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Short answer- Modern nation wins 99% of the time.The very long and detailed answer for the inquisitive folks-This is a really interesting question. However, the question is also quite vague as it leaves the field open for a wide range of possibilities and outcomes.I will divide my answer into several parts taking several different assumptions to cover a wide range of possible scenarios and outcomes. Hopefully, I would be able to cover most.A rift in space and time opens up connecting a medieval empire with a modern country.The question calls for a war between two nations and not for a straight up pitched battle. Hence, it would be reasonable to consider the logistics of assembling your army too.Medieval opponent- Song Dynasty-The strongest opponent in the medieval world in terms of both technology and manpower for our time travelers would probably be the Song dynasty of China which was far more advanced than any of the contemporaneous European, Indian or Middle eastern empires. It also had far more soldiers and could afford to fight on even after taking massive losses. This empire would be the ideal opponent for our Modern army.​​​Song empire​The Song Empire of China was one of the world's most powerful empires during the 11th century and had almost a million men in its army. It also had the most advanced weapons of the period. The Song army had gunpowder, simple flamethrowers, explosive grenades, firearms, cannons, rockets, repeating crossbows and land mines.These were rudimentary weapons and were comparable at most to a 16th-century European army. However for their time, they were nothing less than, state-of-the-art.Modern Opponent-No modern army at all-You would be pretty surprised to know that there are a lot of countries in the world with no army.These countries are Costa Rica, Iceland, Mauritius, Monaco, Panama, Vanuatu and 20 others. However, these countries maintain paramilitary forces.Now the countries are of two types islands and mainland countries. There are two places the rift can open.1.Rift opens near the sea.In this scenario, the rift opens on the sea connecting the Chinese mainland with a sea near the modern islands. The islands like Iceland and Mauritius can keep the Chinese ships at bay with their Coast guard vessels. Hence, the Song will not be able to assault these islands because their ships won't be able to reach the coast.2. Rift opens on the mainland.In this scenario, the rift will open connecting the Chinese and the modern country directly. In this case, the Chinese can assault these countries directly with land forces. However, the Chinese would first need to gather their forces. This will take time because China is a huge place and with medieval era communications and transports, it will take a lot of time to field a large attacking force. It should take at least a month even with forced marches and peasant levies to collect a million men. The modern country can use this time wisely to prepare for combat.The modern countries cannot fight directly with the Song as they lack artillery and armored vehicles. However, they can improvise in the time it takes for the Song to assemble. They can arm a few pickup trucks with machine guns at the back. The police could probably put up a good fight in the cities through guerilla warfare. In the meantime, normal manufacturing plants could be repurposed to churn out light mortars and other crude explosive weapons. They could make simple flamethrowers and attach them to heavy bulldozers to use as terrifying flame tanks. By the time the Song arrive, these modern countries would be ready to face them.Given below is a list of simple vehicles that the modern country could use.​​A Toyota pickup truck colloquially known as a technical could be used as a gun platform.​Kubus armoured truck- Used in WW2 by underground Polish resistance during the Warsaw uprising. Build from scrap in 13 days. Could be used as an upgrade to the technical once the industry is advanced enough. Full protection from arrows and bolts.​Katyusha rocket launcher- used in WW2 by the Soviets and still used by hamas. One of the most iconic war machines on the planet. Could be easily made by the modern country. After all making a ww2 era rocket launcher platform isn't rocket science, right!? ( pun intended).Outcome - I think that neither side would be able to actually win the war. The modern country is too small to press home its technological advantage and he Song are too ill-equipped to capture and hold territory.The modern country will lose a lot of land in the beginning but soon enough it can retaliate with force. Bowmen and cavalry no matter how skilled wouldn't stand a chance against machine guns.Moreover, there is the possibility that their supply trains could be attacked by helicopters with light armament. It won't take much to destroy the supplies of the Song. Without supplies and food, a million strong army is no good.Hence, I believe that this one would probably end up as a stalemate. The Song and the modern world could probably work out peace terms as a total victory will not be possible.Historians around the world would have huge grins on their faces on hearing about the peace treaty with the Song. Eventually, the Song could offer guided tours of China to modern tourists in exchange for Modern technology. The Song could also benefit from modern medicine and industry. This would make the Song powerful and they can be the rulers of their own planet in their own parallel universe. The medieval world would be forever altered.Failed States - Let us consider the Song empire Vs Somalia. The Song empire sends administrators to the various warlords of Somalia. Some Somali warlords join the Song to gain an upper hand over the other warlords. The Song engineers try to reverse engineer modern weapons. Doing so would be nearly impossible for them, but I think that they could manage to produce muskets on a large scale. The commanders of the Song could also procure a few modern weapons for themselves. With these, they could topple the other warlords and win thanks to their large numbers. The Song would lose many soldiers but they shouldn't really have any problem with that.A small country with a decent sized modern army- Now let's say that a portal opens up between the Song empire and New Zealand. The New Zealand armed forces have a tiny army of 7000 soldiers and 4000 reservists. They have around 280 infantry support vehicles and 4 to 5 artillery batteries of 12 guns each. Tiny force right? Meanwhile, the Song have almost a million plus soldiers and many millions more to recruit.In spite of their overwhelming manpower, the Song would be wiped out. The New Zealand army can just surround the portal and shoot any schmuck who tries to enter. The Song will take a lot of time to assemble. By this time, the NZ army can entrench itself . Furthermore, the NZ army and airforce can attack the Song while they are assembling with their helicopters and attack aircraft. This could break Song supply lines and give more time for the NZ army to prepare its defenses. They could also kill the Song generals and commanders. After all medieval generals were known for being flamboyant. They would be good targets for gunships. This would cause widespread fear among the Song troops.If it comes to a direct battle, the artillery batteries would devastate most of the Song army and the rest would be cut to ribbons by the machine guns. The Song can't outflank or outrun modern APCs and helicopters. There is just no way that the Song would win this one.The American Civil War showed what happens when old tactics are used alongside new weapons. The first world War further proved in gory detail, what happens to people who try to charge headlong toward machine gun nests. And these battles were fought between opponents of the same timeline, who had knowledge of enemy tactics and weapons and had similar armament. The Song have no prior knowledge. No matter how smart you are, you can't figure out modern battle tactics and weapons within a month. It would be as stupid as facing a small space fleet of Imperial Star destroyers with thousands of modern fighter jets. They know your tactics, you don't know theirs,they know all about your weapons and capabilities while you know zilch about theirs.This scenario would basically be a turkey shoot for the modern army.Hey, Pratik! That so damn boring! I mean add some military strategy, some maneuvers and some je ne sais quoi. Just make it more awesome would you?OK! This time, we would be sending the modern army back in time to face the medieval. This would make the scenario more interesting right?Before we send our army back in time, let’s take some minimum requirements. To qualify a modern nation must at least have a reasonably mechanized army. A mechanized army consists of tanks, armored personnel carriers, and other light combat vehicles. I would also include artillery in this mix. Failed States would not be considered. Only countries with strong, united armies would be considered. So no Afghanistan, no Iraq, no Syria, no Somalia etc.Small modern mechanized army with artillery -Considering these Parameters, Let’s consider a battle between a small modern opponent and a medieval empire. Let the modern opponent be the Gabonese army.​​​​Military strength- Gabon has a pretty small military. About 2,200 troops supported by around 70 armored personnel Carriers (APC) with light machine guns. They also have a small artillery battery and an MLRS (Multiple Rocket Launcher system) batteries of 8 trucks. The military is tiny but it is well trained. However, their weapons are mostly old Soviet Weapons like the Ak-47s and RPG-7s. The APCs and artillery systems are obsolete although the MLRS platforms are quite decent.The Battle- Now let's consider 3 scenarios. In all of these scenarios, the modern army is transported to 11th century China. How? I don't know, ask Einstein or some physicist.Anyway, the modern army's vehicles are fully fuelled. They carry the maximum amount of ammunition possible. The infantry carries 5 magazines of ammo each. There is no resupply for fuel and bullets, this is all that is. These conditions are imposed to give the modern army a handicap. This is necessary otherwise the modern army would easily steam-roll the medieval army and it would be no fun at all.Scenario 1-Direct attack by Song army-Let us consider that the Song army and the Gabonese face off against each other at the borders of the Song empire. The Song have a force around 500,000 strong. As you might recall, The Gabonese have 4,000 men with 70 APCs, an MLRS battery of 8 missile trucks and a small artillery battery.​​​Gabonese Teruel MLRSThe Song general's scouts tell him that the enemy strength is around 4000. However, they warn him that the invaders have strange iron boxes with wheels. He asks the general for a few more scouting missions and a few harassing raids to probe the enemy and to understand their weapons better.The Song general simply laughs and tells the scout to stop drinking on duty. He wants to launch a full on assault and just go home. He thinks that the invaders are just another one of the various warring Chinese tribes. He decides to launch a three-pronged assault on the invaders and their strange iron boxes. His cavalry will be in the wings and his infantry and archers at the center.The Song army arrives on the battlefield at day break. Gabonese lookouts sound alarms and wake up the rest of the army. The meanwhile the Song cavalry charges towards Gabonese positions. Most of the riders are cut down by a fusillade of rifle and machine gun fire.Meanwhile, the Gabonese MLRS battery and artillery engages the main Song host. Shells and rockets smash the Song army to bits. Most of the Song army retreats.The Gabonese for now, hold their ground as they try to understand who attacked them. Most of the Gabonese soldiers start panicking as they start to realize that they won't be seeing their families again. The officers desperately try to maintain discipline in the ranks. Some deserters who are trying to flee are shot.They then take stock of their inventory. Most of the Gabonese soldiers panicked when the Song army charged at them and wasted most of their bullets. Most of the infantry is down to just a magazine or two. One can hardly blame them, after all, they had been displaced in space and time. Ammunition is now critically low. What more, the Gabonese have almost no food supplies. The men's morale is at rock bottom.About 1/3 of the Song army was able to retreat to a nearby fort. The song general is horrified by what he experienced and hands over command to the fort commander.A lot of Song soldiers are shell shocked after the battle and refuse to fight. The fort commander hangs a few of the troublemakers to make an example and threatens to kill their children. Soon all of them are on their feet again.The commander decides on using guerilla tactics to face their superior aggressors. Men are sent to very nearby village to get each and every horse they can find. Every able bodied man from the village is picked up and handed a crossbow or a spear.The Song general knows that time is limited and the invaders can launch an assault at any moment. He evacuated the fort and divides his men into 150 man squads. These squads would carry out raids to stall, weaken and divert the invaders. The song general is going to use the vast Chinese countryside to his advantage. This would give him time to gather reinforcements and understand the enemy's weaknesses.Messengers are sent to nearby Forts for reinforcements. The rest of the Song army melts into the countryside.2 days later, Scouts and patrols of the Song soon confirm that the APCs have stopped. This allows the Song soldiers to harass the remaining Gabonese infantry at will. The Song army attacks the Gabonese day and night.The Song lose thousands of soldiers to the assault rifles of their opponents. However, the Song can very easily replace their men, the Gabonese can't. Moreover, Song reinforcements are arriving from nearby Forts to replace the fallen. These reinforcements are further supplemented by peasants. The Song outnumber their enemies 200:1 and more men are coming.Also, the constant raids have severely depleted the Gabonese ammo supplies. Most soldiers are down to their last magazines. Most of the soldiers are also hungry and extremely tired from fending off Chinese ambushes and the long marches.Subsequent raids by the Song, further weaken the Gabonese. In time, almost all of them are killed.Scenario 2- Song empire harasses the enemy first to waste ammunition and then attacks-This time, the Chinese general agrees with his scouts and decides to launch harassing raids at first. These would be cut to ribbons by the Gabonese. The Chinese general asks most of his force to retreat to forces further inland. As in the first scenario, guerilla raids are launched.Chinese casualties would be staggering but they can afford such losses. Peasants can be conscripted to act as cannon fodder . Messengers are sent and reinforcements are called for.The Gabonese don't have any such privileges. Ammunition and fuel for the MLRS battery, the APCs, and the artillery start to run out. Chinese scouts confirm that the opponents artillery is no long engaging their forces.Once this is done the Chinese army will attack in overwhelming force. Support fire would be laid down from cannons and heavy crossbows. Chinese archers would rain down arrows as the army attacks.The Gabonese would be down to their assault rifles. Now modern rifles are incredibly powerful but thanks to the constant Chinese raids, most of the soldiers are down to two or three magazines. These soldiers will be facing cannon fire from rudimentary Chinese weapons and huge numbers of arrows would be falling from the sky. Plus thousands of heavy cavalry would be charging headlong at them.Against such odds, the Gabonese Infantry would be slaughtered to a man. They might kill many Chinese Soldiers in the process but in the end, the sheer numbers would crush them.Scenario 3- Gabonese Assault, Chinese DefendNow consider that the Gabonese commander considers his huge technological advantage and decides to attack the nearby Chinese forts garrisoning the troops. The APC's along with the artillery launch the assault. The Gabonese artillery batter down the fort walls and the APC's fire on the enemy troops with their machine guns. The Gabonese can ask the Chinese to surrender and join them. Considering the weapons of the enemy, the Chinese commander might agree. If he does, the Gabonese will have a new ally, if he doesn't agree, the Chinese commander and his regiment would be killed. The Gabonese would continue on to the next fort or fight from the ruins of this Fort.In the first case, what will happen is that Eventually, their APCs and artillery would run out of ammunition and they would either surrender or be slaughtered.In the second case, the Chinese would besiege them, denying them food and water. In the End, the Gabonese would surrender or try to break out. Eventually, again their Ammunition would run dry and they would be slaughtered.Scenario 4- Song do not engage Gabonese, Gabonese seek consolidation of forces - The Gabonese general understanding his predicament decides to first try and find some allies and then try to defeat the Song. He understands that with a small army he won't be able to conquer China without some friends.He manages to capture some Song scouts alive. Under duress, the Song scouts tell him about the Liao empire just across the border.He asks the scouts to lead him to the Liao kingdom. He Gabonese general asks for an alliance between the Liao and himself against the Song. The Liao emperor happily agrees.The Gabonese get food and the Liao get advanced firearms training. Gabonese engineers and artificers are able to teach the Liao to make basic muskets. They may even be able to significantly modify the Liao artillery. The APCs guns could be mounted onto horse-drawn carts and the Gabonese artillery could similarly be pulled by horses. It sounds ridiculous but as recently as WW2 such methods were used when trucks weren't available.The Liao army along with the Gabonese could then wage war against the Song. Their new weapons could obviously tilt the tables in their favor. The Song will be defeated.Conclusion- So basically if, the Gabonese find some allies they would be able to win easily. Otherwise, victory is impossible. The Gabonese are too small a force to do anything significant on their own without supplies.I think that the Gabonese should be able to win this war because divide and conquer has been used several times in history. Cortez used it in America and the British East India company used it to bring India to its knees. So I think that a Gabonese general with at least half a brain would opt for the same.Moderate Modern Mechanized Army with Attack Helicopters and Artillery- Now let’s call in a tougher but still reasonable opponent. Let's say Kazakhstan, a former USSR member.​​​​Military strength- Kazakhstan has a pretty decent military. They have over 100,000 active soldiers. They have old but trusty tanks like the T-72, good sturdy APCs like the BMP-1 and powerful artillery systems. They also have tactical ballistic missiles and other heavy rocket systems. They have old soviet fighter jets like the Mig 21s and Mig 27s but we will leave them out of the battle because jets need a solid runway to land on and you won't find any in the 11th century. However, we will consider attack helicopters and transport helicopters. The Kazakhs have the Mi- 24 helicopter, an old but very powerful soviet era gunship with an array of devastating weapons. All in all, a pretty decent army.The battle- The Kazakhs realize that they have traveled back in time to some medieval period. After the initial shock, they would understand that an enemy empire is trying to cut them to ribbons. The Kazakhs would assemble their forces and prepare for battle. We will choose three different scenarios and see the outcomes.Direct confrontation-Outcome 1.Chinese assault- A huge Chinese song army arrives in the plains where the Kazakhs are resting. The Kazakhs prepare for battle.The Kazaks launch a heavy artillery barrage on the song army. The Kazakh high explosives and heavy machine guns destroy huge parts of the Chinese army and the infantry mops up the rest. The Chinese commanders are captured and they led the Kazakhs to the emperor.The song emperor would be horrified to hear that his entire army was slaughtered in an hour and would obviously surrender. The Kazakhs would keep the Chinese administrators to govern the dynasty as before and they themselves would live lavishly as nobles and overlords. The Kazakh army and the tanks and helicopters would be kept in reserve as a special force to guard the Kazakh overlords. They will be like an imperial guard.A new song army will be raised and with the help of modern military tactics and weapons like better muskets , it would be able to take on almost any empire in the world. The song dynasty would destroy every single empire in its path . It will resist the Mongols and there would be no Mongol empire in this new altered history. In time the Kazakhs could even teach the Chinese about the uses of steam power and an industrial revolution might take place in the China of the 12th century.Outcome 2-Chinese defend- Chinese patrols report to their commander that strange men with big iron machines and huge metal birds have arrived on the border of the empire. The Chinese commander launches raiding parties on the invaders. The parties and scouts are totally wiped out. A heavily wounded scout struggles back to base. He tells the Chinese commander that the enemy has very advanced weapons that spit out fire and strange projectiles.The Chinese general decides to prepare for a siege instead of fighting these invaders with their strange weapons head on.Kazakh helicopters on reconnaissance missions spot huge Chinese regiments in forts. they decide to launch an assault. Tanks, helicopters and artillery tear down the walls in no time.The Chinese general is horrified of these strange men with their unimaginably advanced weaponry and decides to surrender immediately. The Kazakhs ask him to lead them to their emperor and an outcome similar to the first scenario emerges.A war of attrition (Fabian Strategy) -The very unlikely outcome-The Chinese scouts inform their general about the men with the strange weapons. The general sends a small division of around a 1000 soldiers to a small outpost on the border to investigate further.A few days after this a heavily wounded man arrives at the fort of the general. He tells him that talks at diplomacy with the strange men failed and they tortured the messenger to reveal the location of the border outpost.After this, the invaders arrived at the walls of the outpost and blew it to rubble in a matter of minutes.The general is aghast on hearing this. He realizes that defenses won't work against the strange invaders weapons. He also knows that regular Chinese military formations would be cut to ribbons by their advanced weapons.He decides to fight a war of attrition. Basically, he will try to win by using his advantage in resources and supplies. Chinese patrols and scouts tell him that these strange invaders haven't come from any of the other Chinese states. They also don’t have any baggage trains. The General believes that these strange men are a far way away from home and lack supplies. He decides to use this to his advantage.He decides to follow a scorched earth policy while retreating. He also decides to conduct small guerrilla raids on the Kazakhs to spend their ammunition and hammer them to the point of submission.In layman terms, a scorched earth policy is a military strategy that involves destroying anything that might be useful to the enemy while advancing through or withdrawing from an area. Basically, he will try to starve the Kazakhs out.In addition, he would also harass them constantly with small raids on the exposed infantry. The main purpose of the raids would be to exhaust the Kazakh's ammunition.To confuse and divert the Kazakhs, the general sends 1/3 of his forces supplemented by peasants. These forces would try to divert the Kazakh forces and hopefully give the Chinese forces time to retreat and carry out their plans.Knowing that forts and fortifications are useless before the enemy's weapons, the Chinese general recalls his troops from these border forts and adds them to his army.Knowing that swords are useless against the invaders, the general also supplies all his men with repeating crossbows which fire 5 bolts in 30 seconds. These are simple weapons which can be operated by even the peasants. He then orders his forces to fall back. Villages are burned by the Song army and some parts of the army form Raiding parties with the peasant militia. These raiding parties would harass the Kazakh forces and once again allow the remaining Song forces to retreat. In this way, the Chinese general would use his manpower advantage to effectively starve out the Kazakhs.By the 3rd day, the Kazakh tanks, APCs and helicopters are all out of fuel. They had been laid astray by harassing Chinese parties on horseback. These Chinese parties cause little damage but waste Kazakh ammunition and fuel. They are also starving thanks to the brilliant scorched earth policy of the song general.The song general is informed that the iron beasts of the invaders have stopped. He is pleased to hear this. It means that the invaders can no long destroy his forts with impunity. He decides to retake a fort just near the Kazakh lines and face off the enemy once and for all. He leaves behind his cavalry and archers outside the fort in nearby villages and tells them to wait for his signal to assault the Kazakhs.The Kazakh army is in shambles, thousands of men have fled after the tanks and helicopters ran out of fuel. Most of them run away to become pirates. The army has lost all sense of discipline. The Kazakhs must take a Chinese fort and get food or they would all die of hunger.The Kazakhs launch a desperate assault on the fort. The Chinese cannons and heavy long ranged crossbows decimate ranks of the Kazakhs. The Kazakhs now only have small portable mortars to engage the enemy and they do so. Large numbers of the Chinese defenders die, but the fort stands. After heavy fighting, most of the Kazakh weapons are running dry. The Chinese general decides to launch a heavy assault on the Kazakh lines to break them once and for all.He launches a signal rocket telling his cavalry and archers waiting nearby to launch a pre-planned assault on the Kazakh rear. The fort cannons would lay down support fire. Anyone not operating the cannons will attack the Kazakh front ranks with their crossbows.The song assault is launched. Most of the Kazakh soldiers barely have a magazine or two of ammo left and are unable to do any significant damage on the attacking song infantry. Meanwhile, their rear guard is decimated by the charging cavalry and archers. The Kazakhs are killed to a man.Shortcomings of this strategy - As you might have noticed, there are a lot of very unlikely assumptions in this scenario. It assumes that Chinese communications are speedy and the Chinese are able to coordinate their assaults with incredible precision. It also assumes that the Kazakhs get hopelessly lost in the vast Chinese countryside. It also assumes that the Chinese somehow understand that the Kazakh vehicles need fuel.Most of these assumptions lie on the edge of impossibility. Coordinating precision assaults on a modern army is impossible when you have Horse scouts as your primary mode of communication. By the time, you launch an assault the Kazakhs could have covered another 20 miles. Also, the Kazakhs can simply capture a few Chinese peasants or scouts and force them to show the Kazakhs the way to the capital. However, the most likely Kazakh strategy to counter the Chinese is going to be a Blitzkrieg strategy (Lightning War). The next section describes this.The very likely outcome (Blitzkrieg)-As in the first case, the Chinese General decides on a scorched earth tactic. Similar to the first case, he orders a branch of his army to conduct a diversionary attack while simultaneously retreating with the rest of his army.After a few attacks by the Chinese forces, the Kazakh commander becomes suspicious. He realizes that the Chinese forces engaging him are too small. Also, the countryside is becoming progressively more and more barren. Connecting the dots, he realizes that, his Chinese opponent is challenging him to a war of attrition. He knows that with his limited fuel supplies he won't be able to fight for long. He must end this war quickly by using his air power.He captures some Chinese peasants and Song commanders alive and persuades them to tell him about the Song general’s plans. The prisoners confirm his theory. He also manages to make them squeal and gets the approximate location of the main song army.He decides to use a Blitzkrieg tactic to destroy the Song army. He fuels up his Attack helicopters (Mi 24s) and his transport/utility helicopters. He also asks his engineer corps to clear a stretch of land with bulldozers to make a crude airfield. This would allow him to use his Mig-21 jet fighters. Mig 21 are old, hardy Soviet jets which can easily take off from unprepared airstrips. The Kazakh general hopes to capture or kill most of the Song army with his helicopter assault. He would then use Song maps to know the position of the Song capital. His jets would then bomb the capital to press home the victory.​​​Mi 24 (tiger shark)The Mi 24 helicopters are armed with a powerful Gatling gun and several light and medium machine guns. It also has rocket pods. The Kazakhs have 36 of these powerful helicopters.The Kazakh engineers also hastily make modifications to their transport helicopters. The 12 UH-1's are fitted with medium machine guns and the 40 Mi-8's are fitted with rocket pods and machine guns. The other 60 transport helicopters are fitted with light machine guns. All in all, the helicopter force equals around 150 helicopters.The helicopters would engage the main song army. The BMP-1s are also readied. These would move out 3 hours before the helicopter force. The helicopters and the BMPs should arrive at the Chinese camps at approximately the same time.At the break of dawn, the helicopter force moves out. The BMP-1s have already started off.The main Chinese army is taking rest in a faraway village. They are still sleeping. At midday, they would burn this village and retreat further inland. Alas, they are not so lucky.The Kazakh forces arrive at the camp and engages the Chinese. A flurry of rockets streaks out from the Mi-24s and Mi-8s killing many Song soldiers who are still sleeping. The Helicopters then engage the rest with machine guns. The Song army sustains horrific losses.Minutes later, the BMPs arrive and mop up the rest. Most of the Song army surrenders. Mig 21 fighters launch an air offensive against the Song capital to break the enemy's resolve. Soon after this Kazakh helicopters land at the Song capital and take the emperor hostage. A similar chain of events as described in the 1st and 2nd scenarios take place.Conclusion- This war wholly depends on the expertise of the Kazakh Generals. Effective use of Blitzkrieg tactics to wipe out the Song forces in a short period would give the Kazakhs an easy victory.However, if the Kazakh commanders do not engage the Song army with their Helicopters, they may lose in a war of attrition.I am actually pretty certain that the Kazakhs would win. After all, a Blitzkrieg tactic is not exactly a novel approach. It has been used before a lot of times. Understanding the situation any half-decent Commander would opt to use it. Hence, I think that a Kazakh victory is almost 100% certain regardless of Chinese tactics.The answer in short- Modern army wins almost 99% of the times.A small modern army like the Gabonese or the New Zealand armed forces wouldn't be able to win by their own. However, they could consolidate their position with a few native allies and then win the war.A moderate sized modern force like the Kazakhs or the German army would easily win on their own.I had a great time writing this answer. Such questions are where Quora truly shines. I would also like to thank the Quora community for suggesting some of the scenarios presented in this answer. This answer would have been incomplete without your help and for that I am grateful.Suggestions are most welcome.

October 8th 2016, Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor, Maine. A hiker fell down 109 ft. off the face of Champlain mountain… this was me.I was alone on a ledge with a broken femur which looked like an open fracture.U.S. Coast Guard PhotoThe habit that contributed to save my life that day could be resumed as such:Always be prepared for the worse!When going out on a hike, I always bring my daypack with me which contains the following:a first aid kit with a fire blanketwarm clothing (polar fleece, GoreTex, etc.)cellphone and an external battery packplenty of food and watera whistleDuct Tapeparachute cordImediately when I stoped falling, I kept a cold head, sat down and then my first aid trainings immediately came back to mind. I had to assess the situation and make sure I didn't damage my spine. Hopefully not but still wasn't able to go anywhere, I looked down and my left leg was folded above my knee in the oposite direction… I used every single item that is mentioned above in order to secure my leg, slow down the blood loss, clean my wounds, prevent hypothermia and call for help. So yeah, that extra weight was more than justified.Another habit I could mention is to take the bull by the horns especially in the face of adversity. What I mean by that is that when I called 911, I knew I needed an helicopter and based on the response the ranger gave me over the phone “you'll see, our Rangers are good climbers”, I didn't think it would happen. So I replied to a text message that just got in asking the person to send me the phone number for AirMedic, the helicopter rescue service I had a membership with. This person happenned to be my mother who had my father call me back instantly. He and his wife relayed my information to the service which coordinated rescue with the US Coast guard and the park Rangers. Long story short, if it hadn't been for them, my rescue would have taken 12 hours instead of 6 hours, which in situations like this can be the difference between life and death.ISLANDER PHOTO BY EARL BRECHLINFinally, I probably wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the Mount Desert Island Search and Rescue volunteers and the Coast Guard helicopter crew that got me out of that life threatening situation. I will forever be gratefull for their help and am looking forward to express just that next month a the Mount Desert Island First Responders annual BBQ as invited speaker. I was also very happy when I learned members of the U.S. Coast Guard crew that participated in my rescue received an award following the rescue.U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Andrew BarresiRead More: U.S. Coast Guard Members Receive Awards For Acadia National Park Rescue | U.S. Coast Guard Members Receive Awards For Acadia National Park RescueSo, litterally speaking, these habits saved my life. What habits saved yours?

The fall of Berlin was the last major effort to end WW2 on the European Theatre. This was truly a devestating battle and many lives were lost. Let us delve into how the Germans were finally defeated, and conquered.BACKGROUND -Starting on 12 January 1945, the Red Army began the Vistula-Oder Offensive across the Narew River; and, from Warsaw, a three-day operation on a broad front, which incorporated four army Fronts. On the fourth day, the Red Army broke out and started moving west, up to 30 to 40 km (19 to 25 mi) per day, taking East Prussia, Danzig, and Poznan, drawing up on a line 60 km (37 mi) east of Berlin along the Oder River.The newly created Army Group Vistula, under the command of Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler, attempted a counter attack, but this had failed by 24 February. The Red Army then drove on to Pomerania, clearing the right bank of the Oder River, thereby reaching into Silesia.In the south the Siege of Budapest raged. Three German divisions attempted to relieve the encircled Hungarian capital city, which failed, and Budapest fell to the Soviets on 13 February. Adolf Hitler insisted on a counter-attack to recapture the Drau-Danube triangle. The goal was to secure the oil region of Nagykanizsa and regain the Danube River for future operations, but the depleted German forces had been given an impossible task.By 16 March, the German Lake Balaton Offensive had failed, and a counter-attack by the Red Army took back in 24 hours everything the Germans had taken ten days to gain.On 30 March, the Soviets entered Austria; and in the Vienna Offensive they captured Vienna on 13 April. Between June and September 1944, the Werhmacht had lost more than a million men, and it lacked the fuel and armaments needed to operate effectively. On 12 April 1945, Hitler, who had earlier decided to remain in the city against the wishes of his advisers, heard the news that the American President Franklin D, Roosevelt had died.This briefly raised false hopes in the Fuhrerbunker that there might yet be a falling out among the Allies and that Berlin would be saved at the last moment, as had happened once before when Berlin was threatened.No plans were made by the Western Allies to seize the city by a ground operation. The Supreme Commader(Western) Allied Expeditionary Force, General Eisenhower lost interest in the race to Berlin and saw no further need to suffer casualties by attacking a city that would be in the Soviet sphere of influence after the war, envisioning excessive friendly fire if both armies attempted to occupy the city at once. The major Western Allied contribution to the battle was the bombing of Berlin during 1945. During 1945 the United States Air Force launched very large daytime raids on Berlin and for 36 nights in succession, scores of RAF Mosquitos bombed the German capital, ending on the night of 20/21 April 1945 just before the Soviets entered the city.PREPERATIONS -The Soviet offensive into central Germany, what later became East Germany, had two objectives. Stalin did not believe the Western Allies would hand over territory occupied by them in the post-war Soviet zone, so he began the offensive on a broad front and moved rapidly to meet the Western Allies as far west as possible. But the overriding objective was to capture Berlin.The two goals were complementary because possession of the zone could not be won quickly unless Berlin were taken. Another consideration was that Berlin itself held useful post-war strategic assets, including Adolf Hitler and the German Atomic Bomb Programme. On 6 March, Hitler appointed Lieutenant Generla Hwlmuth Reymann commander of the Berlin Defence Area, replacing Lieutenant General Bruno Ritter von Hauenschild.(March 1945: Photo of 16-year-old Willi Hübner being awarded the Iron Cross II Class medal for his defense of Lauban)On 20 March, General Gotthard Heinrici was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Vistula replacing Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler.Heinrici was one of the best defensive tacticians in the German army, and he immediately started to lay defensive plans. Heinrici correctly assessed that the main Soviet thrust would be made over the Oder River and along the main east-west Autobahn. He decided not to try to defend the banks of the Oder with anything more than a light skirmishing screen. Instead, Heinrici arranged for engineers to fortify the Seelow Heights, which overlooked the Oder River at the point where the Autobahn crossed them.This was some distance 17 km (11 mi) west of the Oder and 90 km (56 mi) east of Berlin. Heinrici thinned out the line in other areas to increase the manpower available to defend the heights. German engineers turned the Oder's flood plain, already saturated by the spring thaw, into a swamp by releasing the water from a reservoir upstream. Behind the plain on the plateau, the engineers built three belts of defensive emplacements reaching back towards the outskirts of Berlin (the lines nearer to Berlin were called the Wotan position).These lines consisted of anti-tank ditches, anti-tank gun emplacements, and an extensive network of trenches and bunkers.On 9 April, after a long resistance, Konigsberg in East Prussia fell to the Red Army. This freed up Marshal Rokossovky's 2nd Belorussian Front to move west to the east bank of the Oder river.Marshal Georgy Zhukov concentrated his 1st Belorussian Front, which had been deployed along the Oder river from Frankfurt in the south to the Baltic, into an area in front of the Seelow HeightsThe 2nd Belorussian Front moved into the positions being vacated by the 1st Belorussian Front north of the Seelow Heights. While this redeployment was in progress, gaps were left in the lines; and the remnants of General Dietrich von Saucken’s German II Army, which had been bottled up in a pocket near Danzig, managed to escape into the Vistula Delta.To the south, Marshal Konev shifted the main weight of the 1st Ukranian Front out of Upper Silesia and north-west to the Neisse River.The three Soviet fronts had altogether 2.5 million men (including 78,556 soldiers of the 1st Polish Army), 6,250 tanks, 7,500 aircraft, 41,600 artillery pieces and mortars, 3,255 truck-mounted Katyusha rocket launchers (nicknamed 'Stalin's Pipe Organs'), and 95,383 motor vehicles, many manufactured in the US.BATTLE OF ODER-NEISSE -The sector in which most of the fighting in the overall offensive took place was the Seelow Heights, the last major defensive line outside Berlin. The Battle of the Seelow Heights, fought over four days from 16 April until 19 April, was one of the last pitched battles of World War II: almost one million Red Army soldiers and more than 20,000 tanks and artillery pieces were deployed to break through the "Gates to Berlin", which were defended by about 100,000 German soldiers and 1,200 tanks and guns. The Soviet forces led by Zhukov broke through the defensive positions, having suffered about 30,000 dead, while 12,000 German personnel were killed.During 19 April, the fourth day, the 1st Belorussian Front broke through the final line of the Seelow Heights; and nothing but broken German formations lay between them and Berlin. The 1st Ukrainian Front, having captured Forst the day before, was fanning out into open country.One powerful thrust by Gordov’s 3rd Guard Army and Rybalko’s 3rd and Lelyushenko’s 4th Guards Tank Armies were heading north-east towards Berlin while other armies headed west towards a section of the United States Army's front line south-west of Berlin on the Elbe. With these advances, the Soviet forces drove a wedge between the German Army Group Vistula in the north and Army Group Centre in the south.By the end of the day, the German eastern front line north of Frankfurt around Seelow and to the south around Forst had ceased to exist. These breakthroughs allowed the two Soviet Fronts to envelop the German 9th Army in a large pocket west of Frankfurt. Attempts by the 9th Army to break out to the west resulted in the Battle of Halbe.The cost to the Soviet forces had been very high, with over 2,807 tanks lost between 1 and 19 April, including at least 727 at the Seelow Heights.In the meantime, RAF Mosquitos were conducting large tactical air raids against German positions inside Berlin on the nights of 15 April (105 bombers), 17 April (61 bombers), 18 April (57 bombers), 19 April (79 bombers), and 20 April (78 bombers).ENCIRCLEMENT OF BERLIN -On 20 April 1945, Hitler's 56th birthday, Soviet artillery of the 1st Belorussian Front began shelling Berlin and did not stop until the city surrendered. The weight of ordnance delivered by Soviet artillery during the battle was greater than the total tonnage dropped by Western Allied bombers on the city. While the 1st Belorussian Front advanced towards the east and north-east of the city, the 1st Ukrainian Front pushed through the last formations of the northern wing of Army Group Centre and passed north of Juterbog, well over halfway to the American front line on the river Elbe at Magdeburg.To the north between Stettin and Schwedt, the 2nd Belorussian Front attacked the northern flank of Army Group Vistula, held by Hasso von Manteuffels III Panzer Army.The next day, Bogdanov's 2nd Guards Tank Army advanced nearly 50 km (31 mi) north of Berlin and then attacked south-west of Werneuchen. The Soviet plan was to encircle Berlin first and then envelop the IX Army.(April 1945: a member of the Volkssturm, the German home defence militia, armed with Panzershreck, outside Berlin.)The command of the German V Corps, trapped with the IX Army north of Forst, passed from the IV Panzer Army to the IX Army. The corps was still holding on to the Berlin-Cottbus highway front line.Field MarshalFerdinand Schorner's Army Group Centre launched a counter-offensive aimed at breaking through to Berlin from the south and making a successful initial incursion (the Battle of Bautzen) in the 1st Ukrainian Front region, engaging the 2nd Polish Army and elements of the Red Army's 52 Army and 5th Guards Army.When the old southern flank of the IV Panzer Army had some local successes counter-attacking north against the 1st Ukrainian Front, Hitler gave orders that showed his grasp of military reality was completely gone. He ordered the IX Army to hold Cottbus and set up a front facing west. Then they were to attack the Soviet columns advancing north. This would supposedly allow them to form a northern pincer that would meet the IV Panzer Army coming from the south and envelop the 1st Ukrainian Front before destroying it.They were to anticipate a southward attack by the III Panzer Army and be ready to be the southern arm of a pincer attack that would envelop 1st Belorussian Front, which would be destroyed by SS-General Felix Steiner's Army Detachment advancing from north of Berlin. Later in the day, when Steiner explained that he did not have the divisions to do this, Heinrici made it clear to Hitler's staff that unless the IX Army retreated immediately, it would be enveloped by the Soviets. He stressed that it was already too late for it to move north-west to Berlin and would have to retreat west. Heinrici went on to say that if Hitler did not allow it to move west, he would ask to be relieved of his command.On 22 April 1945, at his afternoon situation conference, Hitler fell into a tearful rage when he realised that his plans, prepared the previous day, could not be achieved. He declared that the war was lost, blaming the generals for the defeat and that he would remain in Berlin until the end and then kill himself. In an attempt to coax Hitler out of his rage, General Alfed Jodl speculated that General Walther Wenck’s XII Army, which was facing the Americans, could move to Berlin because the Americans, already on the Elbe River, were unlikely to move further east. This assumption was based on his viewing of the captured Eclipse documents, which organised the partition of Germany among the Allies.Hitler immediately grasped the idea, and within hours Wenck was ordered to disengage from the Americans and move the XII Army north-east to support Berlin.It was then realised that if the IX Army moved west, it could link up with the XII Army. In the evening Heinrici was given permission to make the link-up. Elsewhere, the 2nd Belorussian Front had established a bridgehead 15 km (9 mi) deep on the west bank of the Oder and was heavily engaged with the III Panzer Army.The IX Army had lost Cottbus and was being pressed from the east. A Soviet tank spearhead was on the Havel River to the east of Berlin, and another had at one point penetrated the inner defensive ring of Berlin.The capital was now within range of field artillery. A Soviet war correspondent, in the style of World War II Soviet journalism, gave the following account of an important event which took place on 22 April 1945 at 08:30 local time:“On the walls of the houses we saw Goebbles' appeals, hurriedly scrawled in white paint: 'Every German will defend his capital. We shall stop the Red hordes at the walls of our Berlin.' Just try and stop them!Steel pillboxes, barricades, mines, traps, suicide squads with grenades clutched in their hands—all are swept aside before the tidal wave.Drizzling rain began to fall. Near Bisdorf I saw batteries preparing to open fire.'What are the targets?' I asked the battery commander.'Centre of Berlin, Spree bridges, and the northern and Stettin Railway stations,' he answered.Then came the tremendous words of command: 'Open fire on the capital of Fascist Germany.'I noted the time. It was exactly 8:30 a.m. on 22 April. Ninety-six shells fell in the centre of Berlin in the course of a few minutes.”On 23 April 1945, the Soviet 1st Belorussian Front and 1st Ukrainian Front continued to tighten the encirclement, severing the last link between the German IX Army and the city.Elements of the 1st Ukrainian Front continued to move westward and started to engage the German XII Army moving towards Berlin. On this same day, Hitler appointed General Helmuth Weidling as the commander of the Berlin Defence Area, replacing Lieutenant General Reymann. Meanwhile, by 24 April 1945 elements of 1st Belorussian Front and 1st Ukrainian Front had completed the encirclement of the city. Within the next day, 25 April 1945, the Soviet investment of Berlin was consolidated, with leading Soviet units probing and penetrating the S-Bahn defensive ring. By the end of the day, it was clear that the German defence of the city could not do anything but temporarily delay the capture of the city by the Soviets, since the decisive stages of the battle had already been fought and lost by the Germans outside the city.By that time, Schorner’s offensive, initially successful, had mostly been thwarted, although he did manage to inflict significant casualties on the opposing Polish and Soviet units, slowing down their progress.BATTLE IN BERLIN -The forces available to General Weidling for the city's defence included roughly 45,000 soldiers in several severely depleted German Army and Waffen-SS divisions.These divisions were supplemented by the police force, boys in the compulsory Hitler Youth, and the Volkssturm.Many of the 40,000 elderly men of the Volkssturm had been in the army as young men and some were veterans of World War I. Hitler appointed SS Brigadefuhrer Wilhelm Mohnke the Battle Commander for the central government district that included the Reich Chancellery and Fuhrerbunker.He had over 2,000 men under his command. Weidling organised the defences into eight sectors designated 'A' through to 'H' each one commanded by a colonel or a general, but most had no combat experience. To the west of the city was the 20th Infantry Division. To the north of the city was the 9th Parachute Division. To the north-east of the city was the Panzer Division Muncheberg. To the south-east of the city and to the east of Tempelhof Airport was the 11th SS Pansergrenadier Division Nordland. The reserve, 18th Panzergrenadier Division, was in Berlin's central district.On 23 April,Berzarin’s 5th Shock Army and Katukov’s 1st Guards Tank Army assaulted Berlin from the south-east and, after overcoming a counter-attack by the German LVI Panzer Corps, reached the Berlin S-Bahn ring railway on the north side of the Teltow Canal by the evening of 24 April.During the same period, of all the German forces ordered to reinforce the inner defences of the city by Hitler, only a small contingent of French SS Volunteers under the command of SS Brigadeführer Gustav Krukenberg arrived in Berlin. During 25 April, Krukenberg was appointed as the commander of Defence Sector C, the sector under the most pressure from the Soviet assault on the city. On 26 April, Chuikov's 8th Guards Army and the 1st Guards Tank Army fought their way through the southern suburbs and attacked Tempelhof Airport, just inside the S-Bahn defensive ring, where they met stiff resistance from the Müncheberg Division.But by 27 April, the two understrength divisions (Müncheberg and Nordland) that were defending the south-east, now facing five Soviet armies—from east to west, the 5th Shock Army, the 8th Guards Army, the 1st Guards Tank Army and Rybalko's 3rd Guards Tank Army (part of the 1st Ukrainian Front)—were forced back towards the centre, taking up new defensive positions around Hermannplatz.Krukenberg informed General Hans Krebs, Chief of the General Staff of (OKH) that within 24 hours the Nordland would have to fall back to the centre sector Z (for Zentrum).The Soviet advance to the city centre was along these main axes: from the south-east, along the Frankfurter Allee (ending and stopped at the Alexanderplatz); from the south along Sonnenallee ending north of the Belle-Allaince-Platz, from the south ending near the Potsdamer Platz and from the north ending near the Reichstag.The Reichstag, the Moltke bridge, Alexanderplatz, and the Havel bridges at Spandau saw the heaviest fighting, with house-to-house and hand-to-hand combat. The foreign contingents of the SS fought particularly hard, because they were ideologically motivated and they believed that they would not live if captured.BATTLE FOR THE REICHSTAG -Battle for the Reichstag. In the early hours of 29 April the Soviet 3rd Shock Army crossed the moltke bridge and started to fan out into the surrounding streets and buildings.The initial assaults on buildings, including the Ministry of the Interior, were hampered by the lack of supporting artillery. It was not until the damaged bridges were repaired that artillery could be moved up in support.At 04:00 hours, in the Führerbunker, Hitler signed his last will and testament and, shortly afterwards, married Eva Braun.At dawn the Soviets pressed on with their assault in the south-east. After very heavy fighting they managed to capture Gestapo headquarters on Prinz-Albrechstrasse, but a Waffen-SS counter-attack forced the Soviets to withdraw from the building.To the south-west the 8th Guards Army attacked north across the Landwehr canal into the Tiergarten.By the next day, 30 April, the Soviets had solved their bridging problems and with artillery support at 06:00 they launched an attack on the Reichstag, but because of German entrenchments and support from 12.8 cm guns 2 km (1.2 mi) away on the roof of the zoo flak tower, in Berlin Zoo, it was not until that evening that the Soviets were able to enter the building.The Reichstag had not been in use since it had burned in February 1933 and its interior resembled a rubble heap more than a government building. The German troops inside made excellent use of this and were heavily entrenched.If you played “Call of Duty World at War” you probably remember fighting in brutal conditions while taking the Reichstag.Fierce room-to-room fighting ensued. At that point there was still a large contingent of German soldiers in the basement who launched counter-attacks against the Red Army.On 2 May 1945 the Red Army controlled the building entirely.The famous photo of the two soldiers planting the flag on the roof of the building is a re-enactment photo taken the day after the building was taken.To the Soviets the event as represented by the photo became symbolic of their victory demonstrating that the Battle of Berlin, as well as the Eastern Front hostilities as a whole, ended with the total Soviet victory.As the 756th Regiment's commander Zinchenko had stated in his order to Battalion Commander Neustroev "... the Supreme High Command ... and the entire Soviet People order you to erect the victory banner on the roof above Berlin".BATTLE FOR THE CENTER -Front lines 1 May (pink = Allied occupied territory; red = area of fighting)During the early hours of 30 April, Weidling informed Hitler in person that the defenders would probably exhaust their ammunition during the night. Hitler gave him the permission to attempt a breakout through the encircling Red Army lines.That afternoon, Hitler and Braun committed suicide and their bodies were cremated not far from the bunker. (Supposedly - We may never know what truly happened)In accordance with Hitler’s last will and testament, Admiral Karl Donitz became the "President of Germany" (Reichsprasidnet) in the new Flensburg Government, and Joseph Goebbels became the new Chancellor of Germany.As the perimeter shrank and the surviving defenders fell back, they became concentrated into a small area in the city centre. By now there were about 10,000 German soldiers in the city centre, which was being assaulted from all sides. One of the other main thrusts was along Wilhelmstrasse on which the Air Ministry, built of reinforced concrete, was pounded by large concentrations of Soviet artillery.The remaining German Tiger tanks of the Hermann von Salza battalion took up positions in the east of the Tiergarten to defend the centre against Kuznetsov's 3rd Shock Army (which although heavily engaged around the Reichstag was also flanking the area by advancing through the northern Tiergarten) and the 8th Guards Army advancing through the south of the Tiergarten. These Soviet forces had effectively cut the sausage-shaped area held by the Germans in half and made any escape attempt to the west for German troops in the centre much more difficult.During the early hours of 1 May, Krebs talked to General Chuikov, commander of the Soviet 8th Guards Army, informing him of Hitler's death and a willingness to negotiate a citywide surrender. They could not agree on terms because of Soviet insistence on unconditional surrender and Krebs' claim that he lacked authorisation to agree to that. Goebbels was against surrender. In the afternoon, Goebbels and his wife killed their children and then themselves.Goebbels's death removed the last impediment which prevented Weidling from accepting the terms of unconditional surrender of his garrison, but he chose to delay the surrender until the next morning to allow the planned breakout to take place under the cover of darkness.BREAKOUT AND SURRENDER -On the night of 1/2 May, most of the remnants of the Berlin garrison attempted to break out of the city centre in three different directions. Only those that went west through the Tiergarten and crossed the Charlottenbrucke (a bridge over the Havel) into Spandau succeeded in breaching Soviet lines.Only a handful of those who survived the initial breakout made it to the lines of the Western Allies—most were either killed or captured by the Red Army's outer encirclement forces west of the city.Early in the morning of 2 May, the Soviets captured the Reich Chancellery. General Weidling surrendered with his staff at 06:00 hours. He was taken to see General Vasily Chuikov at 08:23, where Weidling ordered the city's defenders to surrender to the Soviets.The 350-strong garrison of the Zoo flak tower left the building. There was sporadic fighting in a few isolated buildings where some SS troops still refused to surrender, but the Soviets reduced such buildings to rubble.BATTLE OUTSIDE BERLIN -At some point on 28 April or 29 April, General Gotthard Heinrici, Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Vistula, was relieved of his command after disobeying Hitler's direct orders to hold Berlin at all costs and never order a retreat, and was replaced by General Kurt Student.General Kurt von Tippelskirch was named as Heinrici's interim replacement until Student could arrive and assume control. There remains some confusion as to who was in command, as some references say that Student was captured by the British and never arrived.Regardless of whether von Tippelskirch or Student was in command of Army Group Vistula, the rapidly deteriorating situation that the Germans faced meant that Army Group Vistula's coordination of the armies under its nominal command during the last few days of the war was of little significance.On the evening of 29 April, Krebs contacted General Alfred Jodl (Supreme Army Command) by radio:“Request immediate report. Firstly of the whereabouts of Wenck's spearheads. Secondly of time intended to attack. Thirdly of the location of the IX Army. Fourthly of the precise place in which the IX Army will break through. Fifthly of the whereabouts of General Rudolf Holste's spearhead.”In the early morning of 30 April, Jodl replied to Krebs:“Firstly, Wenck's spearhead bogged down south of Schwielow Lake. Secondly, the XII Army therefore unable to continue attack on Berlin. Thirdly, bulk of the IX Army surrounded. Fourthly, Holste's Corps on the defensive.”NORTH -While the 1st Belorussian Front and the 1st Ukrainian Front encircled Berlin, and started the battle for the city itself, Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front started his offensive to the north of Berlin. On 20 April between Stettin and Schwedt, Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front attacked the northern flank of Army Group Vistula, held by the III Panzer Army.By 22 April, the 2nd Belorussian Front had established a bridgehead on the east bank of the Oder that was over 15 km (9 mi) deep and was heavily engaged with the III Panzer Army. On 25 April, the 2nd Belorussian Front broke through III Panzer Army's line around the bridgehead south of Stettin, crossed the Randowbruch Swamp, and were now free to move west towards Montegomery’s British 21sst Army Group and north towards the Baltic port of Stralsund.The German III Panzer Army and the German XXI Army situated to the north of Berlin retreated westwards under relentless pressure from Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front, and was eventually pushed into a pocket 32 km (20 mi) wide that stretched from the Elbe to the coast.To their west was the British 21st Army Group (which on 1 May broke out of its Elbe bridgehead and had raced to the coast capturing Wismar and Lubeck), to their east Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front and to the south was the United States 9th Army which had penetrated as far east as Ludwigslust and Schwerin.SOUTH -The successes of the 1st Ukrainian Front during the first nine days of the battle meant that by 25 April, they were occupying large swathes of the area south and south-west of Berlin. Their spearheads had met elements of the 1st Belorussian Front west of Berlin, completing the investment of the city.Meanwhile, the 58th Guards Rifle Division of the 5th Guards Army in 1st Ukranian Front made contact with the 69th Infantry Division (United States) of the United States First Army near Torgau, on the Elbe River. These manoeuvres had broken the German forces south of Berlin into three parts. The German IX Army was surrounded in the Halbe Pocket. Wenck's XII Army, obeying Hitler's command of 22 April, was attempting to force its way into Berlin from the south-west but met stiff resistance from 1st Ukrainian Front around Potsdam.Schörner's Army Group Centre was forced to withdraw from the Battle of Berlin, along its lines of communications towards Czechoslovakia.Between 24 April and 1 May, the IX Army fought a desperate action to break out of the pocket in an attempt to link up with the XII Army.Hitler assumed that after a successful breakout from the pocket, the IX Army could combine forces with the XII Army and would be able to relieve Berlin.There is no evidence to suggest that Generals Heinrici, Busse, or Wenck thought that this was even remotely strategically feasible, but Hitler's agreement to allow the IX Army to break through Soviet lines allowed many German soldiers to escape to the west and surrender to the United States Army.At dawn on 28 April, the youth divisions Clausewitz Scharnhorst, and Theodor Korner, attacked from the south-west toward the direction of Berlin. They were part of Wenck's XX Corps and were made up of men from the officer training schools, making them some of the best units the Germans had in reserve. They covered a distance of about 24 km (15 mi), before being halted at the tip of Lake Schwielow, south-west of Potsdam and still 32 km (20 mi) from Berlin. During the night, General Wenck reported to the German Supreme Army Command in Fuerstenberg that his XII Army had been forced back along the entire front. According to Wenck, no attack on Berlin was possible. At that point, support from the IX Army could no longer be expected.In the meantime, about 25,000 German soldiers of the IX Army, along with several thousand civilians, succeeded in reaching the lines of the XII Army after breaking out of the Halbe pocket. The casualties on both sides were very high. Nearly 30,000 Germans were buried after the battle in the cemetery at Halbe. About 20,000 soldiers of the Red Army also died trying to stop the breakout; most are buried at a cemetery next to the Baruth-Zossen road.These are the known dead, but the remains of more who died in the battle are found every year, so the total of those who died will never be known. Nobody knows how many civilians died but it could have been as high as 10,000.Having failed to break through to Berlin, Wenck's XII Army made a fighting retreat back towards the Elbe and American lines after providing the IX Army survivors with surplus transport. By 6 May many German Army units and individuals had crossed the Elbe and surrendered to the US Ninth Army. Meanwhile, the XII Army's bridgehead, with its headquarters in the park of Schonhausen, came under heavy Soviet artillery bombardment and was compressed into an area eight by two kilometres (five by one and a quarter miles).SURRENDER -On the night of 2–3 May, General Hasso von MAntueffel, commander of the III Panzer Army along with General Kurt von Tippelskirch, commander of the XXI Army, surrendered to the US Army. Von Saucken's II Army, that had been fighting north-east of Berlin in the Vistula Delta, surrendered to the Soviets on 9 May. On the morning of 7 May, the perimeter of the XII Army's bridgehead began to collapse. Wenck crossed the Elbe under small arms fire that afternoon and surrendered to the American Ninth Army.AFTERMATH -(A devastated street in the city centre just off the Unter Din Linden, 3 July 1945.)According to Grigory Krivosheev’s work based on declassified archival data, Soviet forces sustained 81,116 dead for the entire operation, which included the battles of Seelow Heights and the Halbe; another 280,251 were reported wounded or sick during the operational period.The operation also cost the Soviets about 1,997 tanks and SPGs.Krivosheev noted: "All losses of arms and equipment are counted as irrecoverable losses, i.e. beyond economic repair or no longer serviceable".Soviet estimates based on kill claims placed German losses at 458,080 killed and 479,298 captured, but German research puts the number of dead at approximately 92,000 – 100,000.The number of civilian casualties is unknown, but 125,000 are estimated to have perished during the entire operation.(German women washing clothes at a water hydrant in a Berlin street. A knocked-out German Scout Car stands beside them, 3 July 1945.)In those areas that the Red Army had captured and before the fighting in the centre of the city had stopped, the Soviet authorities took measures to start restoring essential services.Almost all transport in and out of the city had been rendered inoperative, and bombed-out sewers had contaminated the city's water supplies. The Soviet authorities appointed local Germans to head each city block, and organised the cleaning-up. The Red Army made a major effort to feed the residents of the city.Most Germans, both soldiers and civilians, were grateful to receive food issued at Red Army soup kitchens, which began on Colonel-General Nikolai Berzarin’s orders. After the capitulation the Soviets went house to house, arresting and imprisoning anyone in a uniform including firemen and railwaymen. During and immediately following the assault, in many areas of the city, vengeful Soviet troops (often rear echelon units) engaged in mass rape, pillage and murder.Oleg Budnitskii, historian at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, told a BBC Radio programme that Red Army soldiers were astounded when they reached Germany. "For the first time in their lives, eight million Soviet people came abroad, the Soviet Union was a closed country. All they knew about foreign countries was there was unemployment, starvation and exploitation. And when they came to Europe they saw something very different from Stalinist Russia ... especially Germany. They were really furious, they could not understand why being so rich, Germans came to Russia".Despite Soviet efforts to supply food and rebuild the city, starvation remained a problem. In June 1945, one month after the surrender, the average Berliner was getting only 64 percent of a daily ration of 1,240 calories (5,200 kJ). Across the city over a million people were without homes. Truly a brutal battle, one surely to be remembered for centuries to come.*^above is a star for those who stuck with it the whole time :)Thanks for reading, Cheers!