Clash of Arms: How the Allies Won in Normandy (The Art of War) [Hardcover]

Russell A. Hart (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1555879470 | ISBN-13: 978-1555879471 | Publication Date: April 2001

Honored as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title by the American Library Association

Clash of Arms examines how the Western Allies learned—on the battlefield—to defeat the Nazi war machine. Beginning with an investigation of the interwar neglect that left the Allied militaries incapable of defeating Nazi aggression at the start of World War II, Russell A. Hart analyzes the methods the Allies used to improve their military effectiveness. He also explores the continuous German adaptation that prolonged the war and increased the price of eventual Allied victory. Central to his comparative study is the complex interplay of personalities, military culture, and wartime realities that determined how accurately the combatants learned the lessons of war and how effectively they enhanced their battle capabilities.

 

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Russell A. Hart is Associate Professor and specialist in modern military history at Hawai'i Pacific University and coauthor of German Tanks of WWII; Weapons and Fighting Tactics of the Waffen-SS; Panzer: The Illustrated History of Germany's Armored Forces in WWII;The German Soldier in World War II; and The Second World War, Part Six: Northwest Europe, 1944-1945.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 469 pages
• Publisher: Lynne Rienner Pub (April 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555879470
• ISBN-13: 978-1555879471
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,823,714 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent analysis of victory, October 17, 2002

By 

Geoffrey Megargee (Arlington, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Clash of Arms: How the Allies Won in Normandy (The Art of War) (Hardcover)

Every army prepares for and conducts combat differently, in a way that reflects its own particular traditions and culture as well as the characteristics of the society from which it springs. An army's performance depends upon a multitude of factors, many of which are beyond anyone's ability to control or simply impossible to predict before the shooting starts. In large part an army's success comes from its ability to perceive what is happening on the battlefield, learn the correct lessons from the events, develop new techniques, and train its soldiers to the new standard.

Unraveling the complexities of this process is difficult enough when one looks at one single army. Russell Hart has taken on four: the British, Canadian, American and German. In each case he has examined that army's development in the years after the First World War as well as its performance in the Normandy campaign of 1944. His conclusions will surprise some people. For example, the vaunted German Wehrmacht, which authors have lauded over the years as the best fighting force of the war, comes off a poor second to the U.S. Army in its ability to learn and adapt, while the British and Canadians rank lower still. That is not to say that the Germans were weak opponents or that the Americans never made mistakes; any American veteran of the fighting in Normandy would scoff at the idea. But neither is it true, as many German generals maintained after the war, that the Americans fought without skill and won simply because they had vastly more equipment. By the end of the Normandy fighting, the U.S. Army was clearly better than its opponent.

The strength of Hart's book is in his understanding of the issues involved and in the careful research that backs up his conclusions. This is not a book to pick up if you want guts-and-glory descriptions of the battles on the beaches and in the bocage. But if you want to understand why the battles turned out as they did, this is probably the most important book you could read.