Customer Reviews

SS Steel Storm : Waffen-SS Panzer Battles on the Eastern Front 1943-1945

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4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
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This book presents many excellent photos of the Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front. The politics of the SS are generally handled lightly but they are not ignored, especially after the SS retakes a couple of cities and suppresses Partisan groups.

This book does an excellent job of detailing the where and how and starts by claiming that the SS were not given preferential treatment for equipment to achieve the combat performance that they obtained. At two different points, it then states that certain high ranking Nazi's saw to the refitting of their particular pet groups (esp. the Totenkoph division).

The tactical details are a little light, the maps do present a general "who was where" feel to the battles, but the map details are few. The accounts of Kursk could be given more space in my opinion.

HOWEVER, this book does an excellent job of explaining the authors opinion of why the Waffen SS units were elite fighting groups and the disproportionate effect they had on the monstrous battles that raged. Some of the details are hard to believe if it weren't for the fact that we know how numerous the Russian casualties were. Truly, the Nazi war machine was crushed by waves of human flesh and poorly trained tankers in the vast sea of the Russian Steppe!

Two details that amazed me were how much Waffen-SS tactical plans sounded like current doctrine for much of the armored community and how much Hitler's micromanaging and countermanding his generals aided the collapse of the Reich he had assembled. The effect was staggering, especially at Kursk, arguably the pinnacle battle of the ETO!

Written by the world-renowned correspondent and journalist, Tim Ripley, "SS Steel Storm" is a strictly no-nonsense, chronological account of the major battles of Himmler's dreaded Waffen-SS Panzer Divisions on the Eastern Front from 1943 - 1945, beginning with von Manstein's counter-offensive at Kharkov.
Albeit an interesting and factual documentary that dispells many of the myths surrounding the major Eastern Front battles (for example, the misconception that the titanic clash of armour at Phrokorovka during the Battle of Kursk involved a one-off, set-piece, slugfest between thousands of German and Soviet tanks is set straight in the chapter on the battle),I found Mr. Ripley's treatment of his subject a tad on the dry side. For the avid military enthusiast who relishes a rivetting fast read, this IS NOT your cup of tea! True, the text is laden with facts, figures and useful appendices, as well as being awash with scores of maps and b/w photographs, but it unfortunately reads more like a high-school history textbook than a dramatic treatment of one of history's most gifted fighting formations. The total absence of eye-witness testimonials is exactly what lets down an otherwise informative book. That "you are there" aspect so important for the student of this theatre of WW2 has been gnored for reasons unknown.
If you are a newcomer to the Eastern Front, you may want to buy this book for the wonderful facts and figures it provides so generously - and if you can afford its not-so-generous cost. The expert may want to give it a miss.

SS Steel Storm combines clear writing with interesting and relevant photographs of East Front armor and infantry. This is not a "picture book" that just happens to have some writing in-between photos: Tim Ripley writes lucid prose that is both informative and engaging. Having seen too many East Front military books that are just excuses to publish some tank/infantry pictures, I appreciated Ripley's skill with the written word and agreed with much of his interpretation of the Waffen SS's role on the East Front including the observation that the Nazi reign of terror (my words) might have ended sooner had not the Waffen SS fought at Kharhov and Zhitomir.

For the student of the Eastern Front battles this is a must read ! The "Kessel" battles of the panzer divisions, panzer grenadiers and in particular the Waffen SS on the eastern front, are generally poorly covered, however Tim Ripley's book makes up for all of this. Lots of details described, photos I have not encountered anywhere before in other books and best of all: great graphics and maps explaining the tactical moves of the waffen ss panzer units on the eastern front. Buy it - read it ! Dan Danielsen, Denmark

I have been interesed in WW2 and in particular the WAFFEN-SS for a long time now... I like to think I know alot about this period in history. I am trying to get a collection together of books on the SS as this is what interests me the most and I thought that this would be a great book to start with. Well I tell you that it is. Clearly written information combined with great photo's {some I had not seen before} makes for a great buy in my opinion, as well as being a reasonable price I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the Waffen-SS/Eastern Campaign. BUY IT!

I've tried to get on with this book since it deals with a favourite topic of mine. Author Ripley is a well respected writer & all-rounder in the defense field. However, for me Tim Ripley is above all known as an aviation correspondent..for example I recall a well-done recent article on the Israeli air force in Air International magazine. Thus I have the rather strong impression that Ripley is not entirely on home territory with this work, either in regard to the Waffen SS or tank battles in particular. I think this becomes evident in a reading of the book, which although presenting a comprehensive and detailed overview, is ultimately a pretty bland synopsis. In addition there is a total lack of reference to German language sources in his bibliography, which points up another weakness in this work; the complete absence of first person accounts, which makes for an extremely dry writing style. I'm very much of the opinion that someone writing about German forces in WWII should at least have some elementary knowledge of the German language if he wants to be taken seriously. Given that there now exists decent translations of works by Tiger Kommandanten such as Otto Carius, Willi Fey, not to mention Agte's hugh biographies of Wittman & Peiper, I find this omission inexplicable. Finally, I'm not overly impressed with the photo content, rather too many well known shots of commanders are featured. Robert Michulec's cheap picture books on the Panzers in the East contain far more interesting images..and for a general overview of the Panzerkrieg McCarthy & Syron's work is ultimately more satisfactory..

What makes this truly an OK book is that half the time the cities that are mentioned in the narrative are not listed on the maps. Not only are cities missing but the troops and formations mentioned are also missing. While doing a marvelous job in describing the battle for Kursk and the 'Kessels', there's no way to follow the action on the maps that are included. This makes the narrative not just disappointed but frustrating. Also there is never any 'theater of action' maps to put the area of the battle into context. That said:

All the characters are well documented, though it's hard to follow who is in which SS Panzer group from time to time, just by constantly referring to each division by it's name gives you the ability to follow each group. What's amazing is that most of the time, there were SS Panzer Corps fighting against Soviet Tank Armies, and Panzer Divisions fighting Tank Corps. Almost all of the time the Germans were outnumbered but because of superior weapons and tactics were able to hold off the Soviet Red Army.

The Russians depended on the T-34/75 for most of the war and upgraded the main battle canon to an 86 late in 1944, but most of the time the Panthers and Tigers were able to blast through the T-34s frontal armor. But when your able to turn out ten times the number of tanks as your opponent, and don't care about casualties, quantity will overwhelm quality (especially when you have no one to operate the tanks).

Though Ripley doesn't ignore the crimes committed by the Waffen-SS, he does seem at times to be cheering them on when they succeed. I guess you have to give them credit for putting up the good fight, but still.... Had the German General Staff stood up to Hitler, they would have been able to fight a much better and longer war. The Wehrmacht lost over a million veteran fighting men trying to conquer Stalingrad, while they would have been better served to pull out and encircle the city, and then starve it to death. By transferring troops from Army Group South, the drive to capture the Caucasian oil fields failed, leaving this resource in the hands of the Soviets.

By determining to continue to attack, as opposed to developing a defensive at the Dneiper and Vistula, Hitler squandered his chance to slow down or stop the Russians from overwhelming his forces. The Ardennes campaign (the Battle of the Bulge) wasted six-months of tank production on the Western front, while it could have been used to stop the mammoth Soviet summer offensive of 1944, which broke the back of the German Army and Waffen-SS.

Good book (uh, except for the maps).

Zeb Kantrowitz

i consider myself a student of the eastern front wars, and have seen my share of bad books. This book is good about what it claims, ie role of waffen SS in the various eastern front wars. clear and concise with some very good photographs.

This book offers great details and info on the battles of the ss in the east. Great pictures and presentation go along with the great info......not a bad price either

while highly recommended, I don't think I'd pay money]. I only paid [money] a couple of years ago. Guess I made a good investment. ... Anyway, since I'm such a die-hard Waffen SS collector, I most likely won't reap the return as I have no plans on selling it.