Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Radio War Nerd EP #592 — Operation Barbarossa, pt. 8: Soviet Union in Wartime, feat. Annibale + Iran War update (Patreon)

Published:
2026-03-25 02:54:05
Imported:
2026-03
Tags:

Downloads

Some files exceed the archive size limit and weren't saved: 1 file. Please note these limits are in place to keep this site running long term, without costing a fortune. You can favorite the creator though, certain milestones increase the limit.

Content

Guest: AnnibaleRecorded: March 24, 2026

As the US Empire descends into madness & defeat, we return to our popular Operation Barbarossa series with Annibale to look at how the Soviet Union adapted to the wartime shock of Hitler's invasion in 1941.

First: We update the US-Israel war on IranAt 43:30 - Music interlude by Brendon Anderegg. Check out music from his group Mountains hereAt 45:30 - Operation Barbarossa, pt. 8

Annibale's Operation Barbarossa:-Operation Barbarossa, pt 1: German Military Mindset (EP #552)-Operation Barbarossa, pt 2: Germany's Allies & Poland (EP #554)-Operation Barbarossa, pt. 3: Soviet Military Preparations (EP #555)-Operation Barbarossa, pt. 4: The Invasion (EP #559)-Operation Barbarossa, pt. 5: Battle of Smolensk (EP #565)-Operation Barbarossa, pt. 6: Battle of Kiev (EP #567)-Operation Barbarossa, pt. 7: Battle of Moscow (I) (EP #569)

Total time: 1:49:02Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

*

Buy & review John Dolan's new book, They Should Have Been Hanged: War Nerd Essays on the U.S. Civil War

Subscribe to Radio War Nerd at patreon.com/radiowarnerd

Sound production by Telescope Audio

Files

Comments

William

Thank god. I almost had to read a book out of boredom

William

Are the bugs…. TICKing you off?

McNuggie

Does Annibal have any written works? Apologies if it’s been written before.

William

Release the Annibale files- show us the calculator

Master and Commander Biden

Signor Annibale, I was wondering if you have ever read up on the role of Mennonites in WW2. I stumbled across a memoir titled “The Constructed Mennonite” by Hans Werner, the German-Canadian son of the memoir’s subject John Werner, who had been a Mennonite in the Soviet Union who has served first in the Red Army and then in the Wehrmacht. It, of course, attempts to wash the father of his sins, sometimes to absurdly comedic effect (a scene comes to mind in which John is at a POW camp at the end of the war and the author Hans takes great pains to say how the Wehrmacht couldn’t stand the SS, and then a few paragraphs later it’s revealed John couldn’t leave the camp with the other Wehrmacht because he was too close to members of the SS in the camp). There is also Panzer Gunner by Bruno Friesen, which is the memoir of a Canadian Mennonite who answered the call of the Vaterland to fight in the Ostfront, fighting in the 25th panzer regiment, 7th panzer division. This one I have yet to read, however. I was sort of surprised at how there seemed to be story upon story about how many Mennonites had joined up with the Wehrmacht to expand the might of Germany when they are supposed to be a pacifist religion. Likewise, the reveal that Mennonite churches in Canada had funneled mass amounts of Wehrmacht and SS members out from Germany after the war was very intriguing as a sort of other tentacle in the ratlines. I feel as though this is a very under-researched topic outside of the various talks mennonites give amongst themselves on this topic every few years that seem to include a lot of apologia under the surface level self flagellations combined with a sternly worded promise to never do it again.

PrinceVocalFry

I'm a new RWN listener and am not sure if they've mentioned it, but I wonder what the RWN community's opinion on Alan Clark's book Barbarossa is. It's my only deep exposure to the campaign, but it seems to agree on the outlines - e.g. the operation was doomed from the start, the Soviets outclassed them on tech by making many of a few models which were therefore easier to replace vs the German making to many varieties of fancy models, Hitler often had better strategic insight than the general staff. Sorry if this had been discussed before

Ander Pierce

Welcome to the show! I've been listening for basically my whole adult life lol. Definitely a staple

NYCM&AHole

Didn’t think of this but yeah need to check to make sure my kids don’t wind up with them.

EnKaff

Nothing like an episode on the cruelest, most destructive theatre of war in human history to distract me from the stupidest and most pointless war in human history

Billy

I'm fairly sure it was Brian Williams not Van Jones who was praising Trump after the Syria strikes early in his first term. That moment had come to mind for me as well in the last couple weeks

Joe S.

What would a collapse even look like? Individual states declaring independence? That doesn't seem remotely possible.

Joe S.

The author seems to confuse collapse with austerity. The US may be failing to take care of people, but their grip on power is as strong as it ever was.

Joe S.

You can't say the system is collapsing and also say it's strong. What's happening is that they are doing terrible things and getting away with it. That isn't collapse. The distinction is important because Americans are constantly deluding themselves about the degree to which their opinions and concerns actually matter to the elite. What the Trump era should reveal is that the American public's ability to resist federal power is vanishingly small. If there actually were a power structure in American society that could meaningfully stand up to the feds then I would say collapse is a possibility. That would be more like the situation in Sri Lanka: warring factions, military coups, etc.

Alex

fwiw - I'm a US citizen, and I don't think collapse is out of the question. The purpose of DOGE was to strip the government to its studs, so the paypal mafia can rebuild using their own fascist/technocracy ideals, using the data they stole to attack any resisting elite via "tax fraud" or whatever they found by stealing all our social security data (Whether it will work in the long run given how heavy handed they are is another question). Trump was maybe the sacrificial lamb for a war the deep state wanted to pursue anyway. Kamala also said Iran was the US's greatest enemy - so I suspect this war is larger than Trump. She stated this in 2024: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/8/kamala-harris-says-iran-is-greatest-adversary-of-us. This war is maybe just the terrible death rattle of a nation that has been dying for decades now. However this war progresses, it works out for the paypal mafia because they can blame errors on Trump, ultimately use him as a sacrificial lamb, and use this failure as an "excuse" to "rebuild" in a fashion Elon + pals deem suitable. They also may use a collapse and the population's desperation to get them to comply with whatever technocracy changes they want to implement. Just a theory -

William

Mark: “So, what’s our topic for today?” Annibale: “first of all, to my haters,” Also add “gun-tooting” (gun-toting) to the list of wonderful phrasings Annibale has given us

Timmy V

In terms of black markets the Ken Burns WW2 documentary mentions that in the US something like 50% (possibly more i dont remember) of commercial transactions during the war years were black market.

jg

ANNIBALE!

Terry Dunk

Is that guy from Oregon who one of Easy Company recognizes from back home among some German POWs in Band of Brothers supposed to be a Mennonite?

ben s

Ticks are getting worse and their territory is spreading due to climate change, loss of predators of deer and fewer birds, and importantly the fact that our forests of the east aren’t allowed to burn any more

Terry Dunk

Annibale please dox yourself to us faithful subscribers I need to know your lore

Master and Commander Biden

I don’t know if he is a Mennonite in particular, but the Mennonites are an interesting subset of that entire Volksdeutche “Answering the Aryan Call” movement that was happening. I think the Mennonite angle is particularly interesting because they took many many records - at least in North America - and have had a lot of open discussion about it since the war, as opposed to the rest of the German-descended world which wasn’t united under a smaller social program that could track them as easily. There’s a section in the postwar part of the Constructed Mennonite where you can very easily infer (insofar as it is almost plainly stated) that the Mennonites in North America also brought over many hundreds of non-Mennonite Germans, who simply claimed membership, to the US but even more particularly Canada where they faced much less scrutiny.

Master and Commander Biden

I would love to at least know the 11 variables. I know he is most likely worried about it being taken too seriously (nobody wants the responsibility of the Weatherman, for it comes with the public ire as well), but I think most of us here would at least be interested in an academic sense in what American intelligence model he based it on and what his changes in variables are.

Jimothy Realname

The Russian army is GONE, the Russian Navy has been WIPED OUT. If they do not surrender Moscow IMMEDIATELY, they will face consequences that no country has ever faced, in history! Thank you for your attention to this matter!

T

It’s like the recent doxxing of Banksy. The mystery is always going to be more interesting than the reality.

Joe S.

We're really stretching the meaning of the term "collapse" here. If you think they are weakening the structures of Federal power in order to set up a kind of corporate takeover, I would say that's not really "collapse," just the acceleration of the neo-liberal trend that's been happening since Reagan. Collapse implies a total breakdown of centralized power structures. That, I think, can't happen under the current conditions. The feds still have a monopoly on violence. They proved that beyond doubt in Minneapolis. Critics of the regime need to be realistic about that.

Miko

You absolutely should have a nuclear scenarios episode.

Brian Brain

I mean, if anything Minneapolis showed the opposite, the Feds retreated, Bovino was fired, Noem is gone. Sailors were allegedly sabotaging their own ships. It is not unrealistic to think that segments of the federal government or workers with guns could turn against or outright refuse to comply. Not to mention the insolvency issue happening now. The monopoly on violence hasn't even been tested.

.

I live in the woods in southern Wisconsin with really bad tick seasons. The first year we were here it was really bad. The biggest thing I’ve found is keeping your general yard very short and keep a bottle of sawyer insect repellent. Have a doggy too and make sure you keep a once a month schedule for their flea and tick repellent. It’s not 100% bull proof. My pup has had to have antibiotics for tick related disease. Wasn’t Lyme. But being proactive like brushing them off after they come in can help. And always check your body before showering every single day during the spring and fall. Get tick pulling kits, 70% alcohol. Anyone who lives in a heavy tick area knows about the paranoia. Especially when you find one on you or your pets. You start feeling everything on your skin.

Schaeffer Mallory

Definitely agree that USrael losing the war doesn't simply equal better world, but I do think USrael winning the war absolutely equals worse world

Schaeffer Mallory

And maybe it's just naive hope, but my instinct is that Iran has gamed out the nuclear scenario, and even in that case, they don't simply fold.

Torgeir Tannenwald

So what heppened to the USS Gerald Ford if it wasnt a laundry mishap? Was it attacked? Was it mutiny? Im trying to find out where it was at the time of the event but its hard.

William

What are the 11 herbs and variables

Joe S.

The feds did not retreat from Minneapolis. They hurt a lot of people, killed a few others, then SOME of them left when they got tired of being whistled at. The deportations have not slowed down, nor has the systematic abuse been curtailed. The murderers did not go on trial. There are still ICE agents in Minneapolis, and they'll keep doing whatever they want there as long as they feel like doing it. No one is stopping them. Genuinely, if you think that's a victory I'd like to know what you think defeat looks like. I'm not saying this to try and put anyone down or be pessimistic. I just think people need to be honest with themselves about American's current capacity to meaningfully push back against state terror. So far, the regime has gotten away with everything, except for a few schmucks that get thrown overboard ever now and again. At some point that may change. But, despite increasing unpopularity, the regime still does what it wants to do.

konradingus

Dealing with Lyme disease myself atm 🤙

teh_drewski

I think he covered the variables on a previous show didn't he? Or was that a different crisis assessment matrix he used.

Jonathan Penn

As the War Nerds foretold accurately, once you move a certain amount of forces into a region, their future use becomes a done deal. Unless there is a very timely outbreak of sanity or an equally timely fatal heart attack (see the animator in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"), the USA is going to send ground troops into Iran. Then it will be "Katy, bar the door." The only question will be how many body bags can America accept.

Jonathan Penn

Some comments regarding Manuverable Reentry Vehicles. Interceptor vehicles all have some delta X, Y for the intercept, almost always rocket thrusters as the intercept is planned to be above the atmosphere. MARVs can use thrusters and/or fins/strakes, depending upon where in the flight they assume interception will be attempted. For both sides, the amount of delta X,Y is constrained as the weight of the systems and their fuel reduce the payload/warhead. Given that the incoming warhead is already somewhat hardened, to survive reentry heat and vibration, the interceptor has to get pretty close to destroy it. At the same time, if the MARV manuvers too much, it won't be able to get back on target. The kinematic equations that govern both sides are straightforward, but the speeds of both sides makes for a very challenging problem for both parties.

Chris Knutson

Does anyone have hot takes on Professor Jiang’s breakdowns on YouTube? He seems to have a great read on the situation but curious if there are critiques

SCOOP

I watched some clips of his videos and was interested but he seems to be a fraud (not actually a professor) and a crank (Holocaust denier: https://youtu.be/o2Nq--qU9Kc?t=3680)

Master and Commander Biden

Someone asked this on a recent war nerd episode and I believe I left this answer, so sorry if it treads old ground, but I saw a clip about him discussing the Chinese rise to power and the failure of western hegemony to anticipate it and thought he was cool, and then a month or so later I clicked on another video and he was talking about how black and Latino people “cheat the system” to get ahead and how they “have problems with authority” and how the kind and hardworking Chinese people are failing because they’re simply too honest to resort to such cheating. He then goes on to frame this as a very backhanded compliment by saying that’s actually good things to do according to game theory, but he very nakedly showed his beliefs and I decided I have no need to follow a guy who can be such a crank here, because lord knows what else he’s a crank about.

William

The war effort by the Soviet people in the great patriotic war has got to be the greatest accomplishment in human history. The production potential of the US was unmatched, but also protected behind two oceans. The Brits and their blitz spirit can eat my fucking ass. Oh, you got bombed for a month and had to go down into the subways? Fuck off

parker

I mean tbf he hits the mark ATLeast in China You have to remember professor is basically a nonsense term academicly lol. Dr is a much more concrete term that has actually meaningful definitions. He's done major school reforms and has been around and has done major high level schooling shit. I mean he was a major figure at the high school for Pekin University. Probably the top high school in China lmao I do agree his masonic lodge views and shit are cringe but he's like probably top 1000 educators in China lol. That's saying something like a lot. That's basically being an ivy league professor. Idk what the video you linked says but ATLeast from a chinese perspective he is the real deal. Because the kids he has reached and basically been a principal of are literally expected to go to the number 1 school in China..... It's a very elite institution Don't agree on many things he said or has opinions on in just stating the fact his credentials are very real lol. It absolutely clears 95 percent of professors in the us context ATLeast. For extra context he has taught and been at administrative positions in schools with 2 to 3 percent admission rates and a more selective process than like harvard and yale. Like we are talking about some of the most prestigious and old education institutions in the entirety of China lmao As I said from a western perspective that might seem fraud like to call yourself professor but like the dude literally is a very elite educator ATLeast in china

blazed uncle

Does anyone know what type of software/algorithm Annibale’s using for his analysis? Not necessarily the exact program, but I’d be fascinated to learn more about this sort of tool in general

Kevin Hickey

I choose to believe that Umberto Eco faked his death to become Annibale.

Annibale

Three things worth adding here: The kinematics point is fair, but the hard problem is real-time state estimation under sensor noise, radar cross-section constraints, and active countermeasures such as decoys and ECM. You can write the math on a napkin; getting reliable target-state data at those closure speeds is the real challenge. On MARVs and mission type: there's an important distinction between vehicles designed primarily for evasion and those optimised for terminal accuracy. The DF-21D anti-ship case is a useful example, though it's also one of the more contested in the open-source literature; guiding a manoeuvring warhead onto a moving target at sea is a substantially harder terminal guidance problem than a fixed aimpoint, and how capable that terminal phase actually is remains genuinely uncertain. Finally, interceptors like SM-3 and GMD target the “exoatmospheric” phase precisely because aerodynamic control surfaces are unavailable to the MARV there, but that earlier intercept window comes with a cost: trajectory uncertainty is highest early in flight. It's why boost-phase and midcourse intercept concepts remain attractive in theory, pushing the engagement even earlier when the missile is slower and less manoeuvrable, even though executing that in practice is its own category of hard problem.

Annibale

Go for Geoffrey Roberts, both his old " The Unholy Alliance: Stalin's Pact with Hitler" and the relatively recent "Stalin's Wars".

Annibale

I'm a horrendously normal guy with a very nondescript biography. I think this is a clear case where the reality would be anticlimatic :)

Annibale

Clarke was indeed one of the first Western authors to break away from the "Wehrmacht doomed by Hitler's blunders and Stalin's inexhaustible reserves" myth

Annibale

This is the list (it's copy-pasted from the model's specs): All variables are numerical, each on a different scale. First group: Structural variables. Coded before the crisis unfolds, describing the shape of the conflict. **C — Coercive Capacity. ** How much military reach and destructive power does the initiating side actually have? A small, poor state has low coercive capacity; a nuclear-armed state has high coercive capacity. **E — Escalation Evidence. ** How much observable evidence is there that serious military action is underway or imminent? Troops massing on a border score low; sustained bombing campaigns across multiple fronts score high. **A — Authorisation Level.** How legitimate and politically sanctioned is the use of force? A rogue military action scores low; a unanimous UN Security Council mandate scores high. **K — Coalition Coherence.** How united and reliable are the allies? A coalition where members are quietly hedging scores low; one where every member is fully committed and operationally integrated scores high. **X — Cross-Capability. ** Who has the military advantage — the enforcing side or the side being coerced? Low means the target has the upper hand; high means the enforcer does. **XC — Counter-Coalition.** How strong is the opposing bloc — the states or organisations actively working against the enforcement effort? --- **Scalar variables** — updated dynamically as the crisis evolves. **ECS — Economic Coercion Salience.** How much are sanctions or economic pressures biting? Negligible trade restrictions score low; energy cutoffs threatening regime survival score high. **ESS — Escalation Severity. ** How intense is the ongoing violence? Isolated strikes score low; a full-scale attritional war threatening national survival scores high. **PAS — Political Attrition Salience (or Severity). ** How much is domestic politics eroding the will to continue? A government with strong public support scores low; one facing collapse over the war scores high. **EVS — External Voice Score.** How actively are outside parties trying to intervene diplomatically? Occasional statements score low; a formal mediation framework with both sides at the table scores high. **LDT — Latent Diplomatic Timing.** How close are the parties to talking? No contact whatsoever scores zero; a near-final agreement scores at the top. This is the initial input, then there are several Boolean flags and conditional operators. but at the moment, the model complexity is how these flags and operators change dynamically depending on the inputs, and how they’re individually weighted.

Annibale

It’s nothing particularly fancy: it's a structured analytical tool I’ve designed to answer the question: “given what we know about one crisis situation right now, what is most likely to happen next, and how likely is each possible outcome?” The core idea is that when countries conflict, the result is not random but influenced by specific structural factors. We consider whether the party attempting to assert it possesses sufficient military strength, whether its allies remain cohesive or splinter under stress, and whether the opposing side is open to dialogue or has closed all diplomatic avenues. I sought to map these conditions onto a probability distribution across eight potential outcomes, ranging from a negotiated settlement to a decisive military victory to a prolonged stalemate. Apart from its “predictive” power, I wanted something practical to enforce discipline in analysis. Every outcome must be linked to a clear definition; each variable must meet a sourcing threshold before it is included; and the final output is generated by a fixed mathematical process (using a simple Python engine). Ideally, two analysts working from the same intelligence and following the same rules should arrive at the same conclusion. In other words, I aimed for strong reproducibility to be the main goal. The model has three layers. The first layer captures the “facts” of the crisis through eleven variables, six describing the shape of the conflict (such as military capability, coalition unity, and the strength of any opposing bloc) and five describing the current dynamic context (economic pressure, escalation intensity, domestic political strain, diplomatic activity, and whether any talks are underway). These are coded using simple numerical scales. The second layer employs these variables to categorise the crisis into one of eight structural types, each representing a distinctly different configuration of the conflict, such as a unilateral enforcement attempt, an external coalition operation, or a deterrence failure. This classification establishes a baseline probability distribution across the eight potential outcomes. The third layer then involves a set of conditional operators, mechanical triggers that activate only when specific conditions are met, to modify that baseline based on the dynamic context. The result is a final probability distribution that reflects both the structural nature of the crisis and its current trajectory. My initial aim was to develop a fully automated system that uses online intelligence gathering and human input to generate daily reports on the crisis's progress. However, achieving this has proven quite difficult. Despite employing different LLMs for data collection and validation and configuring the Python engine, the results still require multiple human reviews and some data adjustments, as the model is highly sensitive to initial conditions. As a result, it now functions more as a tool to help identify probable outcomes during a crisis rather than a complete “robotic analyst.” Nonetheless, I find it to be an interesting experiment.

Aryabhata

Has there been an episode on Stalingrad yet?

Annibale

Future series

Annibale

Always Roberts

Jonathan Penn

Annibale- Scientific American has had several articles over the years about the design constraints and limitations of hypersonic warheads and the like. I think you and I could have an interesting discussion with Mark and John at the beginning of an episode about these issues. One thing that has always surprised me is the unwillingness of the US to test interceptors honestly. Decoy design in particular is constrained in all testing. There should be a red team permitted to use any decoys they wish and can think of, rather than the predetermined minimum set that have been proscribed for tests. You would think that they would actually want to know what they might be up against.

blazed uncle

Thank you for this detailed reply, Annibale! I work professionally as a data engineer with python, so I really appreciate these tools being used for this kind of analysis (compared to the boring insurance data that I deal with). I look forward to seeing how this project progresses as events unfold.

Mark Ames

oh damn, how long have you had lyme? My mother-in-law still feeling waves of effects a year later

Methew

Man I would love to hear an episode with Annibale on a comparative analysis between Hitler and Mussolinis fascisms specifically. The ideological similarities and differences and just what he thinks of the sort of mainstay definitions of fascism like Hannah Arendts or “the colonial methods being turned back on the imperial core” and whatever other thoughts. Maybe a history of fascism series

Dan Kolbert

Re: tics - on Maine public radio this AM, said tics had killed 3/4 of moose calves this year