Episode 23: Blue Jubilee

This counterattack would not be a massive hammer blow on the Germans like Stalin had imagined. Instead it was more like a determined shove. The Soviet army was composed almost entirely of greenhorns and lacked heavy weapons of all kinds. In some instances even small arms were lacking and men were sent into battle unarmed, told to pick up a weapon when they found one. If it weren't for the beleaguered state the Germans were in the counteroffensive would have hardly made a dent. The only real advantage red army troops had was that they had proper winter clothing. So when the green, lightly armed, soviet conscripts met the exhausted, freezing, exposed Germans they succeeded in pushing them back.