Leningrad

I wanna know why no textbooks mention what happened at Leningrad, I mean there was intense fighting there for like 3 years and the soviets defended the city

If it's American textbooks, it's because they want to take all the credit for winning the GPW.

What Comrade Vlad said is true for the most part, if it is indeed an American book in origin. Most American books will go in depth on American involvement and generally skim over the Soviet involvement.

However, a better more involved history book shouldn't leave it out. Look for one that has a better more unbiased view on the conflict.

ya i guess ill have to because i got a book from my grandmother about the war and it goes on and on about all sides, allied and axis and the soviets too, then i learn about it at school and even in Canada it says nothing about the USSR, its just like well canada went along and fought and them and the british might of lost if the US hadn't come to the rescue:P

Basically, German forces surrounded the city on August 19, 1941. Von Leeb, the Army Group North commander, ruled out a storming as too costly, so German forces settled in for a protracted siege. Over a million Russians died in the siege, mostly due to starvation, though also due to the daily artillery bombardments. The food situation was so bad that a civilian ration was 250 calories a day, a worker ration 500 calories a day, and a soldier's ration 800 calories a day. On January 28, 1944, Soviet forces freed Leningrad. It should be noted that the Germans greatly distinguished themselves during this retreat--on one occassion, the evacuation of an artillery firebase south of the city, three Tiger tanks destroyed 88 T-34 tanks (without air support) to give the men behind them time to retreat.

yee sure 88 t-34 mm yes and my granfather singelhadely destroyed 1 000 000 nazi german soilders

Throughout my years in Highschool, they never really went in too deep about World War 2 other than Germany was bad, Hitler was pure evil and some junk about D-Day landings and Pearl Harbor.

Outside the normal classes, my IB Modern History (international baccalaureate) class didn't go into much detail about Russia except the Russian Revolution. I find it sad that when I got to that class I already knew more about Modern European and Russian History than my teacher or any of my classmates.

By the time I graduated from highschool and started studying even deeper into history (mainly WW2, Soviet History, Third Reich Germany, Mussolini and the Spanish Civil War), I felt pretty dissappointed by the limited historical education I had recieved.

It's one thing to live in the US and not hear much about the British when learning about the American Revolution, but do they really need to take all this credit and give very low details about the other participants in WW2 other than the basics and subjective analysis by our side.

Daovonnaex wrote:

on one occassion, the evacuation of an artillery firebase south of the city, three Tiger tanks destroyed 88 T-34 tanks (without air support) to give the men behind them time to retreat.

Dude. What have you been smoking? Unless the T-34's were all lined up in a row not moving with nobody operating them, but otherwise...
Shouldn't it be obvious that three tigers could not destroy 88 t-34's?
Geez.

Comrade Vlad wrote:

Dude. What have you been smoking? Unless the T-34's were all lined up in a row not moving with nobody operating them, but otherwise...
Shouldn't it be obvious that three tigers could not destroy 88 t-34's?
Geez.

This isn't that implausible, Vlad. To begin with, these where modified Tigers (Tiger Mk 1b, not Tiger II) with the 128mm guns, rather than the 88mm guns. The 128mm gun could destroy a T-34 from a range of over 3,500 yards or about two miles (approximately 3200 meters). Furthermore, the Tiger tanks where situated on a promintory, whereas the T-34s where on a heavily cratered and scarred plain. The height advantage allowed the Tigers a range of at least 4,000 yards, and through the cratered field the T-34s were unable to advance more than seven miles per hour (about 3 meters per second). As these were primarily T-34/76s, they could not hope to destroy the Tigers until at least being within 1,000 yards. Thus, they had to cover over 3,000 yards before being able to strike back. Given that it would take 1,000 seconds, or nearly seventeen minutes to cover that distance, is that particularly surprising?

YES ITS WERRY HARD TO BELIVE THIS CLAIME! YOu have not considerd other factors, the soviet air force would have destroyed those to tigers if they were slathering t-34! and i dont belive that they can hit whit evry shot, they had to load the guns point and shout etc, no this "fact" most be false

Quote:

If it's American textbooks, it's because they want to take all the credit for winning the GPW.

YES! Unfortuanatly that is true for the most part. Though, i am in the tenth grade and history textbook does mention Leningrad. But only briefly. Out of around 35 pages about ww2, the eastern front is mentioned in about 2 pages. The rest is d-day, pearl harbor, iwo-jima, hiroshima, ect...
Basically the paragraph (8 sentances) about leningrad says that the germans surrounded the city, the people starved, ate breifcases and other people, and the red army didnt come to free them from the seige until 1944. It doesnt give a very good impression of what really happened.
Also, it barely mentions stalingrad. There are two paragraphs about it, one is a qoute from the diary of a fascist officer talking about being cold and hungry. Then it lists the german number of casualties.
The chapter about ww2 is ended by a very bad political cartoon

WESTERN BLANCMANGE PROPAGANDA

i just looked through my history text book and the only thing i found about the eastern front is a brief summary of stalingrad.The rest is about d day,pearl harbour,london bombings , and the two a bombs droped on japan.

It's so sad to see western sources underplaying the role of the USSR during WWII. After all, Bagaration (sp?) did so much more to end the war than D-Day.

it seems to me that everyone underplays the role of the USSR, they say the "commies" couldn't do anything and that America did it all, they even underplay Britain in this case.

Three Tigers could destroy 88 T-34s if situated on good position. Even normal Tigers 88mm could kick T-34s front armor from 2000 meters or more. T-34s couldnt do a thing. They could fire on Tigers but they would have no chance to kick their front armor from that distance.

Birkin wrote:

Three Tigers could destroy 88 T-34s if situated on good position. Even normal Tigers 88mm could kick T-34s front armor from 2000 meters or more. T-34s couldnt do a thing. They could fire on Tigers but they would have no chance to kick their front armor from that distance.

That's a horrible overexxaration of a Tiger's capability! 88 T-34s would easily be able to outflank those Tigers, and completely maul them

A good book on the Siege of Leningrad is called Leningrad and it's written by David M. Glantz - although hard liner leftist on this forum dismiss Glantz as an idiot - I think he's the best military analyst on Soviet and German preformance on the Eastern Front.

Sorry, but that is true. Tiger could kick T-34s front armor from over 2000 meters. T-34 on the other hand couldt do that. The 76.2mm model wouldnt have a chance, while the 85mm model couldnt penetrate Tigers front armor either ( expect from really close range ). 85mm would be needed to hit the side or rear armor to destroy a Tiger.

As I said, if the Tigers would be in good firing positions and they would have a good wiew of the battlefield, they would easily destroy that many T-34s.

Shells wouldnt be a problem. Tiger could carry about 90 shells or more.

Birkin wrote:

Sorry, but that is true. Tiger could kick T-34s front armor from over 2000 meters. T-34 on the other hand couldt do that. The 76.2mm model wouldnt have a chance, while the 85mm model couldnt penetrate Tigers front armor either ( expect from really close range ). 85mm would be needed to hit the side or rear armor to destroy a Tiger.

As I said, if the Tigers would be in good firing positions and they would have a good wiew of the battlefield, they would easily destroy that many T-34s.

Shells wouldnt be a problem. Tiger could carry about 90 shells or more.

Again, I don't doubt the Tiger's ability - I doubt the ability of five Tigers being able to destroy eighty T-34s..it's just not realistic. In no combat scenario would this be possible - the Tiger tanks had repeated chances to show what you have tried to prove throughout 1943, 1944 and 1945, and never did they do this.

The T-34/85, in my opinion, was on par, or better than the upgraded Sherman, which first came out as the British Firefly - and the Tigers didn't have close to that success against these tanks.

T-34 was not as good tank than British Firefly, in the term of armor penetration.

" I doubt the ability of five Tigers being able to destroy eighty T-34s..it's just not realistic. In no combat scenario would this be possible - the Tiger tanks had repeated chances to show what you have tried to prove throughout 1943, 1944 and 1945, and never did they do this "

Now that is yust not true. Even a single Tiger could be more effective against a whole mass of T-34s then you may think. If the Tigers would be in good position, it would have a good view of area, it would be quite possible to destroy 88 T-34s.

Ect: In July 1943, during the Summer Offensive " Operation Citadel ", a single Tiger tank commanded by SS-Oberscharfuehrer Franz Staudegger engaged an group of 50 T-34 tanks in Psyolknee. He destroyed 22 of the tanks while others retreated.

That was a sole tank that took out 22 T-34s, so I dont see why three Tigers couldnt take out 88.

Need more examples?

What really gets on my nerves about the way americans write their text books is that they leave out everything good about any other countries except themselves. THe only thing that peopel really learn about the USSR in my school comes from me when I stand up and tell people the truth of what happened, most of them think I'm lieing and just ignore me, but the one with an open mind actually learn the truth, and Leningrad was one of those truths that most will never hear about, and it was the worst seige of a city in history. During the actual war America promised to start D-day 3 years before they did, yes they did send supplies, but hey didn't have that many men in the pacific, so they could spare a few, they wanted to see the Soviet Union to take a few hits from hitler before they came to the rescue. Even when they did start putting people into Europe, to fight the Nazis it was when we had pushed them out of our borders and started marching into occupied territory, I personally don't belive in coinsidence, they did it because they wanted to snatch a little peice of victory right under our noses and watch our people die before they step in.