The Minor Axis Tank Meme

[Music] [Music] you know yes my name is Frank rhymes I'm Lenny this is Carl and Homer I'm Lenny Wow we've got pencils with your name on them just like a pencil company executive I'd give anything for one of these any office supply company can have made up for you can I have this one Simpson do you know who chewed Mike thank you to our sponsor today wargaming their game World of Tanks a massive online free-to-play tank warfare strategy game with over 150 million players worldwide all the tanks are true to life models with realistic upgrades that can be earned and applied to enhance your tank as you progress the strategy changes between vehicles and maps so you can try out your gifted and outdated tanks on the steppes of Russia and in the islands of Southeast Asia pretending you didn't sign on with a country that is marching you to your doom take part in joint operations to spot track and destroy enemy units hoping the Germans will give you something that can actually kill a t-34 by downloading World of Tanks for free here and use my code tank tastic to unlock a bonus t1 27 Soviet bias machine 500 gold and 7 days a premium time throughout this series covering the major powers tanks of world war ii i've gotten a lot of requests to cover many of the minor and more forgotten countries tanks used during the conflict and although their involvement and numbers were limited I like to think myself a true man of the people I once again and want to give them what they want so this will be the penultimate episode in the series not counting the wrap-up video focusing on the tanks of the minor axis allies in a fair warning it's difficult to find footage of minor axis nations soldiers let alone their tanks so prepare for a lot of stills in general as close as possibly related footage the minor axis allies unlike the countries of the Allies themselves where many times in a strange sort of limbo between a true Alliance and a sphere of influence working towards common goals it's not a big secret that the Axis powers did not work together in the most effective way possible in fact some circumstances between the big three you could even argue that they worked in opposition of each other from time to time and the minor nations were no exception to this the minor axis nations were an attempt by Germany to restore the old austro-hungarian alliance from the Great War back to practice as best as possible but the nations with him were not given the same respect and Trust as true allies would be given and we're often treated more as pawns and service to German interests and kind of a bulwark against the USSR many of the countries within the sphere did not get along well with old rivalries flaring out making for a very complicated web of groups to help in subduing the Soviets and with the countries being small and lacking in a lot of heavy industry you will probably begin to see some common factors emerge as we rapid-fire through these Croatia broke off and declared independence from Yugoslavia at the onset of the German invasion I only got a small portion of the very small Yugoslavian armored force upon Yugoslavia is defeat Germany permitted its formal formation and recognition although it would be expected that the remaining of the Yugoslavs would have been handed over to them most were seized by the Germans except for a handful of French FTS and our thirty fives purchased before the war however later the Italians and Hungarians agreed to provide some AFV assistance with small numbers of l-3 tankettes handed over Croatia's main role in the war was wool crow anti partisan activities however they did send volunteers to the Eastern Front most notably guarding the flanks around Stalingrad and as time went on acquired a hodgepodge of whatever tanks they could beg borrow and steal including for Panzer ones 16 Polish tankettes a handful of Panzer twos and threes and 15 H 39 and s 35 tanks by 1944 and they were generally divided among new established rifle and mountain brigades with the largest single acquisition of tanks coming from vehicles left behind by the Italians when they exited the war in 1943 followed by a few late models of Panzer 3 and 4 used against the Red Army in 1945 the vehicles never amounted collectively to more than a few armored battalions and did not change Croatia's war fortunes in any significant way [Music] Slovakia was the first minor nation to join uncle Hitler's wild ride after gaining independence following German annexation of the Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia a fascist state was set up in March of 1939 and an army was created from the materials of the former Czechoslovakia me inheriting around 80 LVT z35 tanks after assisting with the German invasion of Poland the military wanted to build up its armored force but ran into trouble with Germany not wanting to supply the vehicles later they did eventually secure 32 panzer 38t s in 21 LTV Z 40s organized into a mobile division which they then took into the Soviet Union as part of Army Group south but most tanks were lost by February of 1942 forcing the mobile division to be redesignated as an infantry division in August of 1943 after being virtually destroyed while fighting in Crimea in 1944 though as Germany became desperate for troops to hold back the inevitable the Germans began to rebuild the Slovak army by giving them all the tanks they didn't want anymore including panzer 38t x' panzer threes elf's n & panzer twos else F which fought on the front until the Slovak uprising where many of the tanks were turned on their former master only to be crushed by the Germans and Slovak loyalists although being allied to Germany for the majority of the war Bulgaria refused to declare war on and send troops into the Soviet Union leaving its largest contribution to allowing German troops erode into Greece and helping with anti-partisan actions in Yugoslavia owning a similarly modest tank force to the previous to its first tanks receiving 33 s and Vickers 6-ton errs purchased from Italy in Britain in the 30s forming two tank companies assigned to too fast divisions they added 16 Panzer 35 T's to the gang in 1940 which allowed them to create an armored Brigade in 1941 with some war trophy our thirty fives added later by the Germans after beginning to fight in 1943 the Germans rewarded this overjoyed with Bulgaria finally getting into the suicide pact by supplying them with around 60 Panzer threes and full Bulgaria thanked the Germans by promptly switching sides and using their gifted tanks to fight the remainder of the war alongside the Soviets all the way into Hungary where they ended the war in 1945 [Music] Romania unlike many of the countries mentioned was actually on the on tante side of the great war and as a result had very good relations with its former allies in the interwar years purchasing multiple models of French tanks along with multiple models from Czechoslovakia with many attempts at licensed production that never really panned out however the annexation of Czechoslovakia and the Munich crisis ended this steady supply and new tanks were only acquired after the collapse of Poland as the Polish 21st armored battalion escaped through Romania leaving their tanks behind boosting numbers of our thirty fives and adding a handful of Polish made tankettes modernizing the first Tank Regiment and allowing the creation of a second after multiple German broker Territory losses for Romania fascist regime took over and crawled back to Germany like a battered housewife falling under its sphere and they right away requested more tanks from the Czech plants requests which were promptly denied by the Germans however Romania still threw in behind them for the international fight against Bolshevism and contributed the most troops of any Eastern ally and one tank division that was tactically misused resulting in large losses around Odessa most of these were from mechanical failure but a good amount were lost in combat is what by the end of 1941 the shattered tank units were sent back for overhaul and to be merged with Panzer 35 T's that Germany had finally agreed to hand over however it had become very clear that the Romanian tanks were wholly ineffective against their Soviet counterparts and those that continued to be sent in had diminishing returns on their performance doing what they could to up-gunned and convert outdated tanks into self-propelled guns and took any acquisitions from the Czech plants that the Germans could approve later in 1943 Berlin began a rearmament effort to rebuild the 1st Armored Division and create a second selling Romania 114 Panzer Force the Red Army reached Romanian spring of 1944 and after some hard fighting over the summer the King staged a coup in August overthrowing the fascist government in siding with a Red Army turning their tanks on their former Aster's while also being resupplied with small numbers of t-34 85s but still remaining primarily equipped with the vehicles of German origin hungry had the largest armored force of the eastern allies and was the only one to achieve true indigenous tank production first buying foreign models of similar types listed by the previous countries and then beginning home production in 1938 with licensed copies of the Swedish l60 named toll D of which there were a couple variants hungry took part in the invasion of Yugoslavia and Soviet Union deploying told E and CV 33 tanks it was only in 1942 that it formed its first dedicated armored Brigade that later became a division with a hundred 38 TS and 22 Panzer 4 DS acquired from the Germans a second division would follow equipped with Hungarian turn 1 and 2 tanks these however were outgunned by the soviet vehicles because of course they were leading to heavy losses and tank engagements when first deployed in the Carpathians in 1944 despite this the Germans were still impressed with the Hungarians performance in combat and invested them to a higher degree than any other country providing Panzer fours Panthers and surprisingly multiple precious tiger tanks of heavy tank battalion 503 these tanks first went into action in the summer but by late summer had been pushed back to Hungary's eastern frontier and was sent forward after Army Group center died and a rather hopeless attack to try to stop the Soviet onslaught things only got worse when Romania switched sides in late August with the Hungarians attempting to deal with them along with the Red Army for the remainder of the war with the last major action of Hungarian tank forces revolving around the siege of Budapest and the retreat afterwards although invested in more by the Germans and the most successful of the Eastern European armies as far as tanks go hungry still faced many of the same challenges the other countries did I know some of you are probably yelling at your screen wanting me to go into more detail because there's a lot here but for the sake of time I'm going to move on to the last country but I highly encourage you if you're interested to read some more about the Hungarian tank divisions [Music] the biggest takeaway lesson from all of these very similar sounding stories is that tank production is hard I think when talking about the great powers we often take it for granted that each country would make its own model of tank and when we do we begin to nitpick design choices and to ride a vehicle if it's not the very very best but in reality without a good amount of heavy industry and a large economy to support it tank production would be very much out of reach and you'd be a reliant on a larger power to help you outfit your troops with them and if that large power is Germany you're pretty much Germany almost does everything it can to hinder its allies rather than help them when it comes to this they give their allies very outdated tanks in small numbers if they even give them any at all not that the smaller countries should necessarily expect it the Germans did this because they're having trouble fully mechanizing themselves to the level that they wanted and although I've been making jokes this whole time they were trying their best to prioritize and give as many vehicles to those that were fighting with them as they could and by the end of the war when countries were dropping like flies and joining the Soviets they had to be getting nervous that as soon as they gave someone tanks they might be turned back and fired at them as they often were however there were other ways that the Germans could have helped things but blatantly decided not to Finland should have been the model for what the Germans did to assist their allies in this situation by rheic whipping their minor allies with the hoards of Soviet tanks that they were capturing to give these countries vehicles that actually stood a good chance to destroy another Soviet vehicle even the BTS and t-26s would have been an upgrade for a lot of these nations and in 1941 the Germans captured them in droves but instead they immediately sent them back to the smelters in Germany and didn't redistribute them when their allies were hurting for tanks now if the Germans hadn't done this would they have not had this deal to create more of their own tanks possibly the Germans did have shortages of Steel and just about everything at various points in the conflict but with world war ii being a numbers game i can't help but feel that this would have been helpful even standardizing on soviet equipment is more standardization than the minor Allies achieved with this hodgepodge of tanks from anywhere just please let us have some in a finland was used as a model and you add some ammunition production to it maybe you would have seen a better situation and like all things to do with the Axis and Allies in the final episode coming soon about the Allies Myers you will see a beautiful comparison for what to do versus this videos minor axis nations what not to do thank you the world of tanks for sponsoring this episode it was actually surprised by how many of these minor axis nations were represented in the game with various tanks and for a hands-on experience or at least the closest thing you can get to one from a war that ended 75 years ago be sure to check out the link below also thank you to my patrons on patreon giving me the financial stability to weather the plague a lot of them asked for Romanian tanks so here's Romanian tanks plus others thank you all for watching and I'll see you on the next one [Music] [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Potential History

Views: 916,144

Rating: 4.9255767 out of 5

Keywords: Potential History, Meme, ww2, hungary, tanks, romania, slovakia, bulgaria, croatia, eastern front, satire, red army, wehrmacht, toldi, turan, panzer, invasion of yugoslavia, the american tank meme, the german tank meme, the soviet tank meme, country tank meme series, minor axis nations, siege of Budapest

Id: XHgJbDeQifE

Length: 14min 26sec (866 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 20 2020