Most Helpful Customer Reviews
30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Valuable - Soviet Side of Winter Battles, 1942/3, May 10, 2009
This review is from: After Stalingrad: The Red Army's Winter Offensive, 1942-1943 (Hardcover)
This work covers all the major Soviet offensives from the twin initiatives of Operations Mars and Uranus in November 1942 through the Rasputitsa in May, 1943. Operation Uranus, the encirclement of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad, is not covered except to provide background for the offensives against the Rzhev and Demiansk salients at the same time. The author has previously covered the Mars (Rzhev salient) offensive in "Zhukov's Greatest Defeat" (1999)in more detail, but this volume adds materially to that work.
The offensives covered include:
Mars, November 1942 to December 1942
Demiansk, November 1942 to January 1943
Operation Gallop to Voroshilovgrad, January 1943 to February 1943
Mariupol (Donbas), February 1943
Central Offensives, Orel, Briansk & Smolensk,(3 operations, January-March 1943)
Polar Star (Demiansk) February 1943
Polar Star (Staraia Russa) March 1943 - Aprin 1943.
Author Glantz makes extensive use of operation plans, orders and reports presenting such documents in detail with short narratives sandwiched in between to tell the reader what happened on the ground. This makes for rather dull reading, but is necessary to accurately depict Soviet intentions and attempted movements rather than to gloss over these disappointments as only diversions or as having attained goals much less than what was originally stated as the objectives.
The second feature that is important is extensive order of battle information as well as strengths and casualties. Unfortunately it is difficult to follow the OB information in such short treatments.
As usual, author Glantz makes extensive use of maps in this volume appearing within a page or two of the narrative discussion to aid the reader in understanding the situations. Unfortunately, most of the maps are old German situation maps with Soviet units imposed on top and they are of such poor quality as to be almost unusable. The only really usable maps are those specifically drawn for this volume but they are in the minority. Many of the former have large blackened areas as from poor copier copies and the scales are so large that the place names and features are unrecognizable not to mention unit designations.
Although this work brings much newly released Soviet archival material to light, the lack of truly useful maps is a significant weakness. The author might well have been better advised to limit his coverage to only the Southern, Central or Northern Operational Areas in a single volume, provided better maps and greatly expanded his narratives instead of presenting just mainly operational plans and reports. In addition, although the actions and OB information on the German side are not the author's primary focus, they need to be expanded to provide a more coherent presentation of the battles. The author also does not expand on the personalities involved and most Soviet and German commanders are simply names used in passing without any depiction as to how those personalities influenced the battles. Lastly, author Glantz normally explains Soviet failures due to the "skillful and desperate" German defensive actions and counter-attacks. One suspects that more and different reasons may have been involved.
In short, this is a valuable work presenting material covered almost nowhere else. As such it is indispensible to the historian interested in the Eastern Front, but its deficiencies prohibit me from granting it a five star rating. Nonetheless, it is well worth the price as excepting two or three other works (at least two by author Glantz), the information contained within is not available elsewhere.
I recommend the purchase and reading of this book.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Typical Glantz - Lots of details and many maps, May 10, 2009
This review is from: After Stalingrad: The Red Army's Winter Offensive, 1942-1943 (Hardcover)
This book covers the critical period of mid Nov, 1942 to early Apr 1943, and is the lynchpin that links the author's Stalingrad books and his Kursk book but unlike those books, this book covers action for most of the entire front and completes for Mr Glantz the battle coverage from spring 1942 to the end of August 1943.
Another reason for writing this book was to correct or expand on campaigns that were distorted or deliberately omitted in prior Soviet books and documents written since the war. There has been much attention given to Operations Uranus and Little Saturn but the author shows that during this time frame the Russians were busy along their entire front but fail to publicize some of it. The major offensive on the Rzhev salient and the siege at Demyansk are two examples where the Germans were able to repulsed a far superior force. Stalin did everything possible to hide these failures but Mr Glantz has worked hard to uncover the facts.
In the first chapter, Mr Glantz summarizes 4 pages of campaigns broken down by geographic sector, Front, axis of advance, and time frame that will be covered in the book. It includes campaigns at Rzhev, Demyansk, Voroshilovgrad, Mariupol, Orel, Voronezh, L'gov, Bryansk, Smolensk, Staraya Russa and Velikie Luki. The author spends the most time on the following campaign three areas: Orel-Bryansk-Smolensk, Voroshilovrad and Rzhev salient. The battle for Stalingrad or Hoth's relief attempt is mention only in passing.
There are nine chapters devoted to the above campaigns. The format is the same for each chapter: Introduction, Planning, the Offensive and Conclusions. The detailed Introduction and Planning stages were excellent and gave the reader a good understanding of the objectives. In most campaigns the Soviets gained ground but failed to achieve all of their objectives in any of their campaigns but suffered huge casualties in trying. Besides covering the operational aspects, Mr Glantz shows the Soviet battle plans were too ambitious and had little chance of complete success. He also shows that at a time of losing its momentum, the Germans maintained their composure and fought reasonably well, spoiling Soviet initiatives wherever possible.
Mr Glantz has written several other books that reflect this same period. I'll mention two: "From the Don to the Dnepr" and "Zhukov's Greatest Defeat". His new book updates but does not replace these books. For example in the assault at the Rzhev salient in this second book, I noticed a few changes on the maps, changing map scales and troop dispositions but nothing more drastic. (The maps in this reviewed book will help you follow the action when reading "Zhukov's Greatest Defeat" or "From the Don to the Dnepr". )
There are 117 black and white maps, set in a series that shows, for the most part, the daily or weekly progress each campaign is making. Many of the maps are good but some are shaded or complex and the labels are handwritten that will force most of us to use a magnifying glass. There are a few maps that are so blurred and darkened that they give little value. The author must have wanted to use authentic war maps that were used by the participants but should have considered using other maps after seeing the results on these few dark ones. This book not only gives updated operational coverage to the two above books, it adds roughly 50 additional small area maps to the sets found in those above books. Throughout the book you will see pointers to which maps are being discussed. This was a nice feature. It was a fairly easy process of reading from one of the earlier books and studying the corresponding maps in this reviewed book. This book along with its maps fills in an important part of the timeline as the author works his way to the end of the war.
Though I haven't described it in great detail, the tactical coverage in this book is good and the narrative is supported with communiques, orders and after action report fragments. It will probably satisfy the needs of many but you'll have to read those other books to get comprehensive coverage. Mr Glantz also proves, while describing the operational aspects, his two overriding objectives. First, the Soviets were extremely aggressive and campaigned along most of the front during this period. Secondly, Glantz using the official Soviet government's "History of the Great Patriotic War" as reference, shows the Soviets highlighted their victories and downplayed or even erased their losses in their history books.
This makes the author's comments in "Conclusions" atypical. Instead of analyzing the overall operational effectiveness, Mr Glantz talks about his attempt to uncover and publish information that has been deliberately kept quiet or minimized. He does this by describing the absence or distortion of key information in certain key books that have been relied on for decades. It gives one a reason to confirm information coming out of Russia in the 1990s onward instead of holding it as gospel.
Mr Glantz also provides a 35 page Notes section that can be particularly helpful, especially if you're a history detective and can speak German and Russian. A Bibliography of Primary and Secondary sources is included as is an Index. There is no formal Order of Battle for either side but there are discussions of the different divisions making up Armies in the narrative.
This book, like Mr Glantz's other books is Russian-centric and is for the serious student of the war who wants to know all there is to know about it militarily. The operational coverage of the battles is good especially on the Southwestern Axis and the Western Axis. The format and operational deliverance is like most of the author's other books; if you liked his earlier books, you'll like this book. If you thought his other books dry then this book will be no different. The author importantly fills holes in the combat timeline that many have missed and if you're interested in having comprehensive operational coverage of the war then this will be an important addition to your library.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
21 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
When scholarly work becomes too tedious and tries patience, February 10, 2010
This review is from: After Stalingrad: The Red Army's Winter Offensive, 1942-1943 (Hardcover)
David Glanz has written a series of books dealing with various Soviet offensives/campaigns during WWII, all exhaustively researched and largely well written. It's too bad that he wrote one book too many on the general subject, borrowed heavily from his previous works, and crossed the line from entertaining to boring, even to causing me to lose patience reading the work.
As said, I purchased and read Glanz's previous books on assorted Soviet offensives aginst the Nazi German invaders in the period 1941-1944. Several of these other offensives were totally unknown to me, and quite informative. I expected this book's title to delve deeply into the known Stalingrad counteroffensive of November 1942 - February 1943, adding new insights and facts about what transpired. Instead, the reader was taken literally from the peaks of the Caucases Mountain range to the swamps outside Leningrad, for Glanz wanted to show that the whole Russian front was involved with pushing - hopefully crushing - the Nazi foe back to the border. The reader was then treated to minute description of army, corp, even division level units, the number of which began to quickly boggle the mind, making it most difficult to follow. Compound that level of recitation by six or seven times (one for each offensive along the front), and I challenge anyone to come away from this book refreshed and enlightened. Quite the contrary: I almost felt like the poor German Landser in Russia at the time, being attacked by faceless Red hordes differentiated only by their parent unit, with no respite in sight. At some point I wondered why I continued reading the book.
A former positive for Glanz had been the quality of maps provided in his books: they reflected the major terrain features and bodies of soldiers, with arrows to show movement. Alas, in this book Glanz's maps were anything but uniformly well presented. In fact, about a third were so full of information (these based on marked maps used by the combatants at the time), that it became a blob of black symbols and lines across a white background. Totally uninformative, even distracting to the narrative.
If one wants an almost sterile compendium of units available for the Soviet and German sides for a given region at a certain time on the Eastern Front during WWII, this would be the only book one would have to buy. To get the full flavor of battle and how it affected the various units during a given offensive in WWII on the Eastern Front, then get the previous books. They're chock full of facts, but they're easier to read.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
