World War 2
Operation Barbarossa
At 3:30am on Sunday the 22nd of June 1941, the day after the 129th anniversary of Napoleon's attack on Russia in 1812, seven German infantry armies, their advance spearheaded by four panzer groups, invaded the Soviet Union. The codename for the operation was Barbarossa.
Three million German soldiers, supported by 3'580 tanks, 7'184 guns and nearly 2'000 aircraft were on the move along a front of 2'000 miles. The Red Army, in the middle of a wholesale reorganization were deployed forward to cover every curve and crevice in its frontiers, subsequently they were caught in a series of massive encirclements by the Germans. At Minsk and Smolensk in July, the Germans took 400'000 prisoners. In September, they captured another 600'000, as the Russian's were trapped in the wide bend of the Dnieper.
The Germans enjoyed two months of victory, swiftly advancing deep into Soviet territory, the mk3 panzer and panzer grenadiers were the backbone of the panzer divisions, they were rolling from victory to victory, all until late in 1941 when the Russians released the T-34; the best all-round tank of the war. German Battle deaths, wounds and sickness struck half a million men from the Eastern Front Line, the tide was turning.. On the 11th of July the commander of 18th Panzer Division expressed his fears that the loss of men and equipment would soon prove insupportable; Hitler didn't listen.
Early in October 1941 the depleted German Army Group North led siege to Leningrad. But by now Russia's vast open spaces, primitive roads and grueling climate; which the Germans were not fully equipped to deal with, were taking their toll on the German Army.
Scorching summer heat gave way to seas of autumn mud. In October the first snows of winter began to fall. Hitler was now caught between driving straight for Moscow or reinforcing his extended southern flank to secure the raw materials and agricultural riches of the Ukraine. Winter; for which the German high command had not equipped its army - arrived while the Fuhrer was still shuttling forces up and down his battlefront.
The German advance slowed amid blizzards and temperatures so low that artillery pieces were welded into immovable blocks on the rock-hard earth. Some German patrols reached as far as a tram station on theoutskirts of Moscow; they could see the domes of the Kremlin glinting in the sunlight. On the 6th of December the Russian's counter-attacked with fresh and well-eqipped divisions rushed in from Siberia. They drove the German Army Group Centre back 200 miles before the offensive slithered to a halt in the glutinous mud of the spring thaw of 1942. Blitzkrieg had finally met its match!.