Moscow To Stalingrad - Decision In The East [Illustrated Edition]

Moscow To Stalingrad - Decision In The East [Illustrated Edition]
Author: Earl F. Ziemke
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Total Pages: 1225
Release: 2014-08-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1782893199

Contains 92 illustrations and 45 maps of the Russian Campaign. A brilliant modern history of the German invasion of Russia to their bloody crushing defeat by the re-invigorated Russian forces at the siege of Stalingrad. During 1942, the Axis advance reached its high tide on all fronts and began to ebb. Nowhere was this more true than on the Eastern Front in the Soviet Union. After receiving a disastrous setback on the approaches to Moscow in the winter of 1941-1942, the German armies recovered sufficiently to embark on a sweeping summer offensive that carried them to the Volga River at Stalingrad and deep into the Caucasus Mountains. The Soviet armies suffered severe defeats in the spring and summer of 1942 but recovered to stop the German advances in October and encircle and begin the destruction of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad in November and December. This volume describes the course of events from the Soviet December 1941 counteroffensive at Moscow to the Stalingrad offensive in late 1942 with particular attention to the interval from January through October 1942, which has been regarded as a hiatus between the two major battles but which in actuality constituted the period in which the German fortunes slid into irreversible decline and the Soviet forces acquired the means and capabilities that eventually brought them victory. These were the months of decision in the East.

Block By Block: The Challenges Of Urban Operations [Illustrated Edition]

Block By Block: The Challenges Of Urban Operations [Illustrated Edition]
Author: William G. Robertson
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Total Pages: 694
Release: 2014-08-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 178289778X

Includes more than 20 maps, diagrams and tables. History instructs that for a variety of reasons, cities have always been targets for attack by adversaries. From the earliest of times, attackers came bearing weapons ranging from knives, arrows, and spears, while in modern times, they have brought weaponry the Industrial Revolution made available: cannon, rocket artillery, and ultimately bombs and rockets delivered from aerial platforms and even thermonuclear warheads, not to mention the potential for chemical and biological payloads. In turn, cities have responded to most of these threats. Early on, for example, they thickened city walls and erected other barriers to entry. But attackers seeking to subdue the cities simply countered with new and better weapons. So the game of measures and countermeasures-the adult, and much more deadly, version of the familiar children’s game of rock, scissors, paper-has continued apace for centuries. The expert authors of this excellent study focus on the following Urban Operations 1) Through the ages - Pre Second World War Urban Combat 2) Bloody Stalingrad 3) The demolition of Aachen 4) Battle of Manila 5) The Siege of Hue 6) Battle for Grozny 7) Fight for Beirut 8) Siege of Sarajevo 9) The capture of Kabul 10) Lightning strike at Panama City 11) Urban Terrorism in Argentina 12) The US Military in the Hurricane Katarina rescue effort 13) The Future of Urban Combat

Stalingrad To Berlin - The German Defeat In The East [Illustrated Edition]

Stalingrad To Berlin - The German Defeat In The East [Illustrated Edition]
Author: Earl F. Ziemke
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Total Pages: 1185
Release: 2014-08-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1782893202

Contains 72 illustrations and 42 maps of the Russian Campaign. After the disasters of the Stalingrad Campaign in the Russian winters of 1942-3, the German Wehrmacht was on the defensive under increasing Soviet pressure; this volume sets out to show how did the Russians manage to push the formerly all-conquering German soldiers back from Russian soil to the ruins of Berlin. Save for the introduction of nuclear weapons, the Soviet victory over Germany was the most fateful development of World War II. Both wrought changes and raised problems that have constantly preoccupied the world in the more than twenty years since the war ended. The purpose of this volume is to investigate one aspect of the Soviet victory-how the war was won on the battlefield. The author sought, in following the march of the Soviet and German armies from Stalingrad to Berlin, to depict the war as it was and to describe the manner in which the Soviet Union emerged as the predominant military power in Europe.

Scouts Out! The Development Of Reconnaissance Units In Modern Armies [Illustrated Edition]

Scouts Out! The Development Of Reconnaissance Units In Modern Armies [Illustrated Edition]
Author: John J. McGrath
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2014-08-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 178289912X

Illustrated with 60 maps, plans and diagrams Reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance are battlefield missions as old as military history itself and missions for which many armies have created specialized units to perform. In most cases, these units were trained, equipped, and used differently from the majority of an army’s fighting units. Horse cavalry performed these missions for centuries, for it had speed and mobility far in excess of main battle units. Once the horse was replaced by mechanization, however, the mobility advantage once enjoyed by the horse cavalry disappeared. Since the early 20th century, the search for the proper mix of equipment, the proper organization, and the proper employment of reconnaissance units has bedeviled armies around the world. This survey uses a diverse variety of historical cases to illustrate the enduring issues that surround the equipping, organizing, and employment of reconnaissance units. It seems that these specialized units are either too heavily or too lightly equipped and too narrowly specialized or too conventionally organized. Pre-war reconnaissance doctrines tend to undergo significant change once fighting begins, leading to post-conflict analysis that reconnaissance units were “misused” in one way or another. McGrath ends his study with an intriguing conclusion about the role that specialized reconnaissance units should have in the future that may surprise many readers.

From Stalingrad to Berlin

From Stalingrad to Berlin
Author: Earl Zeimke
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Total Pages: 565
Release: 2014-02-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 1473847869

With scarcely an interlude, the German-Soviet conflict in World War II lasted for 3 years, 10 months, and 16 days. The conflict seesawed across eastern and central Europe between the Elbe and the Volga, the Alps, and the Caucasus. The total number of troops continuously engaged averaged between 8 and 9 million, and the losses were appalling. Wehrmacht losses numbered between 3 and 3.5 million. Deaths on the Soviet side reached more than 12 million, about 47 percent of the grand total of soldiers of all nations killed in World War II. The war and the occupation cost theSoviet Union some 7 million civilians and Germany about 1.5 million. The losses, civilian and military, of Finland, the Baltic States, and eastern and southeastern European countries added millions more.The great struggle completely unhinged the traditional European balance of power. The war consolidated the Soviet regime in Russia, and enabled it to impose the Communist system on its neighbours, Finland excepted, and on the Soviet occupation zone in Germany. The victory made the Soviet Union the second-ranking world power.This book follows the conflict from Stalingrad to Berlin. Topics include strategy and tactics, partisan and psychological warfare, coalition warfare, and manpower and production problems faced by both countries, but by the Germans in particular.With a new introduction by Emmy AwardTM winning historian Bob Carruthers and numerous rare illustrations this powerful book makes for a welcome addition to any Second World War library.

Armageddon in Stalingrad

Armageddon in Stalingrad
Author: David M. Glantz
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Total Pages: 920
Release: 2009-11-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 0700616640

The German offensive on Stalingrad was originally intended to secure the Wehrmacht's flanks, but it stalled dramatically in the face of Stalin's order: "Not a Step Back!" The Soviets' resulting tenacious defense of the city led to urban warfare for which the Germans were totally unprepared, depriving them of their accustomed maneuverability, overwhelming artillery fire, and air support-and setting the stage for debacle. Armageddon in Stalingrad continues David Glantz and Jonathan House's bold new look at this most iconic military campaign of the Eastern Front and Hitler's first great strategic defeat. While the first volume in their trilogy described battles that took the German army to the gates of Stalingrad, this next one focuses on the inferno of combat that decimated the city itself. Previous accounts of the battle are far less accurate, having relied on Soviet military memoirs plagued by error and cloaked in secrecy. Glantz and House have plumbed previously unexploited sources—including the archives of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) and the records of the Soviet 62nd and German Sixth Armies—to provide unprecedented detail and fresh interpretations of this apocalyptic campaign. They allow the authors to reconstruct the fighting hour by hour, street by street, and even building by building and reveal how Soviet defenders established killing zones throughout the city and repeatedly ambushed German spearheads. The authors set these accounts of action within the contexts of decisions made by Hitler and Stalin, their high commands, and generals on the ground and of the larger war on the Eastern Front. They show the Germans weaker than has been supposed, losing what had become a war of attrition that forced them to employ fewer and greener troops to make up for earlier losses and to conduct war on an ever-lengthening logistics line. Written with the narrative force of a great war novel, this new volume supersedes all previous accounts and forms the centerpiece of the Stalingrad Trilogy, with the upcoming final volume focusing on the Red Army's counteroffensive.

Hitler Triumphant

Hitler Triumphant
Author: Peter G. Tsouras
Publisher: Frontline Books
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2011-08-22
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 147381510X

Edited by the author of Disaster at D-Day, a collection of alternative histories that force readers to consider what could happen if the Nazis won World War II. Based on a series of fascinating “what ifs” posed by leading military historians, this compelling new alternate history reconstructs the moments during the Second World War that could conceivably have altered the entire course of the war and led to a German victory. Based on real battles, actions, and characters, each scenario has been carefully constructed to reveal how at points of decision a different choice or minor incident could have set in motion an entirely new train of events altering history forever. Scenarios in this volume include the fall of Malta in 1942 and the likely consequences and the possibility of Halifax making peace with Hitler. Contributors include John Prados, editor of The White House Tapes: Eavesdropping on the President; David Isby, editor of Fighting the Invasion and The Luftwaffe Fighter Force; and Nigel Jones, author of The War Walk and Rupert Brooke: Life, Death and Myth. Praise for Hitler Triumphant “An entertaining work of counter-factual history, with some thought-provoking material on the overall course of the war.” —History of War “The analysis of battle strategy and military might makes for a top pick for military readers seeking more than fantasy speculation.” —Midwest Book Review