Soviet Storm: WWII in the East

The Battle of Britain is over. The Luftwaffe has been driven to exhaustion, and Germany suffers its first major defeat. Even though Britain remains undefeated, it is so isolated that Hitler has no concerns about turning his attention East. Operation Barbarrossa, the German invasion of the USSR, takes the Soviets completely by surprise and the Red Army suffers terrible casualties.

After the swift success at Smolensk, Hitler has diverted the bulk of Heinz Guderian's panzers down to the South, so as to capture the Ukrainian capital Kiev, considered more important than Moscow in Hitler's mind. It begins a gigantic clash and turns out to be the biggest military encirclement in history.

Erich von Manstein's soldiers have trapped a massive Soviet force in Crimea, but the doomed troops have no intentions of surrendering, obeying Stalin's brutal "Not A Step Back" order. Manstein assembles the greatest concentration of artillery in history, which includes the world's biggest railway-gun nicknamed "Dora," and for eight months Soviets troops are savagely bombarded.

October 1941, Germany's Army Group Center is only some 25 km west of Moscow. The Russian winter, however, is only a few weeks away. With not enough soldiers or military equipment, the Soviet high command's only hope left is that the weather will save the capital. The battle ends in a bloody failure for the German Army, and it is forced to retreat.

Leningrad, a vital and large Baltic sea port, is facing the entire weight of Army Group North. The Soviets have no reserves to spare as the Battle of Moscow is about to begin. Wilhelm von Leeb's Army Group North fails to take Leningrad, but begins a horrible siege that will last 872 days, in which over a million civilians will die of starvation and disease.

The capture of Rzhev, the city that connects all railroads in Western Russia, is imperative. It will cost the lives of some 3 million Soviet soldiers and 500,000 German soldiers. It will take the Soviets a total of 3 years to throw the Germans firmly out of the city. These bloodbaths will become known by the veterans and historians as "The Rzhev Meat-Grinder."

After the failure to take both Moscow and Leningrad, Hitler sets his sights on the oil fields in the Caucasus. If captured, the Red Army will lose 70%-90% of all its oil resources. Therefore, the famous city on the Volga, Stalingrad, must be "held at all costs." The German General Staff thinks taking the city will be a matter of a few weeks, but events steadily turn against the Germans.

Ewald von Kleist has broken through to the Terek river, slap in front of the vital oil fields of Grozny and Baku. Only freezing temperatures in the Caucasus prevent von Kleist's 1st Panzer Army from breaking through to Ozoni Kizi and Tbilisi. The Soviets launch a desperate counter-attack that holds the Germans back.

After two years of war, Hitler was no closer to victory in the East, and his forces had suffered a devastating defeat at Stalingrad. Now the Germans gathered their strength for one last massive offensive to decide the outcome of the war.