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49 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The chaos of 1941, January 19, 2009
This review is from: The Bloody Triangle: The Defeat of Soviet Armor in the Ukraine, June 1941 (Hardcover)
There are already a few narratives that deal with the beginning phases of the war on the Eastern Front. Some in more detail than others, but they are available if you know where to look. Yet with the flow of new literature coming out of Russia regarding WWII, I would be remiss if I said even a tenth of what has come out has been covered in the west. Thus, if you have an interest in the border battles between the Red Army and Wehrmacht in the South during late June and early July of 1941, then this book will prove invaluable in many respects, for others, a very good start to understanding the Eastern Front in general. The majority of the narrative deals with the Mechanized Corps of the Kiev Special Military District: specifically the 8th, 9th, 15th, 19th, and 22nd Mechanized Corps. Their strengths and weaknesses are analyzed by the author so that a better context is given for what would happen when the Germans invaded on June 22, 1941. In the background there is also mention and discussion of the 5th and 6th armies, amongst others, as well as the command staff of the Kiev Special Military District.
A lot of the information presented here is interesting, at times little known, and when looked at in an objective light helps explain what happened to the Red Army in 1941. Were German forces opposed on the border or did they simply walk over Soviet border guards and the forward-most Red Army military formations in their way? For those that like to gloss over this question and move on to the eventual German encirclements that took place throughout the rest of 1941, you will be surprised. Red Army resistance was quite heavy and the Germans paid a large price in the south with both dead and wounded. Their forces were also held up in various locations with in depth defenses by the likes of the 1st Antitank Artillery Brigade and "Task Force Lukin." Commissar Popel's dash through German lines toward Dubno is described in great detail, as well as the German perspective of how this affected their advance(s).
I was glad to see the author mention the lack of communication between various units including divisions, corps, armies, and even what would become a front. This is one of the biggest reasons for the misuse of the Mechanized Corps; for example, the 8th Mechanized Corps traversed hundreds of kilometers before it had a chance to engage the enemy. The Corps moved from one location to another as orders were constantly changing. Army commanders issued one type of order while their higher ups, not privy to real-time information, issued orders that directly contradicted those of the army command. The chaos that ensued comes through full force within the pages of this text, and for that the author deserves a big thanks.
1941 is especially interesting for me because as a student of the Eastern Front I strive to understand what exactly happened. Sadly, the reason for the four star rating is that this book was at times a disappointment. Because the Mechanized Corps are the main focus of this narrative not a lot of attention was given to the information presented in regards to the intelligence Stalin was receiving on the eve of the invasion. I thought, overall, the author's analysis of what agents were sending to Stalin and his actions in response were at times weak and lacked substance. The sources used were also very limited. Within the text there are a few incorrect details that few will be able to spot, but still, basic research into what you're going to put into a book should be a must in all cases.
The editing this text went through is horrific. Practically on every page there is a missing word, misspelled word, etc. Amazingly you'll get used to it. The sources used, in my opinion, were lacking. Some were excellent, but a lot of information and books have come out that I did not see cited here, from both Russia and the West. The author needs to cite better, there is an immense amount of interesting information throughout the pages of this book without any citations! How are we supposed to guess where all of this data is coming from? Russian sources are also translated instead of being transliterated in the bibliography, I thought that was a minus. And in at least one instance there is an endnote citation of a book that is not listed in the bibliography.
Because of the above this book is at rare times useless as a source. A lot of the information here I'm familiar with but when I came to interesting discussions and events I had never heard of, I was at a loss as to where they came from. How can I cite this book if it only leads to a dead end? Still, I know the author isn't simply making it all up and because of that I can still recommend this narrative to those who have an interest in the Eastern Front, 1941, and what happened to the Mechanized Corps of the Red Army during the initial border battles. These were the battles which eventually set the stage for the rest of the operations undertaken by the Red Army in 1941, if not the entire war.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Nuts `n Bolts Campaign History, February 22, 2009
This review is from: The Bloody Triangle: The Defeat of Soviet Armor in the Ukraine, June 1941 (Hardcover)
Although the opening weeks of Operation Barbarossa - the German invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 - have been covered by a number of books, most have attempted to cover events across the entire front from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Victor J Kamenir uses a different approach by focusing upon just the Kiev Military District in the period 22 June - 2 July 1941. By narrowing the focus even further - to the operations of the five mechanized corps in the Kiev District in the "Bloody Triangle" between Dubno-Brody-Lutsk - Kamenir is able to provide a very nuts ` n bolts account that depicts in agonizing detail how the Soviets numerically and qualitatively superior armored units had their heads handed to them by von Kleist's Panzergruppe 1 in the first two weeks of the campaign. While the book only occasionally dives down to provide tactical details, it does a very good job describing what happened and why (which is the essence of good historical writing). Up front, the author admits that this book was primarily written from the Russian viewpoint and using Russian sources, although he provides a sprinkling of German perspective from divisional histories. Overall, this book uses a somewhat novel approach and delivers an interesting operational-level view of how the Red Army's strongest units were defeated in the opening border battles.
The book is organized into 13 chapters, with the first five covering German plans and forces; the readiness of the units in the Kiev Military District on the eve of war and events immediately preceding the German invasion. Although Stalin did not think that Hitler would launch an attack in June 1941, the Soviets expected that if and when hostilities did break out, the main area of operations would be a German advance into the Ukraine. Consequently, the Red Army put some of its best units into the Kiev Military District, including five mechanized corps with over 3,000 tanks, of which ten percent were the latest T-34 and KV-1 models. The next eight chapters cover the campaign proper, each depicting operations in a 1-2 day period. While the author provides 11 nice maps, they are located at the back of the book, which requires much page flipping. Thirteen appendices on Soviet and German organizations are also included, as well as a number of tables on the equipment held by each Soviet mechanized corps.
When the Germans crossed the border, the leadership in the Kiev Military district were caught almost literally with their pants down and the author's description of the incredibly poor state of Soviet C2 is one of the best that I have seen. It is quickly apparent that much of the ensuing disaster was self-inflicted. Even though the Kiev Military District had little idea about the strength or dispositions of the German forces that crossed the border (1. Panzergruppe) and none of the Soviet units were at a wartime state of readiness, the Stavka ordered the district commander to launch a pincer counteroffensive with all five mechanized corps within 48 hours. Although this order was clearly delusional, the specter of the Stalinist purges hung over all the Soviet commanders involved and they had to try and mount this jury-rigged counterattack or face a firing squad. Launching a coordinated multi-corps counterattack is difficult under the best of circumstances and as the author describes, these were the worst circumstances. Many of the tank units lacked fuel and ammunition, as well as trained troops and they had to move long distances to reach the battle area around the "Bloody Triangle." Instead of arriving together, the Soviet mechanized corps arrived piece-meal and after losing about one-third of their tanks and artillery to breakdowns and German air attacks. As a former staff officer, I found these descriptions of one predictable mistake after another painful to read.
In short, the great Soviet armored counter-punch caused the Germans some temporary discomfort but resulted in the virtual destruction of all five mechanized corps and the beginning of the Soviet retreat back toward Kiev. The lack of German data on losses costs the author some credibility here, since he provides fairly good data on Soviet losses but fails to put German casualties in perspective. He also over-relies a bit too much on post-war Soviet memoirs that include incorrect information, such as several reports about defeating German paratrooper units when none were used in this area. It was typical for that time period for Soviet commanders to use the excuse that German paratroopers landed behind their lines, rather than admit that they allowed German units to penetrate their front. However, the author does a good job stripping some of the mythology away from the KV-1 tank, by pointing out that the Germans were able to "gang up on" and defeat the few that got into combat. The role of the 1st Anti-tank Brigade in slowing the German advance at a critical moment is also well told.
The editing in this book is quite poor and annoying at times - such as the chronic failure to use English articles and pronouns properly, but otherwise the format of the book is sound. The author has laid out as many of the facts as he could gather and provided some unique insight into a critical Eastern Front battle. Despite its clumsy English, this book is far more readable than David Glantz's The Initial Period of War on the Eastern Front. It is weak on sourcing - only six pages of footnotes and a 4 page bibliography - but overall this book delivers a very good campaign history.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Good Book on Some Ukraine Battles in 1941 from the Soviet Side, June 24, 2009
This review is from: The Bloody Triangle: The Defeat of Soviet Armor in the Ukraine, June 1941 (Hardcover)
This is a very worthwhile book adding a substantial amount of information for English readers concerning Soviet defensive actions in the western Ukraine during the opening months of Operation Barbarossa. One of the many books coming out now that the Soviets have allowed a certain amount of access to their archives, this work should be read as a counterpoint to the many books that have long been available from the German side. There is much to learn here concerning the Soviet command structures, their operation, and coordination (or lack thereof) between units, combined arms, air power and logistics. In particular, the tank formations are discussed at length along with the capabilities and numbers of each type of tank.
OK, so I liked the book and learned something. On the other hand, the editing was awful, and it was often difficult to follow the battles in the narrative. Units would appear, disappear, and then re-appear in a disconcerting fashion, and it was even difficult to follow the commanders as they faced their daily crises. The maps were somewhat useful, but with a relatively small area being covered, smaller scale maps would have been more helpful.
One of my big complaints was that the end notes were often useless. For example, Note 2 for Chapter 1 says "Halder, 337." Unfortunately the bibliography does not list a book or article by Halder, so I have nowhere to go. To my surprise I did not see a number of references I would have expected, and a clear majority of just the German references were unknown to me. I don't mean to sound arrogant, but the bibliography seemed to be skewed to the obscure and missing many of the newer and standard references. Frankly, the end notes need to be improved and fleshed out to provide more confirming source information and point the way for the reader to perform further research.
At any rate, I recommend this book to everyone interested in the Eastern Front. It presents an almost unique view of a segment of the frontier battles from the Soviet side. Pending more investigation and research on my part, however, I'm going to have to take the author's word for much of what he presents.
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