Kitbag Conversations - Kitbag Conversations Episode 13: Red Star

Episode Date: June 1, 2023

In an effort to talk about what lies at the heart of Russian unit traditions and psychology Cody goes down the rabbit hole of the first year of WW2 for Russia. A quick glimpse at what it was like for these soldiers and what they went through paves a drastic path for things to come if someone is to defeat Russia in conventional war.

ВЕСЕЛАЯ МУЗЫКА А мы с тобой, брат, и смеху, ты А летом линьа чем зиму, Свойной погончили мы счеты, Свойной погончили мы счеты, Свойной погончили мы счеты, Перишине пошли домой, Hey guys, welcome to the KippBah Conversations podcast episode number 13. So this time it's gonna be me alone again. No, I don't have a bang, I just had a dragon fruit red bow, so I will not be drinking that,

I'll be drinking water. Got crisp. Anyway, so before we start this episode, fair warning, if it goes for an hour, I'm done. I will keep going, but guess what? We got a Patreon, and with that, I got a few housekeeping items. So sit back, relax, this is just you and me, and we're gonna talk about some things.

First up, we do have the Instagram, if you're not following it, I'm on there. I'm doing the Know Your Enemy Skits. I'm talking about Iran. I'll be doing the IRGC soon. I'll be doing, I think I want to do China, maybe North Korea. I wanna stay away from the Russian stuff

as long as possible. It's getting pretty bad out there. A lot of pages are getting shadow band and we've already been shadow band with croiton. So I don't really want to do that again. I'm sticking away from the Russian stuff. May put it on the Patreon for free. But I wanted you to know that we're going to keep doing that on the Instagram. I may be a little slow because I'm going on vacation here for a couple days, but I'll do my best Next up bonus episodes. I know that bonus episodes have been lacking Chad and Matt have been out and I don't feel comfortable asking another guy or girl to step in and Help make bonus episodes that we make money for. You know, just doesn't feel right. I don't like taking advantage of people and not paying for them and stuff

like that. So there hasn't been a bonus episode last week and there won't probably be one there. This week Chad's been very busy and I fixed my microphone but that doesn't mean Chad's going to be back. The writings writings Matt's got a couple things he's been writing well he's been at space camp he's got a couple things that he's doing on his psychology and stuff like that and going down the rabbit hole there so those will be coming back but most of all there is the Patreon. I can see what the analytics say about the episode so I know there's hundreds of you out there and you may be thinking to yourself

What do I get out of a patreon? Well for first? It's three dollars you get all the bonus episodes you get all the part 2's right and then also you get our writings And if you pay for the three dollars, that's it you get all the access to the patreon I don't have to bother you if you have a problem. I'll talk to you for sure But literally you just get all the extra content and you get to mess around and comment on there. The cool thing though is we have a discord and it is growing. It's grown so much in fact that we are going to start, or at least I am, I'm going to get some gaming servers. And we're going to do all types of military tactics, we're going to learn a bunch of stuff on Arma 2. I actually bought 30 Arma 2 steam keys, all the DLC, and

we're going to be playing Red Ford versus Blue Ford. I'll be handing out weekly missions so that the guys can plan in the discord and then operate, uh, do those missions, probably fail, probably pass. We don't know. We'll be comparing them and doing all types of stuff. So they'll learn map reading, they'll learn windage and shooting and stuff like that, they'll learn how to lead patrols, just some fun stuff that we'll be doing in there, and I've also got a secret that I haven't told anybody in the discord, and that's that there might be more than just that coming down the pipeline. There's a ton of stuff we got planned or at least I have planned. Coming down the pipeline on the Patreon. So, highly encourage you to get in there early. We have 15

slots, I think, left available on the Recon tier, which is the $10 tier for $4. You can give it a shot, give us a shot. But after that, it's going to be $6 and then $10 to get all the fun advantages of it. So, just a quick reminder, the Patreon exists. It helps us keep making content. It's going to help us make even better content and do things for the guys in the Discord and the girls. McKinley, I know you're there, first ever Patreon member. But yeah, my point I'm trying to make is if you want more of this content, if you want

to talk about it more, definitely consider joining the Discord, definitely consider joining the Patreon. But today, where are we going? So the last time I had you guys alone, we talked about mercenaries, we talked about black water, and I tried to change your mind kind of, I hope I did, on what a mercenary was, right? Like, why do people villainize these guys? Are they

really that bad? And honestly, the answer is no. I almost became a contractor. So it's not that bad. It's not that big of a deal. People do it all the time. We have contractors all over the place. So if you haven't listened to that episode, I highly recommend you go back, check it out. But this episode, this episode is something that I've been seeing and I've been reading and I've been talking to people and the hate croat-tone report for like our views and stuff, but I want to go and I want to take it back to Russia. And as I know, I literally just said I wasn't going to talk about it, but I think that there is a huge gap and I'm not talking about Roman Fox, Roman Fox in the Discord is pretty educated dude.

He knows a lot of stuff, so he may take this as a butt hurt, but I've noticed a huge gap in American education when it comes to learning the history of World War II and Russia. And last time we did a little palette cleanser because I needed to tell you guys like you got to think about mercenaries in a different light. We need to look at World War II for how impactful it is, okay. I would go on to argue that there hasn't been a major advancement in tactics, techniques, and procedures at the strategic level since World War II. And you may be thinking like, okay, what does that mean?

I'm telling you that America is pretty much defined as a nation when it comes to our campaign and our campaign planning, when it comes to learning from how Germany did it in World War II. Let's create tactics, dime. We attack diplomacy, information and intelligence, military and economic. You know, highly recommend you go online and look at, I think it's called the operations room. It shows the United States and how we took out, took out, how we conquered Iraq in 30 days. And the air campaign alone is just amazing to see, 2003 invasion of Iraq and so the reason why I say that is because it's all blitzkrieg. It's all blitzkrieg. There was a

talk with a World War II German pilot and he talks about Basically, everyone's like why are there so many aces in the German army? Why are there so many aces in the German? They They reinvented warfare. And that's actually going to be the next episode. We're going to talk about Germany and World War II. We're going to talk the path to Plitz-Grieg. We're going to talk about why it was so game-changing. And I don't think people appreciate that enough. Like if you haven't really looked at World War II from the German perspective, I highly recommend you do it because they conquered Czechoslovakia, they conquered Poland, France, beat the British back. And we'll talk about that in the next episode or at least I will and you'll just listen to me in the car. And it's going to be great,

we're going to have a fun time. But the point I'm trying to make is like, it defined who we are, who, as we are, as Americans. I mean, the British still do it. They take great pride. They have hundreds of years of military history to lean back on. But America really doesn't, right? Like, I'm from the 101st Airborne Division. All of you know what that is. If you haven't watched Band of Brothers, you're robbing yourself, right? I went to Pathfinder School and became a Pathfinder. The Philcy 13, right? It's ingrained in us, right? Like, it's who we are.

And a lot of people don't take the time to read or watch movies or anything about Russia. And so I'm here to kind of glaze over that, right? Just a little glaze donut of Russia World War II history. If I tried to go through this all with dates, times, numbers, names, it would absolutely bore you to death. And we'd be in this car ride together or, you know, working together, if you're listening to me in your head and you'd be like,

Cody, I'm not going to remember any of this shit. And I don't want you to. Names don't really mean much unless you want to go into the weeds on things. But I need you to understand how big of a thing this is, right? At we fought one army group in the West in France, America did. America, Britain, Poland, France. We fought one German army group. The Russians fought three. They fought three times the amount of Germans. They fought them much longer. They took massive amounts of casualties.

And that's gonna play into the Ukrainian and Russian wars that goes on. And I need you to, that's what I'm trying to get you to understand. Like the bottom line is that's going to play into the Ukrainian Russian war as it goes on and I need you to That's what I'm trying to get you to understand like the bottom line is that you need to understand Why I think Russia is going to win the war in Ukraine and the bottom line is that they can suffer more than any Race of humans on this earth Russians can suffer when it comes to warfare and we'll talk about that in a minute

but suffer when it comes to warfare and we'll talk about that in a minute. But full disclosure before we start up here, I am not a Ruaboo. If you're in the internet culture, there's a Meribu's, there's England Boos, there's Farah Boos, which are the German army fans, the Russo Boos, the Russian fan girls, I'm not. I'm not a Russia-Bus, I don't care for them very much. I appreciate that. I know them, I respect it, but I just don't buy into it. You know, I'm not that American that buys old World War II memorabilia. I don't get into that. I'm a huge veribu. I love learning about Germany World War Two. It's my bread and butter. I think it holds the key to a lot of things that people just kind of walk by and don't... They're like, why is that? It's like, well, we stole it all from Nazi Germany.

And so I appreciate them. I like Germany World War Two. That'll be the next episode. But this episode is going to be about Russia. And so if you sit there and you come at me and you're like, well, acuely. I'm not gonna listen to you, but if you want to pay 4.25, 4.50, 4.50 a month on the Patreon, $6 or $10 and come in the Discord, I'll let you beat the crap out of me and we can joke about it over at game night. So if you want to get back at me you're gonna have to join the Patreon because I'm always in the Discord posting gifts and memes. But the war that defines Russia starts with the Spanish Civil War and the Finnish War, okay? The Spanish Civil War if you don't know what that is, in 1930s, Spain had a civil war.

And it was nationalists versus communists, right? There were many, many different factions that were involved in this. George Orwell, if you don't know, he joined a Communist kids unit. It's crazy. There were other guys who joined nationalist movements who went on to storm trenches and do great things. Well George Orwell just cried about it and wrote little sappy books. But a lot of communist leaders that would make a big

impact. The name you should always know though though, is General Zhukov. His deputy commanders, his lower commanders participated in the Spanish Civil War. And that's going to be really important because the purges, right? So the 1930s are filled with the Finnish War, the Spanish Civil War, and the purges. All the people that could basically stand up to Stalin were essentially murdered. And I heard in my studies listening to this, I had an Irish guy on YouTube, I listened to him and he said, this is very important for you to understand how bad the purges were. They didn't just shoot the generals, right? They shot the judge who did the show trial, right?

And then they shot the general and then they shot the jury that was in that show trial and then they shot the guy Who shot the general and the jury and the judge and then they shot the guy who shot the guy? Who shot all those, who shot the guy, who shot all those people. So by the, nobody knew who they were killing anymore because the guy kills the generals, the judges and the jury, right? And then the other guy comes in,

and he's like, well, I'm killing him because he killed all them. And then the third guy comes in, and he kills that guy, and he's like, well, I killed that guy because he killed all them. And then the third guy comes in and he kills that guy and he's like, well, I killed that guy because he killed that guy and I don't know who he killed. And so that is the depth to which Stalin went to purge the old generals of World War I, the influential people who could have made a difference for him

in the early part of Operation Barossa that was Germany invading Russia. And so the depth to which this knowledge gap is created is just astounding. You know, Zhukov, who is like their version of Eisenhower, started out as a peasant farmer. He's not a college educated, like West Point, Sanhurst elite guy. Like he's literally just a big dumb farmer who managed to make it happen because his commanders participated in the Spanish Civil War. And that was a lot of movement as far as like war is concerned, right? Like you have the Nazis coming into the Spanish Civil War, practicing their tactics, using their technology, using their air,

the Messerschmitz, you know, the famous dive bombers. And so those guys got to see a war of maneuver. The other war, the Finnish war plays a huge part in this, right? Because this was an offensive war and it's really weird because after World War II The Russians flip they become a defensive army. They love being in the defense right and so It's very important to know that this wasn't always the case right like the Finnish war and World War II against Germany defined Russia and you know we talked about the Vietnam syndrome for the American army, how we used to hide and maneuver and we weren't this big gargantuan army, we used to be scared and stuff.

The Finnish war and war against Germany did that to Russia. They got, I would argue, a type of syndrome, some type of leftover TTPs and SOPs, which are tactics, techniques, and procedures, and standard operating procedure. They got this from the Finnish war in Germany, right? Because in the Finnish war, essentially what happens is Russia is always thinking it's going to be

on the offensive. It invades Finland, right? And then I'm gonna take a drink of water. Really dear God, yeah. It's cold and crisp. Anyway, so, if you haven't learned, and you haven't listened to a sabotage song, like the Finnish were entrenched, they had the high ground, they initiated deadly, deadly defensive operations. Right? And it just slaughtered these Russians because the purges that slaughtered all the World War One generals who were like, you know, maybe charging headlong into machine guns isn't, you

know, the best idea. They're all dead. So now you have like captains. So like, think about this, right? And it's gonna make some people very, very angry. But I was a second lieutenant once I Did not have the ability to lead a platoon when I first showed up in the army by the time I left by you know Platoons and areas of responsibility. I could lead a platoon. I could lead a company I could lead an intel section and stuff like that the point I'm trying to make is

You've killed the general officers. Your kernels now become generals, entire cores, right? They can barely, they don't have much experience leading up brigade. They don't know how to lead a division, but they're leading cores. Okay. You have company commanders who have to take the spot at the kernels, right? So they are company commanders, 120 men now. They're leading divisions and brigades Which are thousands of men, right? This comes with logistics This comes with a support battalion. It comes with fires and cannons You go from having like the ability to command 60 millimeter mortars to all of a sudden you have a battery

And then the Russian army you have a battery. And in the Russian army, you have three batteries, right? So what I'm trying to say is like, if you're a junior leader, you already don't know your fucking head from your ass, right? Like, same thing applies here, but unlike a greater scale, these guys have no clue what they are doing. And not even like a second Lieutenant can't lead a platoon typeway. This is a second lieutenant

becoming like a company commander or like a battalion commander and then going to war against the finish who are well disciplined and they have a fighting culture right? Seema Hayak the white white death. They all talk about him, right? The sniper, he killed 200 guys. Dude, they were, they had no idea what they were doing. At, at some point, you just got to sit there and go, right? Like, what's going on? Why do they just keep charging into the night? Why do, in competent, right?

just keep charging into the Snipe White in competit, right? And so a lot of hard lessons are learned about the offensive from the Finnish war, right? And it actually kind of ends in a stalemate, and Finland would get to attack Russia coming up with the Nazi German, or German Nazi army, whatever. There goes my TBI, right? The Taliban get revenge. But they would come back to haunt the Russians at Leningrad. And so there's kind of like my spiel, right? We had the Spanish Civil War where some Russians

that would go on to become generals and earn the title here of the Soviet Union, learned a lot from the Spanish Civil War where some Russians that would go on to become generals and earn the title here of the Soviet Union learned a lot from the Spanish Civil War and they took that time, which was peacetime, to learn new things. But then the Finnish War as well, it shows the capability of these conscripts, these poorly trained dudes that just don't know what they're doing and just slaughtering them and I think that's very important. Sorry, just got a blue manews there, that's gross. Anyway, I'm not cutting that. I don't want to edit that. I edit it and I don't want to edit that. But anyway, I've always joked in the discord

with one of the Army and COs who's in our discord. I say, officers learn, enlisted learn from each other in their NCOs, officers learn by getting their men killed. And so that's what the Finnish war is. And so it does help them learn a little bit, realize some things, realize that they're not really good on the offensive and that these conscripts with mozans are not a good idea. And so that leads me to the next point, right? The Russian soldier. And it's still the same. This is the crazy thing. It's like looking at this, we all thought, because I'm from the intel community, we all thought Russia Russia was gonna blast through Ukraine in three days, right? They haven't changed a bit since World War II. There's a book. I think it's called Ivan's War and

it describes the situation that's on the ground for situation that's on the ground for basically World War II in Russia. Like what does the average soldier look like in communist Russia? And then there's another book called the Unwomently Face of War. It's about 14 hours long on audible. And so it describes the women of the Russian army because keep in mind this is a communist army. They don't care if you're a Jewish, a woman, or a man, or a tartar, which is an ethnically Ukrainian

and Turkish Mongol ethnic race. They don't care how mixed up or whatever you are. You're just a communist. It's called Ivan's War, yeah, by Catherine Maradel. These two books, great, great books to understand the soldiers. And that's just the soldiers, right? That's not the tactics, techniques, and procedures. That's not the SOPs. That's not the equipment. That's not the officers. But we're not here for that, because you've only got about 40 minutes left So the Russian soldier at this time is

Erily quite like today's American soldier and I'll explain it here These guys are not getting a lot of training They are at the time of like this is okay so this is after the Finnish war, this is after the purges, this is after the Spanish Civil War. They are dispersed, they are listening to political lectures and classes. There is no prep for the defense, they don't care right now, okay. They're not digging trenches, the Molotov ribbon packed, which is basically Germany and Russia are not going to go to war. This plays into it. They think that they're always going to be on the attack and Stalin knows he's not

ready. Many things about the Russian soldiers that would go on is the massive amount of uneducated soldiers, right? A lot of them don't have even a high school level education. Their gear doesn't fit, you know, boots are too big. One girl, she tells the story about how she was, she'd size 10 men's boots and she was forced to march and she's a Russian. She just suffers and she just bleeds it out and didn't even fill her boots or anything right This is where I learned that Russians don't wear socks. They wear foot wraps, right? They wrap their feet up and then they go they still do that in some units today

But the point I'm trying to make here is like they don't care. They're not prepared many of them don't even have dog tags They're identified by party papers. They're communists first, soldiers second. Okay. And so it's all, it's not about being a soldier. It's about being a communist soldier. And that's why I say like, I'm starting to see it with like America today, where it's like, you have to agree with these policies, you have to agree with the political lines of your left and right and you have to do the classes and that's what we're concerned about. We are not concerned about whether or not you can fire your weapon, we are not concerned about whether or not you can do the TTPs and SOPs and follow our guidelines, right? And I'm not saying this to be a right-winger.

I don't think they're right either. Me and Matt have gone on the record saying many times that hazing and beating your soldiers isn't probably the best answer, but also we know for a fact, historically, that the way the liberals in America are taking the military isn't the right way either. And it's because this is what Germany was going up against.

If you think about the German soldier at this time, he has been to war in Poland and smashed them. He has been to France and smashed through the French and English army. Some of them may have even gone and fought in North Africa, or Greece, the Paris, not the Paris, the Falschenberger, the German airborne. They show up here in Russia. These guys are hardened combat veterans who have fought, who have practiced time and time again. They take soldiering seriously. It is a massive profession. This is the Prussians

we're talking about, right? These are guys who from day one, their officers were like made to be soldiers first and then the officers. These guys were training in peace time and we'll talk about that on the next episode. I'm getting now faried up. But the point I'm trying to make is that's coming. That is what is across the way on the other side of the border. And Stalin's not ready.

And so this army that is here is some professional soldiers, some conscripts, they're sitting there playing cards and plebibla, their intel isn't really that good either. Their top spy for Stalin kept saying, like okay, it's gonna be one more month. It's gonna be one more month. Oh, well, they're gonna wait for the summer. And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, it was just awful, awful, all the way around, right?

Cold, crisp water. But anyway, enough about that, right? And so, Blitzkriegs coming down the pipeline, right? And so, basically, what I'm trying to get at is like, same thing here with Russia. Today, you have a conscript army not well prepared. They're fukin' on a huge, right? Not doing anything, playing grab ass. And then they go in a war. You know, Russia tricked them into thinking it was a trading exercise, but you know, hey, same thing with World War II. Those soldiers were not ready. thing with World War II, those soldiers were not ready. And so day one is literally mind-blowing to these guys, right? You have this well orchestrated chaos. Like I was saying, when you think

about like the first or sorry the second Gulf War, the two towers, the fellowship is, does your storm, does your shield, and then return of the king as ISIS, so you know, like one, two, three. But same thing with Go For Two, we just smashed Iraq, day one, right? You got Blitzkrieg. Tanks are coming in.

There's no trenches, there's no nothing. Some units didn't even have ammo dispersed to them. Some units did, and this created problems. So imagine being it's you and me. You and me are next to each other. We're both commanders. I don't take this seriously, right? I hear, oh, tomorrow the Germans are gonna invade, right? And so you do, you do take this very seriously. You're like, all right, everybody take a fighting trench, get into your ammo, we're gonna hunker down, we're gonna get ready, and we're gonna fight.

And so you're ready, you're prepped, you've handed all this ammo, I'm over over here and I'm playing grabass right, day zero which is like the day it starts right, day day, it happens. I am completely crushed and I retreat. You on the other hand, you and your brigade guys are ready and you're fighting and you're holding the Nazi Horde back. Here's the problem. I was on your left side, right?

I'm gone. Imagine we're in a bar fight. You're fighting the first dude. You're ready. You've taken your BJJ and your Sambo and fucking Krav Maga classes and you're fighting and you're poking eyes. But I have left you and there is a guy now on your left. Now he can either choose to come to the table and go for our stuff, you know,

steal our wallet and all that stuff or he can sit there and turn and punch you in the head. And then all of a sudden there's's a, you're both down. I'm gone, you're dead. And now all our stuff is being taken. That's the best way I can describe what essentially happened, is that this happens all along the line, right? Some units stay in fight, some units retreat.

And what does that do? Doesn't mean they get punched in the head, but they get encircled, right? And so there's a little bit of deep battle going on, which is kind of like Blitzkrieg, but instead of going directly to the capital because you know Moscow's so far away, what's actually happening is some units are going forward and on, but then other units are actually designated to surround those units that would fight, right? And so there is a fortress and Bella Ruse

that would go on to fight for a month, right? I think it's called Pavlov's, Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt, Pavlovirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt Dirt last man, but they would fight and the idea being like, hey, we are going to hold these guys back and we're going to keep them distracted for as long as we can. And we are going to delay them. Right? Like if I fight and I die here, I'm going to delay the enemy and then the guys behind me will have more time trading space for time or trading time for space, you know, doesn't work because the Germans have already kind of counted on this and they have, like I said, units designated to like, you know, I go deal with that, like clean up crews, right? And so that's that's ridiculous. And the reason

why I find that ridiculous is because if they had all just agreed to pull back, those men could have been saved. And I'm, I want you to think right now, how many men do you think that is right? You know, let's let's let's do this Because I this is this is an idea ahead right now, you know how many us forces Soldiers died in World War two America right so we only lost 5,000 in G watt America lost 405,000 in World War II. Russia has lost 100,000. 150, 250, 200. We don't know how many Ukraine has lost. I won't, if you want to argue with me, go to the discord. Nobody has shown how many soldiers have died in Ukraine. We don't

know that number. They are hiding that number. But yeah, right? It's around 400,000 Americans dead across all of World War II and Ukraine and Russia have been fighting for years or sorry a year and it's you know 100,000 on each side. How many do you think have died on like the first two to three months? Well, in some cases, 500,000 soldiers are in these pockets. Half a million. You know, Peter's Ion would say things like, you need a half million Russian soldiers to die for them to give a shit. He's not lying. In fact, we're gonna talk about it, but there's like three army groups, right? There's an entire flot for a line of troops

that this is happening to. You know, that guy stayed. He was good. He was ready. He was fighting. He is counterpart to his right, abandoned him, his counterpart to his left, abandoned him, so he's completely encircled, you know, that's a brigade there. There's a division over here, holy shit there, there's a whole core over here. And that's happening across the entire Russian line on day one.

If you thought the Air Force was gonna save you, I guess what? The Luftwaffe has destroyed literally every single runway that they can get, that is within the mileage, right? That they can fly to, bomb it and come back. It was so bad that one of the planning officers, a major in the Ukrainian front, which is like, group south, he got off the plane

after all the bombings were done. So the Luftwaffe comes in and destroy everything. They do their operation. He's like, okay, it's all quiet. Let me go fly around and inspect the damage. He got off the plane, took out his service pistol and shot himself in front of his commander. That's how bad it was. There was no air coming to save them. There was nothing coming down the pipeline. You know, you're encircled, you're dead. One of the things that comes out of this is even the guys who would fight were heavily outgunned and how matched, right? So if you did choose to stay, but you were like half in, half out, um, the Germans did like this, this thing where they had better tactics. And so it just, uh, so for like instance, like one of the things that Germans would do is instead of applying, uh, and a arrow shape, right? They would deploy in like a V. So that more guns could shoot inward,

because you know, you make a V with your hands and you can see like, okay, there's this little like L-shaped ambush that's moving forward and they have this ability to like shoot at a very condensed portion of a line. So when they would hit the Soviet line, they would just have to blow through this little part and then arrow through. You know, center tank goes through and it's protected by the side, tanks on the side. And so then they would flank. And it's just, you didn't have to be... So like, there's levels to this is what I'm trying to say, right? If you sucked and you were crap, you just left and retreated and you screwed the guys on your left and your right. If you were okay, you got your men killed.

And then you would get the left and your right flanked, right? Like I just, I didn't know what to do when they did that little V thing and it just got real bad and my men died. And we basically just sat there and died, right? And so, you had to be incredibly good to hold the line, dig your trench, dig your anti-tank trench, be prepared, distribute ammo, take this seriously, scout, do reconnaissance, coordinate fires, and hold the enemy and create that kill zone.

Because being on the defensive is actually great and Russia would come to find this out. That you just need, you know, for every, you know, you need three to one odds to take on an entrenched, a defense enemy, an enemy in the defense. If they're entrenched, it's like 5, 6, 7, and then if it's a city, it's like in the defense. If they're entrenched, it's like 5, 6, 7, and then if it's a city, it's like 10 to 1. The Russians already outnumbered the Germans. All they had to do was just be good at their jobs and they couldn't even do that. And so that's what day one and like the first three months look like. And so they would retreat and they would go back to what is called the Stalin line. Now everybody has this kind of fortified line in 1930.

You know, they had the Ziegfried line for the Germans, the Maginol line for the French. You can just kind of go around them. But this is something that strike one becomes like a favorite thing of the Russians and it's these pockets of defense, right? Delicious. They had these like little pockets of defense that people could go to. It wasn't like don't think of like bunkers and stuff like that in a line A lot of them are just houses disguised as bunkers or sorry flip that bunkers disguised as houses The first unit to run into the Stalin line thought it was a village and when they got within

Biring range all the houses opened up and they're like this little motorcycle unit and they start shooting at the houses thinking like, ah, it's going through, it's eight millimeter. Now that's a bunker and so they have to pull back and you know they have these old tanks that are used as turrets so you like you know you take the body off the tank, you take the turret, you put it in there and you just smother it and concrete right and then you can just feed rounds into it. It's got like the coax machine guns, a little turret head, stuff like that. All disguised. Here's the problem. And this is something I'll talk about. I'm going to go down a little tie-rate is the Germans do this they had trained for this they were ready for this and they had these things called assault teams and they're that goes the wearaboo in

me right like oh there's still cool um so what it is is it's infantry engineers assault guns flamethrowers and they're all working in conjunction with each other. And so in assault gun, don't think of like, picture a tank, but no turret, and then stick that gun in the front of it. It's called a stooge, STUG3. Germany mass produced these. And what the plan was is that these would accompany the infantry, right? They are not like tanks. Like, think of tanks as like cavalry, which they still do. Think

of themselves as that kind of like if they get a breakthrough, they're going to go through, right? They're going to be tanks and they're going to do what they do best. They will go on their own. They sometimes don't need infantry. It's nice to have infantry, but they don't need them to operate, right? Like the tanks can punch through and create a hole. They can side with the infantry. Tanks can do a lot of things. Salt guns don't. Salt guns stay with the infantry. They support them. And what they do is they'll drive up and they'll put rounds into the bunker slits. And while they do that, if they have it, they have forward-flacing smoke grenades. They can deploy as well. Get up there, shoot some smoke grenades at the

enemy. And then now the infantry can maneuver, right? There's been two massive H.E. rounds put through the slits, rock the machine gunners back. The engineer teams come up with explosive spawns, satchel charges and flamethrowers, and then the infantry accompany them. And then you just take that flamethrower, put it right in that bunker slit, fire it through, burn everybody, well, they got their TBI's

and their concussions, you just burn them alive. And then to deter anybody else from going into that bunker, almost cussed again. You just take a little stick, slap some TNT on the end of it, tie it down, like the thing on fire, shove the TNT through the slit and blow the bunker. Bunkers are weird, they have like all these things where like, you know, you have like a little door you come in and there may be like a little hiding hole right there where a guy can stick a submachine gun through and shoot you in the head and, you know, it just becomes this whole ordeal. And so shoot it with an H.E. round, knock everybody out or rock their marbles, smoke about,

get the flamethrowers in there, burn it, cook it, blow it. Okay. And so this takes practice, right? If you think about it, like, don't just listen to me and think like, oh yeah, that's cool. No, no, no, actually think about doing that for a second. I actually think about coordinating all that crap to get to get, and this isn't like a video game. It's like you only got one life broke like it needs to be rehearsed right and so they've had the practice with Poland and France and this is mind-blowing to the Russians. Absolutely. Can you imagine spending all of this time on a line, a defensive line that you think is going to hold the Germans. Yes, it's going to hold them in place. And it didn't even last three days. Damn it. Take the

engineer out back and have him shot. But these sort of specialty units come alive and grow in flourish in World War 2, right? Like you have assault units, you have naval infantry or Marines. We kind of see the Marines in the United States and World War I kind of grow to be who they are today, right? But they really shine here on the Eastern Front. You know, paratroopers make a mark. It's it's even quoted as from one of the assault team fighters. Bunkers are easier to fight than cities. That's how well we're her say are. Like, and so it's, it even had air support at this time, according to my notes, and during this time, right, they're crushing through the stall and line, they're going through all this stuff.

The thing that's happening right now though, right, Jeremy's beating them and doing all this, and this is what's happening right now in today's time, is the mobilization of forces for Russia. And so it's hard for me to think because I'm standing up in my backhards, but it's hard for me to put this in words as I say this. We think of America, right? And we think about logistics. We think about roads, right? We think about all those truckers,

we think about the plains, we think about, maybe if you live on the east coast of West Coast, you think about boats, maybe if you're a weirdo, or if you're really, really, really, really, really, really weird, like this one you're really, really, really, really, really, really weird, like this one guy I knew, trains, and um, flip that for Russia. Trains are everything to them. It's such a vast country and everybody's so poor that trains are the best form of movement

for everybody. And Peter Zayan talks about this. He's like, you've got to take all these farmers from like these different areas. You've got to give them a gun, give them their training and send them to the front line. But you get on the trains and they come to the training station. It takes three months to train a soldier in basic training. But then it takes like another two to three months for modern infantry, six months, but then you get the trains. And so the thing is, is like, when you read a World War II history book from the German perspective, if you ever do that, like me, it's like a clock is ticking, right?

And it's just counting down. Because every time, you know, like every week, another batch of Russians show up from the east. Another batch of Russians shows up from the east. It's just like, where are these come? But that's what's happening the whole time, right? And they're getting to Moscow. They're getting their training. They're getting their weapons, you know, a little week here, a week there. They're throwing them in there and they're throwing them in there and Germany's taking losses. But this is how it goes in Russia, right? You know, 580,000 soldiers down here in a pocket destroyed, 500,000 over here destroyed hundreds, thousands, thousands of tanks destroyed in just Army Group Center. Thousands, like we say here to, oh my god my god look at all these tanks we blew up in Russia

thousands of tanks destroyed the factories are still working They're still pushing out tanks, right? like oh well Quality determines the quantity, you know, and then there's my favorite. You know, quantity has a quality all of its own. And the Germans are learning, going to learn this, about to learn. But as was coming down the pipeline, right? And so like when we think about Russia, we think like, oh, yeah, they got beat in the first round.

Woo! Problem is, those trains are still coming. They're still moving all that stuff. And that's what's happening today. And so when Matt and I talk about like, where's that third mobilization? Where's that fourth mobilization? Right? The Ukrainians on the front line today have only fought two mobilizations because it's been a year. It's been about like about about six months, six months, the train soldiers. Right? Proficient infantrymen, take about six months,

maybe more, I think more, you know, right? You get to your unit and you learn your SOPs and you learn all those things and you learn from your NCOs, how to really get it done. British NCOs, not American, and America, everybody's in E5, right? But that's what's happening.

Is these trains just keep coming in and Matt and I keep talking about that. Where's that third mobilization? It's not on the front line in Ukraine. Wagner was fighting in Buckmoot. There's a third mobilization nobody has seen unless they all became truck drivers which I don't think they had. We're already on the fourth mobilization for Russia in modern day.

In World War II, they're just now starting to get the mobilization going, right? Like it's the first three months. And so it's just this thing that you need to think about when you think about Russia, you need to think about the mobilization, right? We don't have that as much, right? Like in America, we've gotten rid of the draft, we've gotten rid of all that stuff, especially in the West, we don't want that. We don't even want to think about considering the idea of a draft because that politician will never get another day in

Congress ever again. But this is how Russia works, right? And this is how it works. And so, that's what I'm getting across here in this first moment. And so, get across here in this first moment. And so you're seeing this all across the line, right? They're withdrawing, they're withdrawing, they're withdrawing, but every day they withdraw the logistics lines get shorter. The trains don't have to go as far, right? Same thing with Russia today. And so the more they withdraw, the more they go back, the more that's not dead. Right. If I were to say this, how it pertains to today, right? Like so, all these guys are retreating, all these guys are going back, all these guys will not fight the Germans are getting mad. Right. It's, you're not killing anybody.

You need to kill them essentially is what I'm saying here, historically, and today as battle goes on. It's like, if these guys are running away and they're withdrawing and you don't get to fight and you get, you know, you get land, but did you get anybody? Did you stop the fight? No, you push them back and put them closer to their logistics lines and support. And every time you go back more, more artillery gets turned on. More air defense artillery gets turned on because there's more assets back there. And so, we talk about Russia retreating in World War II.

This isn't really a bad thing. We talk about Russia retreating in World War II. This isn't really a bad thing. It hasn't become a bad thing yet. They're not on the steps of Moscow, but it's OK. And then we think about today, and we think about withdrawal. We're like, oh, the Ukrainians have liberated this city. But then when Russia takes a city, it's like, oh, you get a back moot.

You got this little graveyard of a city. It's not even a city anymore. It's a pile of rebel How many dead Ukrainians are there in that city? How many Ukrainians were held in that pocket to die in place for a city? And I'm not gonna go down that rabbit hole of you know, hey did they Did they die fighting for something strategically important or not? Did, they died. And so, if you can engage the enemy, if you can hold the Russians somewhere, if you can pin them down and you can fight them and destroy them,

then yes, you have a good thing going for you. You need to atrit the enemy Uh, this is something that and I have talked about a lot actually on the side about how like You need your soldier not only to be Ten Russians, right? Because you your ten to one odds Which is exactly what Peter Zion says the Ukrainians need to be at and I keep putting him because he got to he's got the demographics down But what I'm trying to say is like You've got to pin these guys, but they keep retreating and they keep retreating and they don't want to die They're just like, yeah, no, I'll get out of here. You know, it's like

What's that one fighter that 50 cents said if you Floyd Mayweather if you could read one page of a Harry Potter book Floyd Mayweather that's how Floyd Mayweather fights. He's backing one page of a Harry Potter book, Floyd Mayweather, that's how Floyd Mayweather fights. He's backing up, he's backing up, he's backing up, he's moving, he's moving, and then he counter punches, and he punches, and he punches, and he punches, he's right where he wants you, right? And so that's what Russia is doing. They're backing up, they're backing up, they're backing up, punch, backing up, backing

up, punch. And so that's what it's become, right? So we've moved away from Holy crap, we're being invaded, to now we're backing up, we're backing up, punch, we're backing up, we're backing up punch, we're backing up, we're backing up punch. And the whole time they're mobilizing, right? So you gotta get at them, you gotta like get in there, you have to kill Stalin, you have to get to Moscow, and they can't do it. You know, and the whole time, you know, some of these guys are losing, you know, Germany's losing 1600 guys a day in Kiev, right? There's this moment where General Redism of Hero of the Soviet Union commander of the fifth airborne

We're just talking about this, right? So the specialty unit. It's really shine talking about this right so the specialty unit is really shine one of the things that the Russians do here is well they're backing up they're backing up and they're punching is Redisimov Road did I'm not gonna right road ROD I am T S E E V he let a counter attack at the key of airport, right? So they're coming in, Germans are coming in to key, him and the VDV. Yeah, remember those guys at the airport? They counterattack. They don't jump in this time, but they do right across the field and beat the Germans back, right? And they beat them back two miles and give the Russians more time, because you know, hey, every day that goes, bye, more soldiers show up. back two miles and get the Russians more time because you know hey every day that goes by, more soldiers show up.

They beat the Germans back. Now the reason why I say this is like this happens a lot where in World War Two you're gonna see, you're gonna see Russian paratroopers used as counterattack. They sometimes drop in to pockets of units that are completely surrounded by German forces. They go, hey, what's up? We got a grid, we got a day and a time where the other side, on the other side of these Germans,

there's gonna be an armor force attack. And we're gonna meet them in the middle, follow us. And they get dudes out of these pockets, right? And so when we think about airborne forces, we think about it in the sense of follow us. And they get dudes out of these pockets, right? And so when we think about airborne forces, we think about it in the sense of like German tactics. And we think about it in the sense of like, okay, we're gonna use these guys to capture seas and hold airports and key terrain

so that we can fly supplies in and tanks and all this stuff and we can spread out like chlamydia all over the countryside, right? And so like, that's how we think about airborne forces or in D-Day we jumped behind enemy lines, caused a whole bunch of problems and then the main force came in and it was much easier. They'll pull an operation market garden and not care the Russians. So like everyone's like, oh, host a by the airport, you lost all your airborne forces. That's standard operating procedure. Now what's not standing on a procedure is them

carrying three magazines. But what's point I'm trying to make with that is that they use airborne forces differently. So it's weird to me. So I'll caveat it. It's weird to me because when I was doing HLZs, when I was doing airborne operations and stuff like that, and the 101st and like helping Fifth Group out with stuff, it's cooler. Like, who doesn't want to combat jump, right? Like it's like Rodeisha they had the fire force guys they're more aggressive it's cooler but it's weird because the risk level associated with this is astronomical right like jumping into surrounded units you may have landed in German lines you know using airborne forces it's like counter attack stuff it's they just think differently and that's how they do things right like we like to try and save as many guys as we can and keep the unit as a whole safe and

in a good fighting condition. Generally, the best way I would put it is like how I did HLZs and how I did aerosol mentions was it, I had to sing like everybody poops right like there's going to be a time when the dude is sitting on the toilet and he's going to the bathroom and he's so vulnerable that is the time to ascend in helicopters right that is when you send in the assault force and you beat the guy when he's on his toilet right or he's got like both hands on his john send and he's at the year and all you know you grab him by the back of the head and you smash right that's when we attack we get you with your pants

down the Russians will like be in a bar fight right and then let their VTV jump through the window get covered in glass pull the glass out of their face and be like I'm not dead yet oh you know, only I make me bleed. And it's just like what? What? But he's there and he charges right into the battle. And so we like to use airborne forces at like your weak spots and to hit you in places where we know it's gonna hurt. The Russians like to use airborne forces in a way that to counter attack, to bring a force

that is assault and aggressive, they're aggressive in nature, they love assaulting and they'll get the job done. So like being in the VDV is a big deal because you're going to be doing some really terrible missions. And so that's what you're looking at with like Keith and we'll talk about Pascale and Leningrad even a bit, but we're gonna keep going down the Keith rabbit hole, right? And so there's a lot of talk recently about Crimea and you may have heard me talk about it on the podcast a little bit today. We're going to talk about it a little bit in depth.

Crimea in World War II is strategically godly important. Like put that thing up on a pedestal as Crimea. And so like part of my theory is that the reason the Russians captured Crimea is because Hitler called it, the Russians captured Crimea in 2014. The reason why they did that is like things like this, right? Like Hitler called it the aircraft carrier of the Black Sea. It's a free, it's just an aircraft carrier out there, right? It's got mountains to the south that prevent people from doing beach landings there. Sevastopol is on the west side of Crimea.

It's the capital of like the state. It's a beautiful place. If you read the book, the news are Putin. Love's vacationing in Crimea. It's beautiful, right? And so you have this beautiful island, huge defensive mountain fortress. In World War II it had coastal batteries.

They didn't, the communism, right? They didn't finish a boat, a boat. Maybe guys are going to be mad about that one. They didn't finish a battleship with these huge, they finished the guns. They didn't finish the battleship, right? And so they had these guns Just laying around and they're like hey, what do we do with these and so they put them in Sevastopol these huge guns that were meant for a battleship were in

Sevastopol's battery number 30 and number 35 there were like units called coastal battery defense forces Just these giant guns on the beach right so not only that a mountain Fortress It's got naval guns. It's a Floating ship out there and the cool thing though is that if you have Crimea You can and this was in World War two so you could definitely do it today You can launch bombing raids on the Romanian oil fields out to the eastern Romania and that that made it look so bad Oh my god, like

You need oil for gas you need gas for tanks, right? So like the first thing the Russians did is like oh you want to blow up the whole air force at Back back back and they started beating those Romanian oil fields those oil fields burned for days Right and so that made Hitler just extremely angry. And so he wanted to cry me. And so I think, hold on, let me get a drink of water here, I think that that's why in 2014 Putin took it because it is just this mountain fortress. it because it is just this mountain fortress. Huttons, so from what I have written here, just in the battle of Sevastopol, 118,000 Soviet men died defending the Crimean peninsula.

Sorry, 118,000 died in Sevastopol. 160,000 died in the east of Crimea. So you're looking about 278,000 men dying in a three-month period down in Crimea. That's twice the amount that have died from Russia in the last year. Astronomical. And you just, in just Crimea, well, I'm not talking about the 580,000 that were captured in Crimea, I mean I look at my notes here. Yeah, I think it was like 500,000 were caught in a pocket and you know, and so it's It's ridiculous

One of the things I do want to mention let me get your water I do want to mention, let me get a drawer here. God, I'm dying. Crisp. Anyway, one of the things I do want to mention though is that, well, this is all going on in Ukraine, right? Keave is tightly controlling information. People are forced to stay and keep. Life went on normally and the electricity went in and out a little bit.

The point of making with that information is that like if we look at key today, it is a crime against key to post dead Ukrainians. They have an information committee. They keep all that hush hush. They don't want dead Ukrainians posted unless you an information committee, they keep all that hush, they don't want dead Ukrainians posted unless you know you're some guy who says, love you, Korean, and then get shot, smoke, and a cigarette. But the same thing that happened in World War II is a, and now it's the same thing that happened in World War II.

They did not let anybody leave Kiev. The Nazis were right there at the door. They weren't playing that game, they were like, nope, we're not gonna have a huge crowd running the Moscow, we're not gonna do have a huge crowd running the Moscow. We're not going to do this. You're going to stay put. They would actually when Keeve was taken, they would pull up party buildings and hotels with hot sea generals and them and stuff. Like they just left the populace to die. And because they couldn't deal with it, it would be, you know,

I think I've talked about this with you guys on the podcast before But like the Russians have this thing nowadays where they love Creating this human catastrophe wave that comes towards The enemy right and that's what we saw we saw 17 million Ukrainians Had to keep in the Veeve and freak out and run away, but then had to keep in the Veeve and freak out and run away. But then they couldn't stay there. And so they went into the NATO countries and we have done a fine job for the last year, according to the media. I haven't seen anything coming out. But for the last year, we have kept most of those refugees and we've housed them, just all of a sudden millions of Ukrainians

were kept and cared for, but had we not done that, it would have created a huge problem, a logistical problem. You get to feed these people, you get to get them water, homes, beds, all that stuff. It would have created a huge problem. And so that is actually what Russia was trying to prevent World War II by censoring all the information. And it's a large part of what Ukraine is doing now. Like I said, we don't know the official numbers. I have a theory. I think it's pretty astronomically high. I think some people have said well over 300,000, which would make sense. But if we're talking about just soldiers, I think it's

somewhere in the 200K. But, Sebastian Paul and Crimea, where the iron crosses grow, right? And so Crimea, the fortress of the Black Sea, what goes into Crimea is Eric von Manstein, the creator of the Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do France. Sorry, I'm like going through my head as I look at make sure this is legit. So it's the best general that Germany has. Yep, Erich von Manstein and they have the mountain core of Romania. Cause like I said, there's those mountains to the south and Crimea. the mountain core of Romania, because like I said, there's those mountains to the south and Crimea. So you've got the guy who came up with the operations plan for Vading France. You've got the Romanian mountain core troops who are very good. Like they are not to be, if you read where the Iron Cross has grown, they talk very highly of them. They did their job, they did very well. The Germans did not like them. They thought they were lesser, but they do a good job

The amount of Dead here now keep in mind this is the best German officer they've got this is This is the cream of the crop, right? 35,866 men from June to July 1942. The Russians would go on to lose somewhere in the ballpark, around 200,481 just as a Vastipol. This is just a Vastipol, right?

The capital in Crimea. It's a knockout, dragout, war in Crimea. All right. And so to paint that picture for you a little better, there's these two mortars. Because we talked about those coastal batteries, right? They're shooting on the Germans the entire time.'re coming up to take divasapolks of espuls up on a hill There's the coastal batteries shooting at them. There's Fort Stalin Fort steel or whatever

It's like these Fort giant artillery pieces that are shooting at the Germans and It's just this knockout, dragout battle. And if you were to do that today, you would have the Black Sea Fleet, you would have trenchworks, same thing there, right? There's the Tartor wall to the north. There's all these geographic things that go into Crimea as well as in the east, these perfect beaches for landing that the Russians would play games with, right? They'd get in there, they'd invade into the north and do counter attacks and stuff like that

The Germans would bring Thor and Odin these are giant mortars They are two tons yet two ton mortars two tons, yep two ton mortars, Dora the railgun, that giant, you've ever seen that picture of that giant Nazi railgun? That's what came to Crimea, right? Eric von Manstein, the creator of the Opland for France, right? He goes, Germany used the most artillery in the Crimean Peninsula, specifically at Sevastopol. Both sides were short on ammo. Men were butchered so quickly. And this is just Sevastopol, right?

Like, just that city. And so this is World War Two, not modern technology. They don't all have semi-automatic weapons. They all have bolt actions, the Mauser for the Germans, the Mosin for the Russians. And so that required the most startillery. And so when you think about Mary O'Pool today, Mary O'Pool, and you think about Bach Moot, and you hear these things about like the Russian army duke it out in like modern terms, because I put the Ukrainians and the Russians somewhere in the same ballpark like on a one to 10 scale right. You'd probably put the Ukrainians within about three points of the Russians up or down depending on who you ask. They're not that

far off as far as training and technology goes. The Ukrainians have a lot more technology because of us. But the point I'm trying to make here is that the gap between Russia and Ukraine isn't that different. NATO thinks that we would have a thousand of one kill odds, perfect, but Ukraine's having like toe-to-toe numbers with Russia. And so when we think about the Lensky saying, I'm going to take back Crimea, I'm going to do all this stuff. I'm gonna take back that land from the Russians. And you read these historical accounts of what it took to take a place like Crimea.

It's absolutely insane if you think about it. For the lint ski to stand up there and say, I'm not giving up until I get cry me a back. Does he really, like, historically speaking, the amount of men that died in World War 2 to take that island from the Russians before, you know, it was like 35,000 men and a lot of Russians died. But just the kill count that was necessary, the kill count that the Germans had to produce, over 200,000, that's double the amount of dead Russians that we see today. And so it's just like, you hear these stories

about like, oh, we killed, you know, buck mood, we killed 50 to one odds, right? Like we didn't even have those odds against the Taliban. Dirt farmers, right? Who just to just sit there and look people and go about it, like the problem I'm having, and this is why I'm like at a loss for words, is that if you just pick up a book and read

about the Eastern Front, Russia versus Germany and World War II. You will begin to realize, one, this has been done before, these fields have been fought on. It has happened before. We are not technologically that different. Yes, we have javelins and we have drones now. But the combined arms maneuver warfare

isn't there. And then number two, the kill count that is required to stop Russia isn't there right now. 200,000 people in just Crimea died, defending the Soviet Union. And then he's going on international news and saying, we're going to take that back. When we know that like historians or people who read this, it's like, are you sure about that? Do you have the ability to kill 200,000 Russians and somebody may sit there and it's a very good argument. Well, that was Ukrainian's defending Crimea, right? Like, the Soviet Union used the Polish, they used the Tajiks, they used all these different people. They don't have those people. They don't have the numbers like that really. You know, I just made a post about that.

Military aged males. You know, you don't even need an AK-47 for today's fight or a 74. In fact, a Mosin will do just fine. You just got to kill one guy as a Russian. As a Ukrainian, you have to kill 10. And they're on the defense, the Russians. They just get to sit in a hidey hole and shoot the Mosin, get down reload shoot again

Pretty sure a mozin can go through level three plates, which is what most the Ukrainians have on and so it's just When we talk about Ukraine in Crimea today, I don't think anybody who sits there and says well, we're going for Grammy I Don't think they've read a book. I don't think they understand the astronomical kill count or what comes with that, right? And so moving on, you know, we have Moscow and the fight for that. We have Leningrad, the fight for that, right? And then we have Resard and Stalingrad. installing that. And so these points are very good. Um, Lenin grad would have a million people die of starvation, just

people dying of starvation. This is Army Group North. You're going to see Marines fighting, Falschermieger.ager. Moscow, Smolensk and Kiev, pulling soldiers away. This is Army Group Center. I think this is Hoth Commanding's Army Group Center. A lot of things happened here. And it's it's crazy what comes out of here, right? Some of the things are like frontal attacks that end up with you know, 580,000 soldiers and Viasma and encirclement leading to roughly 90K getting out so

490,000 soldiers at Viasma and circled and taken down VDV counterattacks Takes on planes soldiers and equipment. Oh, yeah, that's the favorite one where they jump into the encirclement Good god, but if you want to learn about that if you want to learn about how Moscow was defended how Lenin grad was defended How the second shock army was completely surrounded at Leningrad, and basically their commander became a Nazi sympathizer who would be shot and killed. I never recommend you go to the Patreon because we are at an hour and thirteen minutes. I should have probably made you wait with Crimea

But I gave you that and I took a lot of time I have to be getting the episode to talk about Housekeeping stuff and we'll talk about it again. Hey look I know we say it go to the patreon It's only three dollars to get all these extra episodes, right? And we do bonus episodes so you not only get the rest of this episode you get the rest of the last episode But you also get bonus episodes with me and Matt me and Chad if you're willing to pay the 450 Which is the recount here for the $10 for 50 $10 discount only 50 slots I think I we got 15 left or we have the private first class Which is six dollars and you get access to the discord. Look, we've got great stuff coming

up. We're going to be doing Arma too. Be doing scenario training, stuff like that, map reading. You're going to get to learn a whole bunch. I'm in there, constantly laying down gifts, constantly in all the group chats, organizing game nights. We've got Red Dragon. I've got a ton of stuff coming up for the Patreon, right? We've got courses we're gonna be doing, cheap courses. We've got competitions we're gonna be doing. We've got a ton of stuff planned for you guys.

Check it out, go over there to the Patreon. Like and subscribe. Please review us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Head on over to the Patreon to get the rest of this episode. subscribe, please review us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Head on over to the Patreon to get the rest of this episode.