Historical inaccuracies

In Russia it took more courage to retreat than to advance

So-called "blocking units" were actually Trotsky's idea, way back in 1918.

Actually pretty good coverage and in-line Historically- can't speak about the Love Story obviously- but they didn't take any crazy liberties and worked with actual true premises on most fronts...

USMC

Well the one rifle every other soldier scene at the beginning of the film was actually from the First World War when the Imperial Russian army went to war without enough Mosin Nagant rifles for their huge army. The Red Army had supply problems at the beginning of the war but this was remedied by late 1942 when the factories were relocated in the Urals, hundreds of miles out of range of the Luftwaffe. Also American/British Lend-Lease was full underway, the Russians were receiving supplies through Iran, Murmansk, Archangel and Vladivostok. Many Red Army soldiers at Stalingrad preferred to use the PPSh-41 sub machine gun, in favor of the bolt-action Mosin-Nagant because the street fighting was more close quarters. For really close they prefer spades, knives, make-shift weapons. Anything they can get their hands on.

Now there are exceptions, the penal military units known in The Red Army as the Shtrafbat, are punishment battalions reserved for the worse soldiers. They were often sent in poorly armed. Though if wounded and survive, they may find themselves back in the ranks of The Red Army. It may seem harsh, but these men were good for spotting machine gun nests, snipers and clearing minefields.

Order No. 227 wasn't used correctly at all in this film. The order was meant not to retreat and give land to the Germans, not retreat from being thrown back from a failed assault on an enemy position. The Order served better as propaganda. In fact even Blocking Detachments that prevents the rear guard from fleeing were disbanded by 1944.

That human wave attack, that was dumb. The only time I have heard about such attacks at Stalingrad were from the shtrafbat battalions. The actual battle of Stalingrad was fought much more brutal. The Red Army soldiers used "hugging" tactics against the Germans. Basically they put the front lines so close to the Germans that the Germans couldn't risk using dive bombers without hitting their own guys. It was a battle of attrition that bought time for the STAVKA leaders Zhukov and Vasilevsky to plan a huge counter-offensive with a build up of strength without the Germans noticing. It worked as the German 6th Army found itself surrounded in the counter-offensive known as Operation Uranus.

German soldiers named the street fighting style known as "Rattenkrieg" or "Rat War". They would quip "We may have taken the kitchen and hallway, but we still fighting to take the living room and bedroom!" So many buildings were taken, then retaken several times. I believe one of the train stations changed hands 14 times in 6 hours! On multiple story buildings you have soldiers fighting on multiple floors. There's the famous Pavlov's House which for some reason hasn't been made into a Hollywood film. This huge fortress that killed more Germans than they killed the first phase of the Battle of France (in legend) and no movie on it? Then again Hollywood would make the soldiers American and set it in France or something.

Zaytsev was only a small part of Stalingrad. He was one of many snipers who took out German runners, repairmen, officers and despite what the movie makes you think, the prize wasn't the officers, it was the artillery spotters. Killing those guys means you get to live a little while longer. The duel itself with the German sniper, might have been fabrication. As was with Zaytsev's affair with Tanya who was an accomplished sniper herself.

To end this, there's been numerous articles about Red Army veterans being insulted by this film. Not just from the opening scene travesty but several scenes of them dancing or playing music. They couldn't have done that because remember, they kept close to the Germans so they didn't want to give away their exact locations.

Anyway, entertaining film, just awful history.

According to some estimates, Soviet barrier troops may have killed as many as 150,000 of their own men over the course of the war, including some 15,000 during the Battle of Stalingrad.

Vassili also worked with a spotter. The other sniper he actually said he dueled for a short time was tricked by Vassili's spotter who raised his helmet on a stick and got the sniper to fire, exposing his position which Vassili then shot. So that scene is slightly accurate, but not something that should be taken as fact.
Vassili was also blinded long before the battle was over and had no love affair during his time there




Panzer vor!

I think it is important to note --- One should never expect anything like historical accuracy from any movie --- Unless it is labeled a Documentary