Star Media - Soviet Storm WWII in the East Series 2 (2012) Part 3 The Air War

On 22nd June 1941, Adolf Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa–the Nazi invasion of Soviet Russia. Four million troops, backed by 19 panzer divisions, fought their way east, confident of total victory within a just few short months. They were wrong. Instead of collapsing, the Soviet Union held strong and–under the utterly ruthless leadership of Josef Stalin–fought a savage, four year war of attrition on a scale the world had never before witnessed. Over 30 million people would be slaughtered in the horror, most of them civilians. Four out of every ten German soldiers to be killed in WWII would die fighting the Russians. The Red Army suffered ten times as many dead as the Western Allies combined. Hitler and Stalin were prepared to accept losses on any scale in the pursuit of victory. Soviet Storm tells the complete story of the War on the Eastern Front, profiling the epic campaigns and battles, revealing the tactics employed by both sides and exposing the true horrors of a conflict almost unimaginable in its sheers cruelty and depravity. Here were the greatest civilian losses the largest battle and the biggest tank battle–Kursk–the world has ever seen. This was war on a scale and ferocity never seen before as Hitler and Stalin battled for the future of the world. Soviet Storm WWII In The East tells the incredible stories from the Second World War's biggest and bloodiest theatre of war. Told from an unprecedented Russian perspective the episodes explore some of the most devastating battles of World War II from the Red Army's catastrophic encirclement at Kiev in 1941 to the notorious Rzhev meat-grinder. The series also looks at the dramatic recovery of the Soviet air force from it's almost total destruction in the first days of the war, the role of Baltic Sea Fleet submarines, the brutal partisan war fought against a backdrop of Nazi genocide, and the crucial role of Soviet secret intelligence. Across 18 episodes the biggest battles, the key personalities and the decisive weapons of the war are examined in depth including legendary tanks like the T-34 and the Tiger, and less well-known Soviet aircraft such as the Ilyushin 2 flying tank or the superb Lavochkin La-5 fighter. From the German invasion of 22nd June 1941 through to the brutal fighting outside the gates of Moscow, the savage street-fighting of Stalingrad, and the long, bloody road to Berlin, this is an epic retelling of the world s most devastating conflict. Especially produced to mark the 75th anniversary of Operation Barbarossa with unrivalled access to rare and and previously unseen combat film from military archives, Soviet Storm WW2 in the East is by far the most detailed and extensive film history of the war on the Eastern Front ever released.

Produced by Star Media and Babich Design for Channel One Russia; english edition for History UK

Part 13 The Air War

On 22 June 1941, German pilots were the first to see the sun rise. Before the day was over, the Soviet Air Forces had lost almost 2,000 aircraft. The early German air superiority gave a significant boost to German confidence, and severely damaged Soviet military capability and morale. The air wars over the USSR would be some of the biggest and toughest in military history. Before the war attack aircraft of both sides had similar flight performance, and the air fleets of the Germans and the Russians were in approximately equal conditions. But soon the German designer Messerschmitt was able to achieve a significant increase in the speed of aircraft - up to 620 kilometers per hour, while the Soviet I-153s were still flying at a speed of 428 kilometers per hour, which did not prevent them from playing a significant defensive role, but in the attack they were useless. In addition, literally in the first days of the war, the entire fleet of Soviet aviation was seriously damaged, turned into wreckage, without even making a single takeoff. The heroism of the Soviet pilots, who carried out bombing flights with small forces and means, amazed even the German command.

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