David M. Glantz

Jonathan M. House

By the time Pearl Harbor had ripped apart America's peacetime pretensions, the German blitzkrieg had already blasted the Red Army back to the gates of Moscow. Yet, less than four years later, the Soviet hammer-and-sickle flew above the ruins of Berlin, stark symbol of a miraculous comeback that destroyed the German army and shattered Hitler's imperial designs. Told in swift stirring prose, When Titans Clashed provides the first full account of this epic struggle from the Soviet perspective. David Glantz, one of the world's foremost authorities on the Soviet military, and Jonathan House present a fundamentally new interpretation of what the Russians called the "Great Patriotic War." Based on unprecedented access to formerly classified Soviet sources, they counter the German perspective that has dominated previous accounts and radically revise our understanding of the Soviet experience during World War II. Placing the war within its wider political, economic, and social contexts, the authors recount how the determined Soviets overcame their initial disasters to defeat the most powerful army ever assembled. As they vividly show, this truly was war waged on a titanic scale, sweeping across a half-million square miles from Moscow to Berlin, featuring monumental offensives and counteroffensives, and ultimately costing both sides combined a staggering forty million casualties. Their work offers new revelations on Soviet strategy and tactics, Stalin's role as supreme commander of the Red Army, the emergence of innovative and courageous commanders in the crucible of combat, numerous previously concealed or neglected military operations, German miscalculations on the road to the Red capital, the effect of D-Day and the "second front" on the Soviet effort, and the war's devastating impact on the Soviet economy and civilian population. An essential volume for anyone interested in World War II or Soviet history, When Titans Clashed will change forever how we look at one of the greatest military confrontations in world history.

How the Red Army Stopped Hitler

When Titans Clashed

Operation Mars, the parallel offensive to the hugely successful Operation Uranus, was an epic disaster for the Soviet Army, with much of the detail largely lost in the mists of time. Now for the first time a detailed analysis of Marshal Zhukov's operation is put on record. 24 maps; 24 black/white photos. 432 pages. Hardback

The Red Army's Epic Disaster in Operation Mars, 1942

Zhukov's Greatest Defeat

The first account of this epic battle to include the struggle for territory outside the city of Leningrad recalls Hitler's hubris in invading Russia and the stubborn Soviet resistance that eventually broke the German Army. (Military History)

1941-1944

The Battle for Leningrad

Slaughterhouse

"Beyond the battles themselves, Glantz also presents an in-depth portrait of the Red Army as an evolving military institution. Assessing more clearly than ever before the army's size, strength, and force structure, he provides keen insights into its doctrine, strategy, tactics, weaponry, training, officer corps, and political leadership. In the process, be puts a human face on the Red Army's commanders and soldiers, including women and those who served in units - security (NKVD), engineer, railroad, auto-transport, construction, and penal forces - that have till now remained poorly understood."--BOOK JACKET.

The Red Army at War : 1941-1943

Colossus Reborn

Jonathan Mallory House

An account of the Battle of Stalingrad, based on daily reports from both sides, outlines the organization and training of both armies and chronicles the German advance, Soviet defenses, and flanking attacks through September, 1942.

Soviet-German Combat Operations, April-August 1942

To the Gates of Stalingrad

Leningrad (now reverted to its pre-1914 name of St Petersburg) was surrounded by German forces in 1941 and cut off from the rest of Russia. It was besieged for nearly three years, the great city's population suffering terribly in the bitter cold of the Russian winter. Over a million men, women and children died of starvation and hypothermia, but the city fought on and never surrendered. In 1943 the Russian army broke through to link up with the garrison and end the longest, bloodiest siege of the Second World War.

900 Days of Terror

The Siege of Leningrad, 1941-1944

Beginning with Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, this volume draws upon eye-witness German accounts supplemented with German archival and detailed Soviet materials. Formerly classified Soviet archival materials has been incorporated.

Proceedings Fo the Fourth Art of War Symposium, Garmisch, October, 1987

The Initial Period of War on the Eastern Front, 22 June - August 1941

By the time Pearl Harbour had ripped apart America's peacetime pretensions, the German blitzkrieg had already blasted the Red Army back to the gates of Moscow. Yet, less than four years later, the Soviet hammer-and-sickle flew above the ruins of Berlin, stark symbol of a miraculous comeback that destroyed the German army and shattered Hitler's imperial designs.

Drawing on evidence never before seen in the West, including combat records of early engagements, David Glantz claims that in 1941 the Red Army was poorly trained, inadequately equipped, ineptly organized, and consequently incapable of engaging in large-scale military campaigns - and both Hitler and Stalin knew it. He provides a complete and convincing study of why the Soviets almost lost the war that summer, dispelling many of the myths about the Red Army that have persisted since the war and soundly refuting Viktor Suvorov's controversial thesis that Stalin was planning a preemptive strike against Germany.

The Red Army on the Eve of World War

Stumbling Colossus

Lester W. Grau

National Defense University Press

When the Soviet Union decided to invade Afghanistan, they evaluated their chances for success upon their experiences in East Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Unfortunately for their soldiers, as well as the people of Afghanistan, they ignored not only the experiences of the British in the same region, but also their own experience with the Basmachi resistance fighters in Central Asia from 1918-1933. Consequently, in Afghanistan the Soviet army found its tactics inadequate to meet the challenges posed by the difficult terrain and the highly motivated mujahideen freedom fighters. To capture the lessons their tactical leaders learned in Afghanistan and to explain the change in tactics that followed, the Frunze Military Academy compiled this book for their command and general staff combat arms officers. The lessons are valuable not just for Russian officers, but for the tactical training of platoon, company and battalion leaders of any nation likely to engage in conflicts involving civil war...

Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan

The Bear Went Over the Mountain

The leading expert on Soviet military history resurrects a failed World War II campaign that the official Russian history seeks to erase from memory. Reconstructing the Red Army's first invasion of Romania in the spring of 1944, Glantz shows that despite the campaign's abysmal failure, it provided a clear indication of Stalin's strong interest in the Balkans and further damaged the German army's ability to stop the Soviet war machine in its drive toward Berlin.

The Failed Soviet Invasion of Romania, Spring 1944

Red Storm Over the Balkans

Boris Gorbachevsky

A junior officer in the Red Army provides one of the richest and most detailed memoirs of life and warfare on the Eastern Front, from his combat training in early 1942 until the surrender and occupation of Germany.

A Red Army Soldier's War on the Eastern Front, 1942-1945

Through the Maelstrom

At dawn on 10 July 1941, massed tanks and motorized infantry of German Army Group Center's Second and Third Panzer Groups crossed the Dnepr and Western Dvina Rivers, beginning what Adolf Hitler, the Fuhrer of Germany's Third Reich, and most German officers and soldiers believed would be a triumphal march on Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union. Less than three weeks before, on 22 June Hitler had unleashed his Wehrmacht's massive invasion of the Soviet Union code-named Operation Barbarossa, which sought to defeat the Soviet Union's Red Army, conquer the country, and unseat its Communist ruler, Josef Stalin. Between 22 June and 10 July, the Wehrmacht advanced up to 500 kilometers into Soviet territory, killed or captured up to one million Red Army soldiers, and reached the western banks of the Western Dvina and Dnepr Rivers, by doing so satisfying the premier assumption of Plan Barbarossa that the Third Reich would emerge victorious if it could defeat and destroy the bulk of the Red Army before it withdrew to safely behind those two rivers. With the Red Army now shattered, Hitler and most Germans expected total victory in a matter of weeks. The ensuing battles in the Smolensk region frustrated German hopes for quick victory. Once across the Dvina and Dnepr Rivers, a surprised Wehrmacht encountered five fresh Soviet armies. Despite destroying two of these armies outright, severely damaging two others, and encircling the remnants of three of these armies in the Smolensk region, quick victory eluded the Germans. Instead, Soviet forces encircled in Mogilev and Smolensk stubbornly refused to surrender, and while they fought on, during July, August, and into early September, first five and then a total of seven newly mobilized Soviet armies struck back viciously at the advancing Germans, conducting multiple counterattacks and counterstrokes, capped by two major counteroffensives that sapped German strength and will. Despite immense losses in men and materiel, these desperate Soviet actions derailed Operation Barbarossa. Smarting from countless wounds inflicted on his vaunted Wehrmacht, even before the fighting ended in the Smolensk region, Hitler postponed his march on Moscow and instead turned his forces southward to engage 'softer targets' in the Kiev region. The 'derailment' of the Wehrmacht at Smolensk ultimately became the crucial turning point in Operation Barbarossa. Serving as both a companion to the previous three text volumes in this monumental study, and as a standalone battlefield atlas, this volume provides over one hundred specially commissioned color maps that trace the course of the campaign, each accompanied by a detailed caption.

The Battle for Smolensk 10 July-10 September 1941 Atlas

Barbarossa Derailed, Volume 4

"This study exploits a wealth of Soviet and German archival materials, including the combat orders and operational records of the German OKW, OKH, army groups, and armies of the Soviet Stavka, the Red Army General Staff, the Western Main Direction Command, the Western, Central, Reserve, and Briansk fronts, and their subordinate armies to present a detailed mosaic and definitive account of what took place, why and how during the prolonged and complex battles in the Smolensk region from 10 July through 10 September 1941 ... The series will consist of a detailed two-volume chronological narrative of the course of operations, accompanied by a third volume, containing an extensive collection of specific orders and reports translated verbatim from Russian, and a fourth (atlas) volume containing newly-commissioned colour maps"--Dust jacket.

Barbarossa Derailed: The German advance to Smolensk, the encirclement battle, and the first and second Soviet counteroffensives, 10 July-24 August 1941

The Soviet Study of War" series examines the lessons Soviet military theorists and commanders learned from the study of their own military experience. These are translations of Soviet documents.

Volume Two: The Winter Campaign, 1941-1942

Soviet Documents on the Use of War Experience

First Published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Spearhead of the Offensive

The Soviet Conduct of Tactical Maneuver

Volume 1. The campaign intended to secure the Wehrmacht's flanks had proven one front too many for the German Army. And now the offensive at Stalingrad, the epic clash that marked Germany's failure on the Eastern Front, was entering its grim final phase. In Book One of the third volume of his acclaimed Stalingrad Trilogy, David Glantz offers the definitive account--the "ground truth" to counter a half-century's worth of myth and misinformation--of the beginning of the end of one of the most infamous battles of the Second World War, and one of the most costly in lives and treasure in the annals of history. When Volume Two left off, Germany's vaunted Sixth Army, already deflected from its original goal--the Caucasus oil fields--had been drawn into a desperate war of attrition within the ravaged city of Stalingrad. In Volume Three, Book One, we see the ultimate consequences of the Germans' overreach and the gathering force of the Red Army's massive manpower and increasingly sophisticated command. After failing repeatedly to find and exploit the weaknesses in Axis defenses, Stalin and the Stavka (High Command) finally seized their chance in mid-November of 1942 by launching a bold and devastating counteroffensive, Operation Uranus. Glantz draws a detailed and vivid account of how, in Operation Uranus, the Red Army's three fronts defeated and largely destroyed two Romanian armies and encircled the German Sixth Army and half of the German Fourth Panzer Army in the Stalingrad pocket--turning the Germans' world on its head. Like its predecessor volumes, this one makes extensive use of sources previously out of reach or presumed lost, such as reports from the Sixth Army's combat journal and newly released Soviet and Russian records. These materials (many cited at length or printed in their entirety in a companion volume) lend themselves to a strikingly new interpretation of the campaign's planning and execution on both sides--a version of events that once and for all gets at the ground truth of this historic confrontation.

Endgame at Stalingrad: November 1942

Harold S. Orenstein

The Soviet military concept of operational art and the associated theories such as "war of annihilations", "deep battle", and "deep operations" have been observed by the West since World War II. The Soviet government hid their military-theoretical work behind a veil of secrecy. Here, the Soviet theories are revealed in the words of those who created them in peacetime and applied them in war.

The Documentary Basis: Volume 2 (1965-1991)

The Evolution of Soviet Operational Art, 1927-1991

Harold Steven Orenstein

Soviet Union. Raboche-Krestʹi͡anskai͡a Krasnai͡a Armii͡a. Generalʹnyĭ shtab

The Red Army's summer offensive of 1944 against Hitler's Wehrmacht was unprecedented in terms of its scale, scope, and strategic intent and impact. This study details how the Red Army accomplished this feat in the words of those individuals who planned and orchestrated the offensive.

David M. Glantz

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