WW2 German Squad Tactics | Animated History
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Sources:
Buchner, Alex, Edward Force, and Alex Buchner. The German Infantry Handbook, 1939-1945: Organization, Uniforms, Weapons, Equipment, Operations. West Chester, PA: Schiffer Military History, 1991.
Bull, Stephen. World War II Infantry Tactics. Osprey, 2004.
The German Squad in Combat. Washington D.C.: United States Department. Military Intelligence Service, 1943.
McNab, Chris, and Johnny Shumate. German Soldier versus Soviet Soldier: Stalingrad 1942-43. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2017.
Töpfer, Harry. German Tactical Manual.
Music:
Armchair Historian Theme - Zach Heyde
First Shooter - Bonnie Grace
Tracker - Christoffer Moe Ditlevsen
To War! - Jo Wandrini
Special thanks to Holzkern for sponsoring this video. Support our channel by visiting www.world.holzkern.com/en_world/thearmchairhistorian and use our special discount code “armchair15” at checkout to receive 15% off on all products and free polishing cloth worth 15 euros. Patreon: www.patreon.com/armchairhistorian FREE New Armchair Historian Video Game: store.steampowered.com/app/1679290/Fire__Maneuver/ Sign up for Armchair History TV today! armchairhistory.tv/ Promo code: ARMCHAIRHISTORY for 50% OFF Merchandise available at store.armchairhistory.tv/ Check out the new Armchair History TV Mobile App too! apps.apple.com/us/app/armchair-history-tv/id1514643375 play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tv.uscreen.armchairhistorytv Discord: discord.gg/thearmchairhistorian Twitter: twitter.com/ArmchairHist
les go
sui
Fallschirmjaeger / Panzergrenadier tactics next?
Make a video about Armenia Azerbaijan war
Whats ypur next evolution video?
7:20 .... the level of animation of this machine gun... perfect! Congrats for the animator team
i was about to say that, it positively stunned me when i saw it
Feels cut from a tower defense game like they do with meme templates
Bro I was about to comment the same thing, they have really upped their game
really good looking. hope they can keep this quality up :) mg42 is 3x faster tho!
wooooow
WHO DOESN'T LOVE THAT THUMBNAIL!?
It really does go hard
Well coming from a Belgian guy I’m surprised
I voted for that
Those guys are jacked my goodness
The Arm of this German soldier are so jacked because he was a worker in a coal mine who worked hard before the war
Missing the longer 30 minute videos, but understand the shorter length content to fight the algorithm. Great work as always.
Algorithim,what a suprise,what happend now?
Just a shame when 2 of those 10 minutes are an advertisement
It's not just the algorithm, but also production time and cost. He did a full video on this recently on the reasoning for the shift.
They should split each subject into 3 10-minute episodes thus aligning with the algorithm and providing full coverage of the subject.
it is what it is in the youtube wildlands I suppose
The editing and animation is insane. Great video!
yes it is, i was going to say something about no USSR soldiers, but loved the end, the eastern bear is who won the war
Agree
5:58 No way he really just snuck in the Amongus horn 💀💀💀
I was about to comment the same thing God I love the team behind this KZhead channel
I really hope you all decide to do a series on the Spanish Civil War, hopefully something about the Siege of the Alcázar in Toledo, great video as always tho.
Viva la M U E R T E
@@scottanno8861 ¡Viva España!
España! ARRIBA!
I would really enjoy a video about espionage during the spanish civil war, given that my great grandpa was actually a part of that.
My grandpa was a Wehrmacht veteran. Thanks for this video! It’s really interesting to see what kind of tactics my grandfather saw in combat
My grandfather was a schutzstaffel veteran who enlisted in the norwegian ss legion he fougth in russia and lost his leg
wow
@@norwegianguy4606 damn son, do you know what division? I always thought gross deutchland was SS but they weren’t. He definitely saw/committed war crimes.
@@norwegianguy4606 did he commit any atrocities
@@seanosborn3272 least important question
Hello Griffing. I would love if you could do a ww2 perspective of some smaller contribuit like romania hungary or even Bulgaria. Keep the good work comming :)
Countries*
Good idea!
Or Anzac, Norwegian, Yugoslav and a video on ww2 from the Turkish perspective
It’s these tactics that Steiner’s men will use when he launches his counter attack. Any minute now.
Not if Fegelein has anything to do about it!
Lol 😂😂😂
Armchair Historian will never die. Best of luck to you Griffin and the entire team. You've been amazing, been watching a good 2 years now. Loved them all.
the animation quality was spot on !!!! you guys really improved over time and it shows !!!!
That MG animation though… absolutely stunning.
The visuals get better each time. They have improved so much.
I think it's interesting to see that the basic infantry fighting doctrine of infantry groups frog-leaping forward under heavy machine gun cover has been basically the same since then. In my basic training (2014) as a Panzergrenadier in the german army we were taught that exact standard tactic.
One of my combat instructors at SOI told me a lot of the tactics we use as infantry marines was founded from the wermachts blitzkreig tactics, after watching this I can say that the marine rifle squad and small unit tactics is definitely very close to the germans
Great video, My grandfather was a soviet veteran. Its real intresting too see what his enemies squad tactics were.
I thank your grandpa for his service!
I thank your grandfather for his service!
It is undeniable the war couldn't have been won without the USSR on the Allied side.
@@charles_0017 Honestly, no Allied nations could win alone
Za Rodinu!
Thanks for making amazing history videos Griffin!
the quality of animation has been amazing recently great job!
I think the combat scenes from Generation War showcase these German squad tactics perfectly
The only nitpick I can make about this excellent and we'll produced video, is that the machine gunner shouldn't be spraying as they were trained to fire in short bursts haha, this video is so good. Loved it
Too true. The MG42 had extra barrels because the rate of fire caused them to overheat.
The machine gunners are having the time of there life
The sound affect too isn't even all that accurate. We shouldn't be hearing individual rounds.
4:14 early war uniforms in a late war environment
I love your videos and the effort you pout into them makes it even better.
Good job on the animation , it really shows. I love these videos and hope to see more of them!
Very good work on the explanation and the animation got a level up for a great video. ❤
Great video, can’t wait to see other armies throughout history examined like this
People scream the tanks, the planes, the ships. I scream the Infantry. I'd say when the war broke out, she was the closest in the world to having what I'd consider modern Infantry when taken down to the squad level, not the battalion, company or division level. The German Rifle Squad which normally had 1-3 SMGs, 1-2 Light Machine Guns and Riflemen filling up the rest is a good example of this. It was light, mobile, and had the potential firepower to be unmatched even by the end of the war. Add in other weapons later in the war like Panzerfaust, Panzershrecks, STG-44s, and German Infantry only became potentially more dangerous. But we all know on paper you'd rarely have these perfectly equipped squads that they had in the field manuals. But that being said, the Hurtgen Forest to me is a good example on how difficult it would of been trying to handle German Infantry without armored support, only relying on infantry and artillery. Even late in the war the German Infantry were to be feared, and any advantage to defeat them I'd argue was necessary. So I will not call the American's cheaters for having vehicle, artillery and mortar advantages. I wouldn't want to be told to attack a position manned with men using STG44s, MG34s, grenades, Submachineguns among other munitions. Even if the men using them are poorly trained, or half crippled returning veterans.
another fantastic video, the detail in this video is none other, keep up this hard work
I just love the animation level achieve on this video, looking the curve from past years to now ... this is absolutely awesome. I really enjoy this kind of content :D
Awesome vid, love the MTG reference, hope you use it again for any other nation squads you may have upcoming
I always admire that taking the initiative and maintaining fire superiority is considered to be of the utmost importance. Even infantry can be considered a mobile task force in their own right. Even modern militaries are still trying to learn this...
It is certainly a military doctrine to admire.
God damn this video looks badass! Nice work animators and thanks Griffin for another cool history details!
What an outstanding video... Really enjoyed this one, keep it up!
I served in the British Army mostly in the Parachute Regiment for 22 years. Our section attack tactics evolved following the 1982 Falklands War. Then we had a GPMG machine gun to each section of 8 men. When the new SA80 arrived we adopted our section tactics with the section broken down to 4 man fire teams each with a light machine gun, which we thought was inadequate. We preferred that each section still retain the 7.62mm GPMG which was a fantastic addition to section fire power. In each operational deployment they did issue a GPMG to each section, along with grande launchers. But mostly our section tactics was an adaptation of the `German squad tactics and generally the mission command doctrine in where junior officers and NCO’s where encouraged to use initiative within the framework of understanding the main mission objectives. The downside to this as mentioned in the video clip is that this is all fine until the experience is lost due to casualties. There is a big difference to passing basic training and a few years operational training. For the British Army, Northern Ireland was a good training ground for junior soldiers and junior officers to gain experience in leadership working detached from higher command. It all about good teamwork. Fellowship is also just as important as leadership. War is unpleasant but anyone who has served on operations especially in a tight formation such as a section (squad) or platoon will know how tight that sub unit is.
Amazing work on the animation here, this is some of your best!
Dude!!!! I love that you used Magic the Gathering cards to illustrate the individual members of the Rifle Squad. As always, awesome job my man.
Oh my god the animations are so badass in this video. So satisfying too.
7:20 we gonna talk about how smooth that animation is?
Ok. This finally got me to subscribe. I come from a town in south Hessen, Germany and I just love how in some videos you guys use perfect grammar german and in some it's just funny sounding jibberish. Perfect. 👍😂
I've been looking for a nicely presented video on this exact topic for a long while now
really amazing new cinematics! 😮 i love it! ❤🔥❤
Thanks for uploading more often. Your videos are always amazing and I always look forward to watching them?
Well do you?
@@dwightd.eisenhower2031 yes
Love how you made the cards of the German squads like MtG. It would be awesome if they had a real card game like that!
Make your own. It’s pretty easy once you have access to art. I didn’t like the new warhammer 40k set, so I made my own
@@bigredwolf6 what did you use? I would love to make my own stuff to use form time-to-time.
Would make an awesome board game. Reminds me of Undaunted.
Check out Kards, its a fun little ww2 card game online
I just love this channel man, like dude the quality.....
Great video, I hope this opens a series that goes over all the warring nations squad tactics in WW2.
Loved it, keep it up! 😊
The video, the sound, the animation and the voice, everything Is great.
This video was awesome. Great presentation. This is the kind of stuff that I think would better hold kids attention in history classes.
This art and animations are incredible. Love it!
The animation is incredible.
The magic cards were such a nice touch!
Another awesome video. Thanks guys
This is excellently done. Great detail.
Great video, I would love to see videos on other countries tactics
About the sponsor of the video. I can personally recommend it. The prices on some of the watches aren't completely insane and many of them look great and fit nicely.
Sureeeeeee
your work is amazing
it's interesting the German military doctrine emphasised on offense but centered their squad tactics on a defensive/static weapon... I personally think several Stg44s and MP40s would have fulfilled this role much better... giving fire superiority and maneuverability to all the members of the squad
MP40s and Stg44s lack the range to achieve fire superiority in most conditions, only being capable when they are already right on top of the enemy. they are also further limited by their magazines and their barrels (they can't swap barrels to keep up the fire intensity). What real militaries recognised that you have failed to recognise, is that firepower is manoeuvre. a squad cannot advance if it can not gain fire superiority. a squad equipped entirely with short range assault weapons is an inherently defensive squad because it can never gain fire superiority at range and thus cannot advance into close range and has to wait for the enemy to advance to them, and thus can only be used defensively (unless heavily supported by other squads close by, but then they must stick close to those squads and thus lose any theoretical improved mobility). This is a lesson the germans learned in ww1 with submachinegun equipped stormtrooper squads. and its a lesson they learnt again in ww2, you see the germans did try full squads of Stg-44s, but both then and in ww1 with submachineguns they came across the same issues i brought up, and went {back} to GPMG based squads (which they still use to this day). they learnt in ww1 that full SMG squads lacked the range but they hoped the longer range of the StG-44 would change things enough, it did not. To attack and be agressive a squad needs effective long range supression.
Keep up the great work!!
The toughest army of ww2
Basically them against the world
The classic hip firing MG42 guy, leading the assault and decimating loads of enemies.
Shorter videos but higher quality i love this
pretty early - for an absolutely insane video as usual!!
I would love to see similar videos, because now I'm curious how the other axis and allied armies handled their operations. I also can't help but note how similar these tactics are to modern ones, particularly the US.
Thanks for the videos! 🫡
Very interesting. Great video. Well done sir. Legend
this video could be used by real military classes to study german infantry squad tactics. very well done. i hope we see more of this in the near future!
most of these would have been taught to Military Academy's already
I’d love if all nations could get this! Brilliant video!
really liked this video. hope to see more in the future for the other nations.
Yes was hoping for a video likes this, please griffen more squad videos.
I would love to see more of this sort of thing. Like British squad tactics for comparison.
And of the Red Army as well as the Japanese
Hey Griffin, I would love to see a video comparing the basic trainings between the major nations at this point. German, Japan, American etc.
I second that.
Dude amazing work on the thumbnail and office those video!
Good and informative video, the animation in particular is well done. Keep up the good work. :-)
“I was saving the planet from an Axis of Darkness, while you were back home opening National Parks! Yes!” Winston Churchill
Bully! A challenge! I love competition! Now where would I mount the stuffed head of a Winston?
That has just about nothing to do with this video though.
@@chrisidoo yes it does. Axis of Darkness means the axis team. It’s from a rap battle between Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt.
Really superb illustrations and explanations! I’m an infantryman and find this extremely fascinating. The modern US army models itself a lot after how the Germans did it. They really revolutionized things. Our guns are the key of any squad or platoon. I’d like to know more about what the riflemen did, you made it sound like they just bounded/rushed straight forward? Sounds pretty sketchy with just a bolt action rifle, maybe they relied heavily on grenades or instead of rushing forward they flanked very wide and used the range of their rifles when possible from superior angles. Very interesting man. I’d like to hear more details on the lowest level rifleman’s role. Nice job!
Great video man 👍
That was an awesome video and the sponsorship video was cool too.
Great video as always, I love the topics lately especially the Axis Powers as they aren’t talked about or viewed at this prospective very often. Keep up the amazing work and videos!
A Soviet-Afghan War vid would be super duper awesome
During 5:00 the magic cards form of the squad brings alot of memories. Thanks for it.
Love the video and that MTG reference
a little error: at 8:32 the Czech "záchvat" doesn't mean attack, it means seizure 😂
Also the latvian "uzbrukums" is just nominative noun or something idk "Uzbrukumā" ( into [the] attack) would be more accurate _perhaps_ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm currently beating it to a tiger 2
Wtf
Thanks for such contents
love ur vids man
7:20 this is the type of scene that makes AH special
Nice video. Interestingly enough I'm currently working on a novel (part of a series) involving a German infantryman in an alternate history where Operation Valkyrie succeeded and a civil war broke out between the Army (and left-wing factions) and the SS, my protagonist is fighting against the Nazis. But still it will make some interesting dynamics as both sides will have been trained in these tactics and be used against each other.
Absolutely stunning animation, wow
My grandpa was in the Army for 30 years he was a E-8A in Bravo Company he was in Germany and saw the remains of the Reichstag
Great video, as always would like to see the squad Tactics of USA or Great Britain in WW2
Excellent video thank you.
So well made!
Has the Armchair Historian ever tackled any Napoleonic content? Not that I’ve seen but it would be a great. Great channel.
He covered one on Borodino
Sabaton- Stormtroopers Strike at zero hour With overwhelming firepower They're fueled by the fear in their enemies eyes It's a shock troop infiltration A fast and violent escalation Out of the trenches the Stormtroopers rise!
A beautiful new episode! Personally, I would love to see WW2 British squad tactics!
Thank you for video sir
The attic was to make one group to surrender and give low moral to enemy It would fail if moral of enemy is higher cause no turn back means over runned
For your next video, could you maybe cover d-day from the Norwegian perspective or cover the German invasion of Norway?
Would love to see a video about that, my great grandfather was wehrmacht in the campaign in Norway his squad comprised of Norwegians, Germans and finish troops fighting against the communist Russians.
4:00 That stamina meter needs a "+50%" for each Pervitin tablet the soldier eats...lol 🤔👍😆
Amazing video and animation!
germans soldiers would also say Meine Ehre Heisst Treue which means My Honor Is Loyalty