Download or read book Last Panzer Battles in Hungary written by Norbert Számvéber and published by . This book was released on 2024-04-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the last phase of the Second World War the Sixth Panzer Army was the last army available to the German military leadership which was more or less intact and was capable of launching a major offensive. After it had been withdrawn from the Western front in the aftermath of the failed Ardennes counter offensive, it was replenished with men and gears as fully as was possible in the given circumstances, and as a result it almost regained its 1944 autumn strength. It would not have been a surprise if it had been deployed on German territory against the Allied troops advancing to Rhine, or in Silesia or in the Baltics or even if it had been sent as a reinforcement to the Army Group Vistula to defend the distant approaches to Berlin against the advancing Soviet army - reinforcement and fresh troops capable of launching counter offensives were desperately needed everywhere. But it happened otherwise: the Sixth Army was deployed in Hungary and participated in the Operation Spring Awakening, launched in the western part of the country on 6th of March, 1945. This was the last German "big offensive" in the course of the Second World War. Several questions come to mind about the operation. What were the goals originally set to be achieved by this seemingly pointless attack? What role was assigned to the once formidable German Panzer Corps? Is it true that the Soviet command used the same defense directives as had been used during the battle of Kursk in 1943 because they had proved to be viable then? What types of tanks and armored vehicles fight in West Hungary and in what numbers? How did the American made M4A2 tanks manned by Soviet crews fare against the much heavier German Panther and Tiger B tanks on the Hungarian soil? What were the losses on both sides in tanks and armored vehicles? To what extent can be the prompt and powerful response of the Soviet side - the offensive towards Vienna - evaluated as being successful? How did the Germans, the Soviets, the Hungarians and the Bulgarians use their tanks and armored vehicles in this operation? Besides giving a detailed chronological description of the events, the book tries to find answers to these questions. The facts extracted from the operational documents of the fighting sides have been supplemented with excerpts from diaries and memoirs, and even the maps have been drawn on the basis of the original ones. The author has explored some new archival sources kept in Russian archives and also incorporated some published Russian materials into his research that was neglected up until now by other researchers, along with some newly published German memoirs - all this has made possible to create a narrative of the events related to us by the author in hitherto unprecedented detail.
Download or read book Last Panzer Battles in Hungary written by Norbert Számvéber and published by Peko Publishing. This book was released on 2020-11-20 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the last phase of the Second World War the Sixth Panzer Army was the last army available to the German military leadership which was more or less intact and was capable of launching a major offensive. After it had been withdrawn from the Western front in the aftermath of the failed Ardennes counter offensive, it was replenished with men and gears as fully as was possible in the given circumstances, and as a result it almost regained its 1944 autumn strength. It would not have been a surprise if it had been deployed on German territory against the Allied troops advancing to Rhine, or in Silesia or in the Baltics or even if it had been sent as a reinforcement to the Army Group Vistula to defend the distant approaches to Berlin against the advancing Soviet army - reinforcement and fresh troops capable of launching counter offensives were desperately needed everywhere. But it happened otherwise: the Sixth Army was deployed in Hungary and participated in the Operation Spring Awakening, launched in the western part of the country on 6th of March, 1945. This was the last German "big offensive" in the course of the Second World War. Several questions come to mind about the operation. What were the goals originally set to be achieved by this seemingly pointless attack? What role was assigned to the once formidable German Panzer Corps? Is it true that the Soviet command used the same defense directives as had been used during the battle of Kursk in 1943 because they had proved to be viable then? What types of tanks and armored vehicles fight in West Hungary and in what numbers? How did the American made M4A2 tanks manned by Soviet crews fare against the much heavier German Panther and Tiger B tanks on the Hungarian soil? What were the losses on both sides in tanks and armored vehicles? To what extent can be the prompt and powerful response of the Soviet side - the offensive towards Vienna - evaluated as being successful? How did the Germans, the Soviets, the Hungarians and the Bulgarians use their tanks and armored vehicles in this operation? Besides giving a detailed chronological description of the events, the book tries to find answers to these questions. The facts extracted from the operational documents of the fighting sides have been supplemented with excerpts from diaries and memoirs, and even the maps have been drawn on the basis of the original ones. The author has explored some new archival sources kept in Russian archives and also incorporated some published Russian materials into his research that was neglected up until now by other researchers, along with some newly published German memoirs - all this has made possible to create a narrative of the events related to us by the author in hitherto unprecedented detail.
Download or read book Days of Battle written by Norbert Számvéber and published by Helion and Company. This book was released on 2013-10-19 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume of WWII military studies examines significant yet neglected clashes of German-Hungarian and Soviet armor north of the river Danube. In Days of Battle, Dr. Norbert Számvéber, chief of Hungary's military archives, examines armor combat operations in the southern territory of the historical Upper Hungary (part of Hungary between 1938 and 1945, at the present time now part of Slovakia) in three separate studies. The first is an account of the battle between the Ipoly and Garam rivers during the second half of December 1944, in which the élite Hungarian Division "Szent László" saw action for the first time. The second study examines the fierce tank battle of Komárom, fought between January 6th–22nd of 1945. This was an integral part of the Battle for Budapest, parallel in time with Operation Konrad. The third study describes the combat during the German Operation Südwind in February 1945, as well as the Soviet attack launched in the direction of Bratislava in March 1945. Based on files and documentation from German, Hungarian and Soviet sources, Dr. Számvéber’s authoritative text is supported by photographs and color battle maps.
Download or read book Hungary 1944 1945 written by Philippe Guillemot and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2011-02-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the dramatic destruction of Army Group Centre and overshadowed by Koniev’s and Zhukov’s rush on Berlin, this particular theater of operations has been somewhat ignored. This monograph is an opportunity to go into the details of these clashes whose last convulsions one month and three weeks before the German capitulation at Reims were definitively the Panzers’ last lunge.
Download or read book Bolt Action Campaign Fortress Budapest written by Warlord Games and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-03-21 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the Soviet Red Army marches westward, the city of Budapest stands in their way. Encircled and severely outnumbered, the German and Hungarian forces attempt to resist the Soviet juggernaut and defend Festung Budapest to the last. This book brings the siege of Budapest to the table-top with in-depth information on the forces involved, linked scenarios, and new Theatre Selectors that make this an ideal resource for any Bolt Action player with an interest in the the Eastern Front and the fall of the Reich.
Download or read book Battle for Budapest written by Krisztián Ungváry and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2011-08-30 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title is presented with a new foreword by Istvan Deak. The battle of Budapest in the bleak winter of 1944-45 was one of the longest and bloodiest city sieges of World War II. From the appearance of the first Soviet tanks on the outskirts of the capital to the capture of Buda Castle, 102 days elapsed. In terms of human trauma, it comes second only to Stalingrad, comparisons to which were even being made by soldiers, both German and Soviet, fighting at the time. This definitive history covers their experiences, and those of the 800,000 non-combatants around whom the battle raged.
Download or read book The Battle for Budapest 1944 1945 written by Anthony Tucker-Jones and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2016-10-30 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The desperate struggle between the Wehrmacht and the Red Army for Budapest in 1944 and 1945 was as lethal and destructive as any of the urban battles fought during the Second World War. The losses of men and equipment sustained by the Germans were so great that they hastened the collapse of Hitler’s regime. Yet what happened in Budapest is less well remembered today than other flash points in the conflict on the Eastern Front. Anthony Tucker-Jones’s photographic history is a fascinating and graphic introduction to this neglected episode in the closing months of the war. The battle began with Operation Panzerfaust in October 1944 when the Germans seized Hungarian leader Admiral Horthy to prevent his country defecting to the Soviets. Red Army advances then left German and Hungarian units trapped in the city and sparked fifty days of intense fighting. Then in March 1945 Hitler launched Operation Spring Awakening, the reckless final German offensive of the war, designed to recapture Budapest and stabilize the Eastern Front. It failed spectacularly, opening the road to Vienna for the Red Army. The selection of archive photographs gives a sharp insight into every aspect of the fighting in and around Budapest and records the ravaged city the battle left behind.
Download or read book Tomb of the Panzerwaffe written by Aleksei Isaev and published by Helion. This book was released on 2014-07-19 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In March 1945 the German Wehrmacht undertook its final attempt to change the course of the war by launching a counteroffensive in the area of Lake Balaton, Hungary. Here, the best panzer forces of the Third Reich and the elite of the Panzerwaffe were assembled - the panzer divisions SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, Das Reich, Totenkopf, Wiking and others, staffed by ardent believers in Nazism and armed with the most up-to-date combat equipment, including up to 900 tanks and self-propelled guns. At the time, this was considered a secondary axis for the Red Army, and thus the troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front had to stop the German counteroffensive with their own forces and could not count upon reinforcements from the Stavka Reserve, which were needed for the decisive storming of Berlin. Relying upon their combat skill and rich combat experience, the Soviet troops carried out this task with honor, stopping the tidal wave of German armor and inflicting a decisive defeat and enormous, irreplaceable losses upon the enemy. The defeat of the Sixth SS Panzer Army became a genuine catastrophe for Germany, and Balaton became the tomb of the Panzerwaffe. In this book, penned by two leading Russian military historians, this major defeat suffered by the Wehrmacht has been described and analyzed for the first time using data from both Soviet and German archives. It focuses not only on Operation Spring Awakening, but also describes the preceding Konrad offensives conducted by the Germans in the effort to come to the aid of the encircled and desperate German and fascist Hungarian defenders of Budapest. This edition is lavishly illustrated with over a hundred rare photographs of destroyed or disabled German armor taken shortly after the battle by a Soviet inspection team, besides other photographs and specially commissioned color maps.
Download or read book The 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich written by Yves Buffetaut and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2017-08-19 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Certainly my first recourse from now on when looking at the SS panzer divisions. Give yourself a treat and buy a copy ASAP if tanks are your thing” (Army Rumour Service). The Das Reich Division was the most infamous unit of the Waffen-SS. Originally a paramilitary formation raised to protect the members of the Nazi Party, it was founded in 1934 as the SS-Verfügungstruppe. During the invasion of Poland, the unit fought as a mobile infantry regiment. After the Battle of France, the SS-VT was officially renamed the Waffen-SS, and in 1941, the Verfügungs-Division was renamed Reich, later Das Reich. By the time Das Reich took part in the battle of Moscow, it had lost sixty percent of its combat strength. It was pulled off the front in mid-1942 and sent to refit as a panzer-grenadier division. Returning to the Eastern Front, Das Reich took part in the fighting around Kharkov and Kursk. Late in the year, it was designated a panzer division. In 1944, the unit was stationed in southern France when the Allies landed in Normandy. The following days saw the division commit atrocities, hanging one hundred local men in the town of Tulles in reprisal for German losses, and massacring 642 French civilians in Oradour-sur-Glane, allegedly in retaliation for partisan activity in the area. Later in the Normandy fighting, Das Reich was encircled in the Roncey pocket by US 2nd Armored Division, losing most of their armored equipment. Das Reich surrendered in May 1945. “Another fascinating piece of military history from the opposite point of view . . . this doesn’t purport to be an illustrated history of the Reich, but it damn well is!” —Books Monthly
Download or read book Zitadelle written by Mark Healy and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2016-08-04 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few battles attract interest so much as the Battle of Kursk. Operation Zitadelle, the code name given by Hitler to the Wehrmacht's last offensive on the Eastern Front in July 1943, has acquired an almost mythic status as one of the greatest clashes of armour in the history of warfare. Long been depicted as the 'the swan song of the German tank arm' by virtue of the huge tank losses experienced by the Germans; the reality, in light of the emergence of new information proved it to be anything but, with historians previously accepting without question exaggerated Soviet accounts of the battle. For all the resources devoted to this operation by the Germans, Zitadelle was an abysmal failure; and whilst they were not outfought by the Red Army at Kursk, they were out-thought by commanders of outstanding quality. Zitadelle describes the German and Soviet tactics and explores the realities of the battles on sodden ground that culminated in the defeat of the panzers and the Soviet advance on the Reich.
Download or read book Sturmpanzer IV Brummb r written by Lukasz Gladysiak and published by Photosniper. This book was released on 2015-04-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Germans had been produced many specialistic armoured vehicles. Storm tanks are among them. They were used as infantry support heavy vehicles. They destroyed buildings, fortifications, barricades etc.STURMPANZER IV BRUMMBAR built on PANZER IV chassis was one of them. It was armed with 150 mm StuH storm howitzer. From 1943 till 1945 BRUMMBAR took part in fights on all fronts. The publication is illustrated with unique 3D renderings by Samir Karmieha that show a lot of detail not only the external details of the vehicle, but also its inside. The book was also enriched with excellent modeling plans by Krzysztofa Muchy that satisfy even the most demanding readers.
Download or read book Leningrad written by W. Chales de Beaulieu and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Translated into English for the first time: A personal account of Operation Barbarossa by the Panzer Group 4 chief of general staff. When Operation Barbarossa launched, Army Group North was tasked with the operational objective of Leningrad. But between them and the city lay eight hundred kilometers of Baltic states, eighteen to twenty infantry divisions, two cavalry divisions, and eight or nine mechanized Red Army brigades. To succeed, it was apparent they would have to race through to the western Dvina and establish a bridgehead before the Russians exploited this natural feature to organize a defensive front. Panzer Group 4, which included LVI Panzer Corps and XLI Panzer Corps, was to lead the way. By the end of the first day, the group had pushed seventy kilometers into enemy territory. Red counterattacks on their unprotected flanks slowed them down, resulting in the tank battle of Raseiniai, but the group managed to capture Dünaburg on the Western Dvina on June 26, with a bridgehead established shortly thereafter. The group then pushed northeast through Latvia to the Stalin Line. In mid-July, General Erich Hoepner was preparing to push the last one hundred kilometers to Leningrad. But Wilhelm von Leeb, commander of the army group, had other plans for the group and the advance did not continue for several more weeks. In Leningrad—first published in German in 1961 and now translated into English for the first time—W. Chales de Beaulieu, Panzer Group 4 chief of staff, offers a detailed account of the group’s advance, as well as an assessment of the fighting, an examination of the limitations imposed on Army Group North and their effects on the operation, and the lessons to be learned from their experiences in the Baltic States, concluding with a discussion of whether Leningrad could ever have been taken in the first place.
Download or read book Take Budapest written by Kamen Nevenkin and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2012-07-01 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: October 1944: Soviet troops launched a powerful attack on Budapest from the south, the culmination of a series of military, political, diplomatic and underground moves undertaken by Hitler, Stalin and Churchill since the collapse of the Axis front in the Balkans two months earlier. However, what had been planned as a bold stroke to knock Hungary out of the war and bring the Red Army as far as Munich quickly became a statemate. The end result was taht Stalin's forces failed to reach Bavaria, but the dictator was not disappointed: Soviet pressure against the German southern flank forced Hitler to transfer a consdierable number of his armoured reserves to Hungary and thus largely facilitated Zhukov's drive on to Berlin. Here, Kamen Nevenkin tells the fascinating story of this 'Market Garden'-like operation using a number of never before published German and Russian archival documents, including German papers exclusively held in the Russian militiary archive. The text is dynamic, easy to read and accompanied by previously unpublished photographs. A detailed tactical narrative, Nevenkin also uses first-person accounts to render a human tale of war to create an ultimately fascinating read.
Download or read book Armoured Warfare in the Battle for Budapest written by Norbert Szamveber and published by Peko Publishing. This book was released on 2017-12-19 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the Hungarian theater of war of the Eastern Front, the Soviet troops attempted to take Budapest repeatedly from the end of October 1944. However, the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Front forces only managed to encircle the Hungarian capital by the end of December 1944. The German troops, especially the battle groups of the Panzer Divisions and Panzergrenadier Divisions fought effective delaying combat. Dr. Norbert Szamveber, author of several books and studies on the armoured warfare in the ww2, described and analysed the fierce armoured clashes in the first phase of the Budapest Operation in detail, based principally on archival sources.
Download or read book Panzerschlacht written by Perry Moore and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2007-11-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Panzerschlacht covers in detail the unraveling of the southern sector of the Eastern Front during late summer and autumn 1944, which led to some of the largest and most vicious, yet unknown, tank battles of the Second World War.
Download or read book Hungarian Soldier vs Soviet Soldier written by Péter Mujzer and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-07-22 with total page 81 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 26 June 1941, unidentified bombers attacked the Hungarian town of Kassa, prompting Hungary to join its Axis partners in Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union. Hungary's contribution to Barbarossa was designated the Carpathian Group, its most powerful component being the Mobile Corps, which fielded motorized rifle, cavalry, bicycle and light armoured troops. The Hungarians faced Soviet forces belonging to the Kiev Military District, deployed in four armies along a 940km-long front. On the defeated side in World War I, Hungary had seen its borders redrawn and its armed forces constrained by treaty, but was determined to recover territories lost to adjoining countries. When Hungary decided to participate in Operation Barbarossa, however, the Royal Hungarian Army was deployed in the Soviet Union and not against its neighbours. Meanwhile, the Red Army, while remaining among the most formidable armies of the era, had been seriously weakened by successive purges, its shortcomings exposed by the Winter War against Finland in 1939–40. During the opening battles (4–13 July), the Hungarian motorized rifle and armoured units clashed with the withdrawing Red Army forces. In the battle for Uman (15 July–8 August) the Hungarians blocked the Soviet troops' efforts to break out from encirclement. During the Hungarian defensive operation at the River Dniepr (30 August–6 October), counter-attacking Soviet units exerted heavy pressure on the defending Hungarians. Both sides would seek to draw lessons from these opening battles as the war in the East continued to rage into 1942. Fully illustrated, this book investigates the Hungarian and Soviet soldiers who fought in three battles of the Barbarossa campaign, casting new light on the role played by the forces of Nazi Germany's allies on the Eastern Front.
Download or read book The German Campaign in Russia written by George E. Blau and published by . This book was released on 1955 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
