Radio War Nerd EP #436 — The Battle of Kursk, Pt. 1 (feat. Annibale)

Love these Annibale ones. Very old school feeling to this episode. So much new war going on that these ones get rarer and rarer

One of my nephews is a lineman (the guys who fix ppwerlines) and became their drone guy on his team. Great application for managing utilities operations. I also pass a billboard advertising to become a drone technician/operator and make $18/hr.

Amazing episode. We need more eastern front episode as they are not very well known in the Anglo speaking world. Maybe an episode about the Courland pocket?

Good lord would you look at that bulge

Over the course of the war the Soviets took over 5000 parts out of the t-34; the cost of materials and construction of a single t-34 dropped in half between 1941 and 1943. The simplicity allowed for mass production by unskilled labor. In contrast, the Germans constantly sought to upgrade the panther, sometimes even in the middle of production, and insisted on using highly skilled mechanics to construct each tank. As a result, the man-hours to build a panther were nearly 10x higher than the t-34.

The gap in western discourse over the Eastern Front is so large that you will see endless debates by morons about how 6 million Jews could be killed when an oven is so-and-so cubic meters wide, but nobody ever brings up 27 million Russians butchered by the germans as a counterpoint. If anything the retort is 'well most of them died because stalin did human wave attacks' most war nerds deserve to be shoved in lockers

It's been a while since I saw "Enemy at the Gates", but my recollection is that it celebrated the Russian contribution to WWII. e.g. movie was released in 2001, during the post-Soviet period, at a time before U.S.-Russian relations started to turn south. I don't remember specifically how the movie threaded the needle. At that time the Nazis were still the universal villain. It may be that the movie attempted to portray the Soviet Union in a negative light, while celebrating the heroism of individual Russians.

if we are breaking are doing WW2 we might be interesting to talk about the British invasions of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Iran.

if i had been brendan it would have been *so* difficult to not just fuckit and put a tech-death song by Defeated Sanity or something as the break music lol

would love a RWN ep on ernst jünger ... not so much on storm of steel but on the essays that would follow on "war as an inner experience" through "fire and movement" and "total mobilization" up until "the worker" and "the peace"

Annibale is probably the best guest in the excellent RWN bullpen. Very good episode.

Too soon

100% Germany lost when their manpower was broken on the eastern front. Not only were the experienced soldiers irreplaceable for military reasons, but they were also often the best, most skilled, and most experienced workers. People who claim “Nazis could’ve won with more oil” really miss the point that the minute Barbarossa started, Germany was unable to produce enough material to support the war effort. Hitler’s early aim was to cobble together Europe, North Africa, and the balkans into an economic force that could rival the US and the Soviet Union. Lacking the natural resources to do that pushed him to invade the soviets

Love Bulge Talk

Regarding the penetration of German society by Nazism, Omer Bartov pretty convincingly demonstrates its utter ubiquity amongst soldiers (of the Heer, specifically) in 'German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfare'

A lot of the discussion around Ukraine’s counteroffensive focused on mine warfare. I just wanted to include a few quotes from the report “Mine and Countermine Operations in the Battle of Kursk” (2000) by A. Remson & D. Anderson. Freely available online but have also seen these points emphasised in other published works. “The Battle of Kursk … had two major and long-lasting effects on Soviet engineer doctrine. Impressed by the effectiveness of the minefields at Kursk in slowing the advance of the German tank-heavy forces, the Soviets placed increased importance on minefields …” “The Battle of Kursk also supported the concept of laying mines during the fighting in the path of an advancing enemy. Soviet General Staff Instructions issued … before the battle called for the creation of Mobile Obstacle Detachments at every tactical level to lay mines in front of the enemy advance … Mobile Obstacle Detachments could move quickly to any threatened point. Since they laid mines in the path of the advancing Germans, the mines were much more effective than those laid before the battle … Gen. Tsirlin's generalization that two-thirds of the enemy tanks destroyed by minefields blew up in the minefields laid during the battle was cited by generations of Soviet military writers. Thus the concept of creating Mobile Obstacle Detachments to lay mines in front of an advancing enemy became a permanent part of Soviet engineer doctrine” “The last combat engineer text published before the breakup of the Soviet Union, for example, stated, ‘Minefields are the principal type of artificial obstacle in modern combined arms combat. They are highly effective, easy to set up, and difficult to overcome.’“

Is that interlude song available elsewhere or special for this episode? Lovely discussion too 😁👍

Also some pie in the sky... I’m dreaming about you two collaborating once more with Will Menaker to talk about Alex Garland’s Civil War.

I love the musical intermissions when you do them. I’m fascinated by war but don’t take pleasure in thinking about it and the music definitely helps. Great work and I’m always glad to hear Annibale!

Is at your doorstep also called Come and See?

nazis just couldn't resist the temptation of a big bulge

A ranking of all the other eclipses in the solar system. There are many! https://youtu.be/CikPFdZdY4k?si=DR2Y_Q23z1K0l9CZ

Nobody de-mystifies WW2 like Annibale!

I like hearing about the Eastern front in WWII. I know you're mostly of the opinion it's been covered to death, but it's arguably the largest land war in history and deserves attention. I've had the debate about when Operation Barbarossa was officially kaput, I tended to either say the Battle of Moscow or Stalingrad. It was undeniable after Stalingrad, the Axis just couldn't take those kinda of casualties, didn't have near the population base to draw from. I think Annibale is probably right about Smolensk though, although at that point you might as well say the war was lost the day Hitler tore up Molotov Ribbentrop and invaded the USSR. Kursk, at least before this podcast, was noteworthy to me because it's the first time the Axis was defeated during the summer. Just another obvious sign that it was over. It's fuckeo up to think about, but Hitler could have basically kept Europe if he'd just quit while he was ahead. He probably even could have taken the UK if he'd just let Molotov-Ribbentrop stand. Another dark truth, you can make a good case that Stalin's brutal industriaizaton may have in large part been what held Hitler off long enough to keep Operation Barbarossa from being successful. There are a litany of failures and pointless mass murder you can put at Stalin's feet, but it's hard to argue that industrialization in the USSR wasn't a life and death matter. 20 million Russian civilians were killed in that war...

Once every solar eclypse War Nerd makes a WWII episode

I was pleased that Annibale mentioned Mosfilm, and would like to point out another film available on their Youtube channel about the Battle of Kursk - "The Fire Bulge". There are some absolutely incredible set pieces and aerial shots.

Jupiter's moons are worse because they're too big, not because they're too small, so they also obscure the sun's corona during an eclipse on Jupiter (not that you'd want to be "standing on Jupiter" under any circumstance...). The channel minutephysics released a "Which Planet Has The Best Eclipse?" video just recently. Definitely Earth.

Annibale is always a pleasure to listen to

This episode is like something I would dream about and then wake up disappointed it wasn't real.

Cool episode, and feeling warmly smug that I had made a comment on an earlier episode (#416?) making some of these same points and comparisons with the Ukraine War counteroffensive. Looking forward to part two.

I messaged a week ago asking if you would consider interviewing Malcolm Kyeyune. I am re-sending here as I am not sure it was read or received even.

OHOHO I am ready for this!

I believe the movie Annibale was talking about with the Soviet anti-tank battery is actually called 'Hot Snow' (Горячий снег).

New Annibale episode ==> drop whatever I’m doing, immediate listen.

Kursk? Annibale? This is looking like the fillet mignon of War Nerd episodes.

Interesting moon tidbit related to Annibale’s comment regarding the uniqueness of Earth’s eclipses: The leading theory on the formation of the moon now is that it’s the result of a collision of a proto-Earth with another Mars-sized planet. It makes one wonder how much having such a relatively large satellite that close to an early Earth influenced the development of complex life.

I drove up with some friends to Oswego, so we had basically the same disappointing weather. Still an incredible experience and well worth the trip.

Wo ist die Neunte Armee?

I see Annibale, my mud-caked corpse rises from its grave on the steppe to listen

Damn. This is like my dream episode. Gonna have a whiskey and cigarette on my porch tonight and really get into this.

ANNIBALE!!