´s but I think we had only some 40-60 Stug´s as the Red Army had 400-500 T-34´s and tens of KV-1´s. I recall KV-2 would have been considered obsolete for battle situation and its production was stopped soon after barbarossa begun. I might be wrong though. However, the forests and narrow roads made it hard for the Red Army to attack but if they made a breakthrough they could have attacked the Finnish troops from the back and that is why the Finns escaped running through the Karelian isthmus. The key weapon for Finns was the manual panzerweapons. They had been kept secretly in Turku, the other side of Finland to the frontline, and were brought quickly to face the Soviet tanks. The Red Army was stopped at Tali-Ihantala with these and excellent co-operation with mortars and heavy artillery, also the Soviet radist sent the attack time without code, and Finns captured this and used this to their advantage. We also had German Stukas and FW-190 unit Kuhlmey to help us. They bombed the Red Army 24/7. The BT 42 was an assault gun, built on Soviet BT-7 and the gun was Howitzer 4.5 inch ( British sent for the Winter War ), 114 mm-calibre light howitzer, model 1908, made in 1918. Only 18 were built. The Finnish 75 mm AT gun Stuk 40L/48 was taken from the StuGIII. StugIV was built on PzIV, and the at cannon was from StugIII. We had heavy panzers from the Red Army: 2 KV-1 and 4 medium T-28 3 T-34 and 3 medium T-28 Also, as mentioned, one key point was that the Finnish artillery had made a system where heave artillery and mortars had their own time table so that the explosive destruction power from both hit at the same moment the enemy troops that had concentrated for the assault.
M38 I did not find data but here´s a document on M39. It was the Finnish version of Mosin Nagant and Finnish soldiers liked the Nagant compared to the first Winter war weapons. However, I think the most they liked the "Suomi"-mg. Our best vehicle was skis, and the Soviet trucks we captured during war. But like the Germans we used a lot of horses for many things, and bicycles. Bicycles were often for reconnaissance troops.
