Fantastic, clear Battle of Berlin Russian documentary

[John Kettler]

Those of you who are tired of grainy German war footage will find this downright refreshing. Not only is the power of the late war Red Army on full display, but you can see for yourself lots of things not usually covered, to include bridge building, smoke ops, lead recon elements, pipelines

and fuel trucks, unit assembly areas and camouflage,

command posts, amphibious jeeps in combat, one of which appears to be laying commo wire during a river crossing, etc. Incredible street fighting sequences to include civilians watching it nonchalantly while standing fully exposed, flamethrower teams, combat photographers, medics,

prisoner capture, etc. Female Russian soldiers are shown in combat as is Russian use of the Panzerfaust.

The shattering might of the God of War (Russian artillery

both tube and rocket) is stunningly in evidence, as is some great footage of Il-2 and Pe-2 attacks, even dogfight gun cam footage! Armor galore (T-34/76, T-34/85/Zveroboi/SU-76/SU-85/SU-100, IS-2 etc.)!

Amazingly, despite my almost nil Russian vocabulary, I found the commentary fairly intelligible. Also, there's withering use of early war German footage contrasted with the BoB stuff, as when they cut from a German nighttime torch parade to German POWs ducking as salvo after salvo of Katyusha fire is launched tens of meters from their column. Film really shows how many great street fighting options CMBB doesn't have (122,152, 203, etc. in DF role).

Battle of Berlin Part 1 (Prelude)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg_ndWU_vRI&mode=related&search=

Battle of Berlin Part 2 Can anyone ID the weapon seen ~ minute 8 when the debarkation begins from the amphib jeeps? It's too short to be a bazooka, and I'm thinking it might be an early RPG or somesuch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-K7b8sAH1w&mode=related&search=

Battle of Berlin Part 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gx9fI2mc7Q&mode=related&search=

Battle of Berlin Part 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LXBDKKpLxw&mode=related&search=

Battle of Berlin Part 5 (Aftermath)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUBDaAB6glM&mode=related&search=

Regards,

John Kettler

[Guest Mike]

Looks like an M1 Bazooka to me -

the Bazooka is 54" long - 4 1/2 feet, and that looks like about what's shown here.

Great find - notice there's lots of heavy guns shown firing - the usual mix of 76's, 122's 152's and 203's, but also some big ones that look like the might have been more at home in WW1 - some details of Soviet super-heavy artillery are available on the RKKA site - with 50 or so each of the 280mm mortar and 305mm howitzer made that's got to be some fairly rare footage!

Great find - thanks!

[John Kettler]

Stalin's Organist,

I've seen lots of bazooka pics over the years, and it looks way too short too me, but that may be an artifact of how briefly whatever it is is visible.

That's why I floated the possibility that it might be some RPG ancestor. The pronounced right angled? grip would fit such a scenario. Another potential explanation is that it is a bazooka, but the airborne takedown model, the M9A1. The second assembly with the trigger group and shoulder stock does somewhat fit what the film shows. Am basing my conclusion Gander's THE BAZOOKA, page 19. That book, BTW, also has some great stuff on the Panzerschreck, the Panzerfaust, the Panzerwurfmine and the PIAT.

Glad you like the film. Will have a look at the RVGK stuff at the link.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ April 11, 2007, 08:42 PM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[Guest Mike]

no - it's certainly a M1 bazooka with the wooden front grip as per the picture I posted above.

the "Ancestor" of the modern RPG was the Pz-faust, which the Sov's kept in production in the cities they captured as the RPG-1.

The RPG-2 was a Soviet development of the Pz-faust 150, and it is from this that all subsequent RPG's were developed.

the weapon in the video bears no resemblance to any of them.

Pz-fst 150:

RPG-2:

[MeatEtr]

Good find John, good quality footage/documentary. Too bad I don't know russian though. I'd love to watch a english translated version.

Btw, what is that arty piece(big, at least 152mm) that looks like it's mounted on tracks of some kind?

[Guest Mike]

Probably the 203mm howitzer model 1931 B4 (on the left) or a 152mm field gun model 1935 BR-2 on the right

[MeatEtr]

Yep, that's it, nice pic with great detail. They look pretty mean and imposing for arty pieces. It would of been great if we got these for CMBB for on-map direct fire. Did the russians ever actually use these for direct fire? I'm sure there were a few instances when they did. But how common of a practice was it?

[Bigduke6]

Certainly the Soviets used the B-4 203mm howitzer for direct fire. As artillery pieces go it was one of the more photographed, as it's on tracks, but has no engine. Maybe that helped in city rubble, I dunno.

Direct-fire artillery was always part of Soviet city-fighting doctrine, it's documented at least back to Stalingrad. The standard piece for this job was the 76mm infantry gun, which had that great big shield. But sometimes more blast was needed.

I would say the direct-fire gun tactic saw really wide use after the Germans took to urban areas wherever they could in order to stop the Red Army, and urban areas were relatively dense, or more or less in the last six months of the war. But during this period it was SOP. If a town or city needed clearly, it was assumed the infantry needed lots of HE behind it. The ideal solution was SP guns, but failing that a few or more of the artillery pieces normally firing indirect for a given infantry formation, would get parceled out to assault units. The technique was just to level anything that resisted.

On the vids I can understand the Russian, and generally, it's not exactly informative. The film is a Soviet documentary on the Berlin operation, aimed at the general public and for sure shown in movie houses. The visuals are better for learning obscure things, like now we know where at least some of the 3,000 (I think that number's right) bazookas the Americans sent the Soviets, wound up - 100 per cent those are bazookas those guys are carrying.

My bet is the Soviets created special anti-tank detachments and that's why we see them in an early wave during the assault across the Oder.

I haven't watched all the pieces but so far my favorite bit are the recon boys driving off in their (imported) armored cars - not the kind of fellows you'd want to be hiding from on a dark night I think.

Also I like the Kazakh engineer on the bridge; the Red Army had all sorts of great nationalities in it, only the Commonwealth could compete for ethnic variety.

[Guest Mike]

There are some photos around of a 203 in Berlin firing horizontally!!

[John Kettler]

MeatEtr, Bigduke6, Stalin's Organist,

I remember being amazed when I first saw them depicted in the Ballantines book by Hogg THE GUNS 1939-1945. The unpowered tracks were fitted to allow the guns to be moved without sinking into the mud, a big deal in a country with very few paved roads.

Here's a beautiful three view of the B-4 203mm howitzer, plus additional information including a street fighting pic. The B-4 is readily observable in the Berlin documentary in the direct fire role. Beware the extra zero in the shell weight!

http://www.o5m6.de/b-4.html

The Russians reckoned direct fire, for a given caliber, as being 10 x as effective, round for round, as indirect fire. Guns in the DF role also went a long way toward addressing serious deficiencies in the ability to mass and control fires, especially during the critical opening stages of an offensive.

I think the "armored cars" being referred to are in fact amphibious unarmored jeeps, or did I miss something? Those recon units have lots of firepower. I see 2 x LMG per amphibious jeep plus at least one bazooka. Since the translated Russian analyses I've read of Russian bridgehead defense consistently emphasize the need for heavy volumes of fire to hold off infantry assault and antiarmor means to help repel the inevitable armored German counterstroke, the footage neatly tracks with both doctrine and perceived tactical requirements.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ April 14, 2007, 04:23 PM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[Guest Mike]

Which bits are the armoured cars in?

i've only watched #2 so far...

I read somewhere revcently that the Lend-Lease ampibious jeeps were formed into seperate river crossing units.

[Bigduke6]

I'm pretty sure the recon boys are in reel three, you see them climbing in and tooling off, and the voiceover says somthing about the recon moving out. They were open topped armored cars so I assume Whites, that the standard vehicle late-war. Not BA, certainly, and the side armor is too low for a halftrack. (Which as I read didn't get used by the recon BTW.)

[Guest Mike]

There's some "Whites" at 1:30 in part 2 - can't tell whether they're scout cars or h/tracks but more likely the later I think as they seem a bit too long for scouts.

At 7:05 there is a long section showing amphibious jeeps being stripped of cover and men climbing onto them then crossing a river - one is paying out a wire behind which seems kind of weird.

These are standard US amphibious jeeps - not armoured, and not considered much use by the Americans. The US tried to use them in sea-landings, but they were too small and unseaworthy so they sent almost all of them to the Soviets, who found they were pretty good for river crossings as shown here.

It is these jeeps that the 2 men with bazookas get out of at 8 minutes, and a few more shots from about 8.25-8.50.

At 4:13 in part 2 is a shot of a very long gun firing - I'm not sure but I think it might be a German 170mm - the Soviets captured a lot and made up serveral usints using them and other german heavy artillery.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Stalin's Organist:

[snips]

the "Ancestor" of the modern RPG was the Pz-faust, which the Sov's kept in production in the cities they captured as the RPG-1.

The RPG-2 was a Soviet development of the Pz-faust 150, and it is from this that all subsequent RPG's were developed.

Not so. RPG-1 is the designation for what was originally known as the LPG-44, developed under the auspices of G. P. Lominskiy of the main artillery directorate in 1944. This is the precursor of the RPG-2 (originally designated DRG-40, developed under A. V. Smolyak), to which it bears a substantial visual resemblance -- more so that the PZF-150 (which I've seen illustrated without the pistol grip). As far as I'm aware, the PF-150 only reached the state of troop trials by the end of the war.

The PG-2 (originally PG-80) warhead of the RPG-2 bears a striking resemblance to the PZF-150 warhead, and the similarity in performance suggests that some copying may have gone on here. But to suggest that all RPGs were developed from the PZF-44 is quite wrong.

Sources:

Small Arms, Artillery & Special Weapons of the Third Reich, Gander & Chamberlain, MacDonald & Jane's, 1978.

Panzerfaust, Fleischer, Schiffer Publishing, 1994.

Protivotankoviye granatomyotniye kompleksi (Anti-tank launcher systems), Lovi, Koren'kov, Bazilevich & Korablin, Vostochniy Gorizont, 2000.

All the best,

John.

[Guest Mike]

Interesting - I'd never heard of the LPG-44 etc, so thanks for that.

However the whole RPG system bears such a striking resemblance physically to the PZ-150 that it's goign to be something people remark upon for a long time, and more details are goign to have to be found on design, inspiration, etc before that is generally accepted.

It's taken decades for the AK-47 to finally be accepted as not "just a copy" of the StG43, and it is much better documented.

However the weapons in the video arestill bazookas!!

[John Kettler]

Stalin's Organist,

Just saw footage of a B-4 (firing horizontally) on The Lost Evidence: Battle of Berlin. Not only that,

but there was an interview with a Russian veteran of the battle describing how even the 203mm howitzers, firing direct, were unable to make an impression on the massive reinforced concrete and steel, heavily armed 6-story Berlin flak towers. Basically, the Russians avoided them as much as possible, but sometimes, as when they entered the Tiergarten, simply had to endure a hail of fire from them, ranging from MGs up through multiple, power rammed 128mm Flak.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Guest Mike]

Yes well those flak towers had concrete many feet thick, and a 203mm howitzer is only a short 8" gun remember - concrete busters are normally 12" or larger - the mortars used against liege in WW1 were up to 420mm IIRC - 16.5"!!

[John Kettler]

Stalin's Organist,

I believe 8" howitzers, firing HE with Delay fuze, were pretty effective against ordinary pillboxes, but there was nothing ordinary about those flak towers. There's a Schiller? book on the flak towers, and their massiveness is simply astounding. What I don't understand, though, is why the Russians didn't mortar, strafe and bomb the rooftop guns in order to silence them.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Guest Mike]

There's a wiki article on flak towers with photos of the surviving ones - probably the 128's were not the problem as I doubt they'd have enough depression to hit.

Indeed probably anythign on the roof would be fairly useless vs ground targets.

However they were invariably centres of resistance with lots of ground troops and civilians around them.

the roofs probably were cleared....but then what do you do? They're too high to scale, too thick to penetrate, so you just starve them out - which is what happened.

"Ordinary" pillboxes might have a foot of concrete, or even none at all - flak towers had 8-10 feet.

[Silvio Manuel]

Were they maybe firing the 128's at max. depression as indirect fire? Maybe at targets one to a few km away?

[John Kettler]

Stalin's Organist,

Per Gander and Chamberlain, WEAPONS OF THE THIRD REICH, p. 128, the 12.8cm Flak 40 could depress 3 degrees, and the smaller 3.7 cm Flak (pp.136-138) could depress 5 degrees for earlier models and as much as 8 degrees for later ones. The 2cm flak weapons could depress from 10-20 degrees (pp.132-133).

The funny cable on the amphibious jeep is field phone wire being laid on the move, a capability widely used during the war but sadly not depicted in any of the WW II CM games. Once that wire is in place, the bridgehead force will have pretty secure, non DFable communications with the rest of the force on the other bank of the river, notably, lots of fire support!

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

Don't know how many of you saw it, but last night the History Channel here in the U.S. debuted a new series called UNDERWORLD, and the first episode was on the buried history of Berlin. Not only did the show present some truly remarkable stuff, most of which was wholly new to me, but there was a segment on the flak towers, and the still partially visible Humboldthain one in particular.

This segment not only addressed how well protected these structures were against even heavy direct fire and bombs, but also had splendid computer reconstructions and some spelunking of sorts with members of the Berlin Underground, a group devoted

to exploring the buried parts of Berlin's past. Was blown away when they revealed that these gigantic structures, too tough to even be blown apart with explosive, thanks to massive amounts of rebar in them, were used as cores for gigantic rubble mounds onto which the ruins of Berlin were dumped after the war and then planted over. This not only allowed the city to be rebuilt, but carried out quite effectively another agenda: making the Nazi monuments vanish. That is why Berlin, an essentially flat city originally built in a swamp, has hills it didn't have during the war.

Regards,

John Kettler

[forseti]

thanks for the links John, this is some excellent footage I have never seen before.

great post!

[John Kettler]

forseti,

You're welcome. Love sharing such discoveries with my fellow gamers!

Regards,

John Kettler