Tank and mechanized forces spearhead Red Army operations from the gates of Stalingrad to the center of Berlin. This new book profiles Six Soviet commanders who rose to lead six tank armies created by the Red Army on the eastern front during the Second Wor
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24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Indispensable,
By
This review is from: Red Army Tank Commanders: The Armored Guards (Schiffer Military Aviation History) (Hardcover)
When I first got wind of the existence of this book I just tought that it was too good to be true. However, reality turned out to be even better. Written by a former member of the US Army military intelligence, this book is a lenghty and in-depth analisys of the life and deeds of the Soviet commander who leaded the six Guard Tank Armies: Katukov (1st GTA), Bogdanov (2nd GTA), Rybalko (the "Soviet Patton", 3rd GTA), Leylushenko (4th GTA), Rotmistrov (commanding the 5th GTA at Prokorovkha!) and Kravchenko (6th GTA).Except for Rotmistrov (thanks to his involvement in the culminating point of Zitadelle) all the other names are probably unfamiliar to all but few people, even among those interested in the history of the Russo-German war of 1941-45. Recently the situation has somewhat improved, but even today is difficult to dispel the myth that only the Nazi Army had "real" generals, their Soviet counterparts being skilled only at the very top of the military structure (thus the focus on the "usual" Zhukov, Koniev and Rokossovsky), while at the operational and tactical level the Red Army was lead by faceless robots alway following orders, and more inclined in launchhing costly human wave attacks than dealing seriously with the art of war. Of course, this was not (at least, not always!) the case, and "Red Army Tank Commanders" explains superbly why. All the six personalities are analized using a large array of documents, and at the end each commander is judged in the bigger context of the Soviet military evolution in the conflict. What does emerge is that not only these people where as able and proficient as their German or Western "colleagues", but that they faced and overcame in huge variety of tasks and difficulties, nearly always displayng a great deal of flexibility and ingenuity (not the kind of thing you could expect from your stereotypical "soviet-leader-pushed-on-by-a-pistol-welding-political-commissar"). So, Rybalko and Katukov emerged as true masters of battlefield stamina (the later being almost reckless at times!) while Rotmistrov (a well learned and perceptive theoretician) tended to fight "by the book". Bogdanov was impulsive, adept on taking decisions in a snap second and commanding always "on the lead", a la Guderian. Kravchenko was the most conservative and cautious of the lot, with a strong sense of the past military tradition of the Russian army, and an meticoulos planner. Leylushenko excelled on flexibility and improvisation (something he shared with Rybalko) and often reorganized plans and disposition literally on the move. All of them faced - very often - incredible hardships and risks. Being a commander in the Red Army wasn't easy - fighting a though, powerful and ruthless enemy, and under pressure from an High Command that rarely forgave failure. In this sense their career was quite unique in the context of WWII - a darwinian selection where only those learning from battlefield reality could hope for survival. Armstrong does a great job analysing each commander performance during the major operation in which the Red Tank Force was involved. Not always thing went well (like Rybalko's bloody failure during the Third Battle for Karkhov), but each commander learned from previous failures, and their performance invariably improved as the war progressed. The exception to this seems to be Rotmistrov, who was sacked after 5th GTA less-than-perfect performance during Operation Bagration - to be "kicked upstairs" and become the Deputy (later overall) Commander Of The Red Army Armoured and Mechanised Forces. Anyway Armstrong seems uneasy to decide if he losed his battlefield touch or was the victim of a clash of personalities with his superiors. After mature consideration, I incline for the latter version It's always wrong to make comparision in the tricky business of warfare history (and even more so in the slippery arena of Eastern Front history!), but it's human to be tempted to compare these general with more famous names like Rommel, Hoth or Manteuffel (or, why not, Patton!). My take is that in their own way these men where all as good as commanders as those well known armour specialists - and if we take in account the difficulties they had to deal with, I suspect they could have been even better. This book could explain you why. Just for the record, I've some complain. The first is that the writing is not always as good as the content. The most curious thing is the translation of the dialogues (nearly always taken from Soviet sources). They are all written in a very "wooden" english, the variety you learn from at school, and the sintax is - at least - a bit stilted. The second critique is on the lack of a decent pictorial support (a minor sin), and the lack of decent maps. What we have in exchange are bare-boned diagrams that seems to have been made with Powerpoint. Well, could be a good excuse for a major reworking in a future second edition. The bottom line? Buy it! It's one of a kind stuff - hope it will be reprinted sometimes in the future...
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent biographies,
By
This review is from: Red Army Tank Commanders: The Armored Guards (Schiffer Military Aviation History) (Hardcover)
This book contains in depth biographies of the commanders of the 6 Tank Armies that took part in the war on the Eastern Front within the Red Army. There are few such works in the West that concentrate on specific commanders or generals from the Red Army and this is a great addition to any library on the Eastern Front in the English language. I'll be glad to order other works by this author (whenever he puts them out), and I have spoken to him on a number of occassions (on a history forum online, I've actually 'bumped' into many authors on online forums including David Glantz and Marc Rikmenspoel), so I can vouch that his research within Russian/Soviet sources is credible (many authors have yet to do real research with Russian sources), he has a good command of Russian when it comes to military matters, and his literature is a great improvement to helping the US and the Western World understand what went on within the Red Army and on the Eastern Front during WWII.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Armored Warfare Eastern Front,
By rarmstrong@swmail.sw.org (Salado, Texas) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Red Army Tank Commanders: The Armored Guards (Schiffer Military Aviation History) (Hardcover)
For those who have enjoyed the study in Red Army Tank Commanders and the development of the Soviet tank forces, you may find interesting a specialized look at the interplay between intelligence and deception. The revised e-book edition of "Soviet Operational Deception: The Red Cloak" adds insight to Red Army deception efforts against German intelligence collection that involve the 3rd Guards Tank Army on the Dnepr River in 1943 and the 1st Guards Tank Army in the Lvov-Sandomierz operation July 1944.
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