Most Helpful Customer Reviews
43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Comprehensive coverage of Operation Blue, May 20, 2009
This review is from: To the Gates of Stalingrad: Soviet-German Combat Operations, April-August 1942 (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)
I don't usually use superlatives but its hard not to with this book. This book has amazing coverage of the military aspects of the first phases of Operation Blue. The book ends just as the bulk of 6th Army reaches Stalingrad limits where the fighting for the city intensifies. The book is broken down into ten chapters by chronological order and sector. The scale of new information that is presented makes this book a must read for serious students of the war.
The first two chapters state the condition of each army as of the end of January 1942. Both sides were hurting but were determined to regroup and prepare for the spring and summer offensives. The two sides start making plans.
It also gives background info on key commanders on both sides. The appointment to command the 6th Army and his promotion to general was Paulus's first major combat field command. Working under Hitler was not easy but I seriously wonder if it was a mistake for Paulus to be the commander of 6th Army. Manstein or Guderian were available and were certainly more experienced and more aggressive than Paulus. There's much more to say about Paulus's command ability but it will have to wait until the 2nd volume is out.
The third chapter covers preliminary actions that lead up to Operation Blue. The Germans wanted to eliminate several Russian strongpoints that might interfere with the success of Operation Blue. This includes the Crimea, Kharkov, the elimination of the Southwestern Front west of the Oskol River and several smaller engagements. The Germans had inflicted heavy casualties on the retreating Southwestern Front but they had failed to encircle entire armies as they did the prior year. It was an ominous precedent that would haunt Paulus as he nears Stalingrad. Hitler, by this point, had already decided the Red Army was finished and begin considering changing the battle plan.
The summary of the battle of Kharkov with the German counterattack of 6th Army in the north and von Kleist in the south that encircled large numbers of men and materiel was excellent and sets the stage for the upcoming Operation Blue. Another important aspect covered concerns Stalin's fortifying the Bryansk Front with new tank corps that would put pressure on the German advance to Stalingrad or to block the way to Moscow if Paulus turned north at the Don River. There is an extensive accompanying table of troop disposition for both sides that shows the Soviets greatly outnumbered their enemy in tanks in this sector.
The fourth chapter covers the Voronezh battle and the ramifications of the battle concerning Hitler, Bock, Paulus and the Russian Army. The retreating Soviets put up stiff resistance for the city that surprised Hitler who thought the Soviets were finished but didn't alarm him enough to become more cautious for his plans for Stalingrad.
The fifth chapter concerns AG A and the Donbas battles as the German war machine moves south and east. The engagements include Millerovo and the advance on Rostov to the south. It also describes Hitler's changing attitude toward the retreating Red Army and changing of Operation Blue time table by issuing his infamous Directive 45 which will play a big part in 6th Army's destruction.. Hitler also fires Bock for being argumentative and too cautious. In the end, Bock will be proven right in most of his arguments
The sixth chapter deals with the confrontations in the Don Bend in late July. Even though the Russian defenses at the river were poorly planned and their counterattacks poorly timed and coordinated, the resistance of the 62nd Army at the Bend and the 64th Army to the south increased against 6th Army to the point that Paulus had to ask for reinforcements. This was another bad omen that taking Stalingrad would be difficult but Hitler didn't seem to notice.
The seventh chapter concludes the Don Bend battles with the capture of the important city of Kalach. It also includes the moving into the land corridor by 14th PzC heading toward the Volga River.
The eighth chapter extends the coverage of 6th Army as well as Hoth's panzers approaching Stalingrad and the increasing resistance the Russians put up as well as the punishment they are receiving. It includes the massive Luftwaffe raid on the 23rd as well as its daily support.
The ninth chapter breaks away from Stalingrad and covers the Caucasus campaign during August and September. The author spends a surprising amount of time covering 17th Army and 1st PzA driving south into the Caucasus capturing the Black Sea ports as well as the oil fields in the south. The oil was just as important to Stalin as it was to Hitler and went to great lengths to keep it out of German control. The tactical coverage in the Caucasus is good but its not comprehensive. Books by Tieke and Grechko are good supplements. The author also covers the fighting in the Rzhev salient and the Demyansk Pocket in August which are also of great importance to both sides.
The last chapter is the author's conclusions about the campaign, Hitler's impatient and poor strategy, the Soviet's changing tactics etc. Most of the chapter is an evaluation of the German side of the offensive. Mr Glantz is critical of Hitler of trying to do too much at the same time. AGA and AGB were not sufficiently manned or supplied to successfully accomplish their assignments. You would think he would learned from his Moscow debacle. The chapter closes with Glantz highlighting the three fallacies the Soviets and some historians have promoted since the battle and then presents the truth.
There is an appendix that covers Russian Tank commanders and their career accomplishments of all the tank corps of the four Fronts. There is a 90 page Notes section which is pretty amazing in itself that adds a wealth of additional info to your reading experience and is worth the investment in time to study it. The 13 page Bibliography has mostly German or Russian titles. There are also 23 Status Tables that are spread out throughout the book that provide quick read summaries of the condition of certain Armies or Divisions. Its a nice way to reacquaint yourself to specific units among the blizzard of information that's presented. Finally there is a comprehensive 46 page Index that makes it fairly easy to find specific concerns.
I've saved my criticism for last. There are 87 maps and most have a wealth of information concerning troop dispositions and movements etc on them. The problem is you need a magnifying glass to read many of them and a few are unreadable. its a shame for these maps, for the serious student, would be invaluable if they were more user friendly. I wish Mr. Glantz would create a huge atlas that would be widely distributed and reasonably priced with a key selection of maps of the different campaigns of the war. He could link the maps to his books. It should be easier to read and infinitely more helpful. There are a few photos; some are German related but most are Russian related. I particularly liked the picture of Karl, the 600mm mortar used at Sevastopol, Crimea.
This book is a challenging read but its definitely worth it in understanding Operation Blue itself and as a harbinger of what was to come at Stalingrad. You have to be truly interested in the campaign to take the time to digest the wealth of information of all the many regiments, divisions and corps described as well as all of their movements in addition to all the background info on Hitler, Stalin, the generals etc. I highly recommend it for the serious reader.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Toward Stalingrad, May 24, 2009
This review is from: To the Gates of Stalingrad: Soviet-German Combat Operations, April-August 1942 (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)
Glantz, a veritable book producing factory, has definitely set a new standard in literature on Stalingrad. This book, the first of three, follows the Wehrmacht after the Moscow-Counter offensive of 1941/1942 through the Soviet Kharkov offensive and into Operation Blau. In doing so Glantz aims to establish three facts that have been glossed over in general histories of both the Eastern Front and the battle for Stalingrad specifically: Soviet forces did not simply retreat when confronted with Army Groups South, and after Army Groups A and B, to take the fight to Stalingrad, as if pre-planned; STAVKA did not abandon the Donbas region to preserve its forces; and the Red Army soldiers that the Sixth army finally met inside Stalingrad were not the same troops who retreated throughout the summer and finally decided, or were forced, to stand and fight. In reality the Red Army put up resistance to German advances from day one. Glantz takes the time to go through many of these operations and point out exactly how much damage Soviet troops were able to inflict on the Wehrmacht and why the Germans were still able to overcome forces that more often than not outnumbered them in either men, artillery, or armor, and sometimes in all three categories. Of personal interest to myself was the chapter on Army Group A's incursion into the Caucasus region. This is an entire campaign long ignored due to the limelight Stalingrad encompasses.
In the end it seems the Red Army was still committing mistakes they should have learned from in 1941; piecemeal attacks by mechanized and tank forces, lack of command and control in the field, failure to institute combined arms operations utilizing artillery, tanks, infantry, engineers, and the air force, etc. The Germans, however, are also guilty in that they once more overestimated their abilities and underestimated that of the Red Army. The final result is a detailed and highly needed study that not only provides context to the eventual clash that occurred in Stalingrad, but also highlights the actions that led up to the battle and the many battles, and even campaigns, that have gone long ignored due to Stalingrad's ever growing shadow.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Required Reading For Readers Interested in the Eastern Front, June 20, 2009
This review is from: To the Gates of Stalingrad: Soviet-German Combat Operations, April-August 1942 (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)
Frankly, this is the best book that Glantz (with House) has written. He/They usually approach Eastern Front operations from the Soviet side, but this one is fairly even-handed.
What makes these volumes so outstanding today is their incorporation of recently released records and materials from the Soviet side as well as the official German history of WWII, "Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg", most specifically, Volume 4, Der Angriff auf die Sowjetunion, with its accompanying maps in a separate binding.
Two factors stand out: that if the German Army was unable to destroy/capture large formations of the Red Army in the summer campaign of 1942 as well as capturing the resources necessary to continue the war (in particular, working or repairable oil fields and refining capacity) then the war was lost, and secondly, not until the fall of 1942 was the Red Army able to effect proper combined arms coordination and develop its combat leadership sufficiently to win battles under non-winter conditions. The first was specifically spelled out in "Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg", and the second in Glantz's publications based on releases from the Russian archives. But here these aspects are presented and developed so as to reach the average reader.
Excepting the victory by Manstein in the Crimea (Operation Bustard Hunt) that was reported by him as a true battle of annihilation (Vernichtungskampf), none of the German victories in 1942 resulted in large numbers of Soviet prisoners as in 1941. The Soviet armies were defeated but not annihilated and were able to fight another day (although the Soviet victories in the fall of 1942 were won by new formations.) The German weakness in infantry allowed large numbers of Soviet soldiers to escape encirclement and capture, and this weakness was endemic and not to be solved subsequent to the German losses in the winter of 1941. Time and again, this fatal defect shows up in Glantz's discussions of the battles of 1942. In addition, the Soviets learned readily from the Germans in 1942 and were able to turn the tables on an ever-weakening Wehrmacht in the later Stalingrad battle and post-Citadel operations in 1943.
A side point on this excellent volume is that the German formations were blessed with extremely good leadership, particularly the armored units. The extreme cohesiveness in the German units and their sticking together under very adverse conditions time and again pulled victory out of what threatened to become a catastrophy. Although this phenomenon haas been studied at length by the American military, our political structure and policies have prevented the introduction of the training and unit cohesion needed to achieve a similar high level of effectiveness in the American Army. German units often experienced open flanks and non-continuous lines yet were still able to persevere under the most adverse conditions.
The review by David Shrank is excellent in depicting the extent of this volume and I recommend that any prospective purchaser read his review. I offer my comments only in addition to his. Please note that this work is extremely scholarly -- the various appendices, end notes, bibliography and index take up no less than 169 pages. I recommend the end notes to be read right along with the text, and as such, would have wished the authors to have included them with the text as foot notes.
I heartily recommend this very fine work to all readers interested in the military history of World War II.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192250339_.gif){kind=small}
