1942
Field Marshal Fedor von Bock launches Operation Blau and hurls three armies and 11 Panzer divisions East in a massive assault whose objective is nothing short of the Caucasus mountains and oilfields. In classic blitzkrieg style, the Germans fan out across open steppe and grassland, crushing the 40th Army, folding the 13th Army northward and disintegrating the reeling 21st and 28th Armies. Russian troop command crumbles under the drive. Russian logistics, exhausted by the Moscow counteroffensive, cannot keep up with the demand. A German sergeant tells Propaganda Kompanie men "It's quite different from last year, it's more like Poland. The Russians aren't nearly so thick on the ground. They fire their guns like madmen, but they don't hurt us!" That evening, in Sevastopol, German troops cross North Bay under a smoke screen and seize the southern shore, capturing Inkerman in the process.
[Germans advancing in Russia]
1944
In the Cotentin Peninsula (part of the north-west coast of France), American forces of US 1st Army prepare to eliminate German resistance in the direction of Cap de la Hague. Allied forces cross the Odon River on a 2 mile front near Mondrainville.
[Canadian troops in France]