They were equipped with 3,600 tanks, 600,000 motor vehicles and 700,000 field guns and other artillery. Some 2,700 aircraft, more than half the entire strength of the German air force, had been assembled behind the lines. As the first motorized ground assaults began, 500 bombers, 270 dive-bombers and 480 fighter planes flew overhead and onwards, to wreak destruction on Soviet military airfields. This was the largest invading force assembled in the whole of human history to this point.
