Download or read book The Wehrmacht Strikes Back written by Robert Walters and published by Page Publishing Inc. This book was released on 2020-11-06 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After shattering the French armies in a lightning blitzkrieg campaign, the Germans turn their attention on Gibraltar as part of their new Mediterranean or strategic policy, a concept based on overrunning Egypt, then moving east and south, capturing the Persian Gulf area, as well as all East Africa in an alliance with France. After moving their forces down through neutral Spain, they soon engage the powerful British fortress guarding the Strait of Gibraltar, long a symbol of British power and

Download or read book Kharkov 1942 written by Robert Forczyk and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-04-20 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A highly illustrated account of the 1942 battle of Kharkov, one of the Red Army's largest defeats in World War II. After failing to finish off the German Army in the 1941/42 Winter Counteroffensive Stalin directed the Red Army to conduct a powerful blow in one sector of the Eastern Front in order to disrupt German plans. The sector chosen was Kharkov. Under Marshal Semyon Timoshenko, the Stavka's remaining reserves were assembled and prepared to conduct a breakthrough attack intended to encircle the German Sixth Army near Kharkov. However, Stalin was unaware that the Germans were planning their own riposte at Kharkov, known as Operation Fredericus. When Timoshenko began his offensive in May 1942, he did not realize the limitations of his own forces or the agility of the Germans to recover from setbacks, all of which contributed to one of the Red Army greatest defeats of World War II. This volume will pay particular attention to intelligence and logistics issues, as well as how this campaign served as a prelude to the battle of Stalingrad. It will also focus on the nascent development of the Red Army's tank corps and 'deep battle' tactics, as well as the revival of the German Panzertruppen after Barbarossa.

Download or read book Hitler Strikes Poland written by Alexander B. Rossino and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gripping examination of the systematic and murderous ways that Germans first put into place their criminal ideology in their invasion of Poland, during which tens of thousands of civilians were killed to make ``living space'' for Germans in the east.

Download or read book Demyansk 1942 43 written by Robert Forczyk and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-06-20 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A highly illustrated account of the battle for the Demyansk Pocket on the Eastern Front in World War II. The fighting around the town of Demyansk was one of the longest encirclement battles on the Eastern Front during World War II, stretching from February 1942 to February 1943. Originally, the German 16. Armee occupied Demyansk in the autumn of 1941 because it was key terrain that would be used as a springboard for an eventual offensive into the Valdai Hills. Instead, the Soviet winter counteroffensive in February 1942 encircled the German II Armeekorps and other units, inside the Demyansk Pocket. Yet despite severe pounding from five Soviet armies, the embattled German troops held the pocket and the Luftwaffe organized a major aerial resupply effort to sustain the defenders. For the first time in military history, an army was supplied entirely by air. In February 1943, Marshal Timoshenko was ordered to launch an offensive to cut off the base of the salient and annihilate the 12 divisions. At the same time, Hitler finally came to his senses after the Stalingrad debacle and authorized the 16. Armee to withdraw from the pocket. This volume will conclude with the drama of a German Army-sized withdrawal under fire in winter, under attack from three sides.

Download or read book Kharkov 1942 written by Robert Forczyk and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-04-20 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A highly illustrated account of the 1942 battle of Kharkov, one of the Red Army's largest defeats in World War II. After failing to finish off the German Army in the 1941/42 Winter Counteroffensive Stalin directed the Red Army to conduct a powerful blow in one sector of the Eastern Front in order to disrupt German plans. The sector chosen was Kharkov. Under Marshal Semyon Timoshenko, the Stavka's remaining reserves were assembled and prepared to conduct a breakthrough attack intended to encircle the German Sixth Army near Kharkov. However, Stalin was unaware that the Germans were planning their own riposte at Kharkov, known as Operation Fredericus. When Timoshenko began his offensive in May 1942, he did not realize the limitations of his own forces or the agility of the Germans to recover from setbacks, all of which contributed to one of the Red Army greatest defeats of World War II. This volume will pay particular attention to intelligence and logistics issues, as well as how this campaign served as a prelude to the battle of Stalingrad. It will also focus on the nascent development of the Red Army's tank corps and 'deep battle' tactics, as well as the revival of the German Panzertruppen after Barbarossa.

Download or read book Sevastopol 1942 written by Robert Forczyk and published by Osprey Publishing. This book was released on 2008-01-22 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In late July 1941, Hitler ordered Army Group South to seize the Crimea as part of its operations to secure the Ukraine and the Donets Basin, in order to protect the vital Romanian oil refineries at Ploesti from Soviet air attack. After weeks of heavy fighting, the Germans breached the Soviet defenses and overran most of the Crimea. By November 1941 the only remaining Soviet foothold in the area was the heavily fortified naval base at Sevastopol. Operation Sturgeon Haul, the final assault on Sevastopol, was one of the very few joint service German operations of World War II, with two German corps and a Romanian corps supported by a huge artillery siege train, the Luftwaffe's crack VIII Flieger Korps and a flotilla of S-Boats provided by the Kriegsmarine. This volume closely examines the impact of logistics, weather and joint operational planning upon the last major German victory in World War II (1939-1945).

Download or read book The Kuban 1943 written by Robert Forczyk and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-02-22 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the summer of 1942, the Wehrmacht invaded the Caucasus in order to overrun critical oil production facilities at Maikop, Grozny and Baku. However, the Red Army stopped the Germans short of their objectives and then launched a devastating winter counteroffensive that encircled them at Stalingrad. Consequently, Hitler grudgingly ordered an evacuation from the Caucasus, but ordered 17. Armee to fortify the Kuban bridgehead and hold it at all costs in order to leave open the possibility of future offensives. On the other side, the Soviet Stavka ordered the North Caucasus Front and the Black Sea Fleet to eliminate the Kuban bridgehead as soon as possible. The stage was set for a contest between an immovable object and an unstoppable force. With the help of stunning specially commissioned artwork, this book tells the enthralling story of the impressive but strategically foolish German stand at Kuban, which tied down seven Soviet armies in a sideshow battle of attrition, which the Soviets dubbed 'the Kuban meat grinder.'

Download or read book Poland s Struggle written by Andrew Rawson and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2019-04-30 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A historian’s account of the experience of Poland’s people and its military before, during, and after World War II—from 1918 to 1991. Poland was re-created as an independent nation at the end of the First World War, but it soon faced problems as Nazi Germany set about expanding its control of Europe. The Wehrmacht’s attack on 1 September 1939 was followed by a Soviet Red Army invasion two weeks later. The people of Poland were then subjected to a terrifying campaign of murder, imprisonment and enslavement which only increased as the war dragged on. Polish Catholics faced violence and deportation as they adapted to the draconian laws implemented by the German authorities. Meanwhile, the Polish Jews were forced into ghettos while the plans for the Final Solution were implemented. They then faced annihilation in the Holocaust, code named Operation Reinhard. Despite the dangers, many Poles joined the underground war against their oppressors, while those who escaped sought to fight for their nation’s freedom from abroad. They sent intelligence to the west, attacked German installations, carried out assassinations and rose up to confront their enemy, all against impossible odds. The advance of the Red Army brought new problems, as the Soviet’s dreaded NKVD introduced its own form of terror, hunting down anyone who fought for an independent nation. The story concludes with Poland’s experience behind the Iron Curtain, ending with the return of democracy by 1991.

Download or read book Soviet Cavalry Operations During the Second World War written by John S. Harrel and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2019-09-30 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of The Nisibis War analyzes the Red Army’s usage of horse-mounted units along the Soviet-German Eastern Front during World War II. While the development of tanks had largely led to the replacement of cavalry in most armies by 1939, the Soviets retained a strong mounted arm. In the terrain and conditions of the Eastern Front, they were able to play an important role denied them elsewhere. John Harrel shows how the Soviets developed a doctrine of deep penetration, using cavalry formations to strike into the Axis rear, disrupting logistics and lines of communication, encircling and isolating units. Interestingly he also shows that this doctrine did not stem from the native cavalry tradition of the steppe but from the example of the American Civil War. The American approach was copied by the Russians in WWI and the Russian Civil War, refined by the Soviets in the early stages of World War Two, and perfected during the last two years of the war. The Soviet experience demonstrated that deep operations (cavalry raids) against enemy rear echelons set the conditions for victory. Although the last horse-mounted units disappeared in the 1950s, their influence led directly to the formation of the Operational Manoeuvre Groups that, ironically, faced U.S. forces in the Cold War. “An expansive analysis of the technical, tactical and operational employment of Soviet cavalry against the Germans and their Axis allies. For practitioners who want to understand the history and development, the book is a goldmine of overlooked campaigns and actions . . . . The book’s dense and detailed presentation makes it valuable to operational planners and those interested in the Soviet-German war.” —ARMOR Magazine

Download or read book Armies of Sand written by Kenneth Michael Pollack and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019 with total page 697 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the Second World War, Arab armed forces have consistently punched below their weight. They have lost many wars that by all rights they should have won, and in their best performances only ever achieved quite modest accomplishments. Over time, soldiers, scholars, and military experts have offered various explanations for this pattern. Reliance on Soviet military methods, the poor civil-military relations of the Arab world, the underdevelopment of the Arab states, and patterns of behavior derived from the wider Arab culture, have all been suggested as the ultimate source of Arab military difficulties. Armies of Sand, Kenneth M. Pollack's powerful and riveting history of Arab armies from the end of World War Two to the present, assesses these differing explanations and isolates the most important causes. Over the course of the book, he examines the combat performance of fifteen Arab armies and air forces in virtually every Middle Eastern war, from the Jordanians and Syrians in 1948 to Hizballah in 2006 and the Iraqis and ISIS in 2014-2017. He then compares these experiences to the performance of the Argentine, Chadian, Chinese, Cuban, North Korean, and South Vietnamese armed forces in their own combat operations during the twentieth century. The book ultimately concludes that reliance on Soviet doctrine was more of a help than a hindrance to the Arabs. In contrast, politicization and underdevelopment were both important factors limiting Arab military effectiveness, but patterns of behavior derived from the dominant Arab culture was the most important factor of all. Pollack closes with a discussion of the rapid changes occurring across the Arab world-political, economic, and cultural-as well as the rapid evolution in war making as a result of the information revolution. He suggests that because both Arab society and warfare are changing, the problems that have bedeviled Arab armed forces in the past could dissipate or even vanish in the future, with potentially dramatic consequences for the Middle East military balance. Sweeping in its historical coverage and highly accessible, this will be the go-to reference for anyone interested in the history of warfare in the Middle East since 1945.

Download or read book Bolt Action Campaign Case Blue written by Warlord Games and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-10-26 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A supplement for the award-winning World War II wargame, Bolt Action, focusing on the Axis offensives through Eastern Ukraine and into the North Caucasus. After the failure of Barbarossa to utterly defeat the Soviet Union, a new plan was devised, Case Blue. This plan involved pushing through the southern Soviet Union to reach the Caucasus and secure the oil fields that Germany so desperately needed. While initially there was great success and sweeping advances as the autumn began, the Axis advances began to falter in the wake of Soviet resistance and counter attacks, culminating in the battles in and around Stalingrad. This Campaign Book for Bolt Action contains new linked scenarios, rules, troop types, and Theatre Selectors, providing plenty of options for novice and veteran players alike.

Download or read book Stalingrad 1942 43 1 written by Robert Forczyk and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-01-21 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After failing to defeat the Soviet Union with Operation Barbarossa in 1941, Adolf Hitler planned a new campaign for the summer of 1942 that was intended to achieve a decisive victory: Operation Blue (Case Blau). In this new campaign, Hitler directed that one army group (Heeresgruppe A) would advance to seize the Soviet oilfields in the Caucasus, while the other (Heeresgruppe B) pushed on to the Volga River. The expectation was for a rapid victory – instead, German forces had to fight hard just to reach the outskirts of Stalingrad, and then found themselves embroiled in a protracted urban battle amid the ruins of a devastated city on the Volga. The Soviet Red Army was hit hard by the initial German offensive but held onto the city and then launched Operation Uranus, a winter counteroffensive that encircled the German 6. Armee at Stalingrad. Despite a desperate German relief operation, the Red Army eventually crushed the German forces and hurled the remnants of the German southern front back in disorder. This first volume in the Stalingrad trilogy covers the period from 28 June to 11 September 1942, including operations around Voronezh. The fighting in the Don Bend, which lasted weeks, comprised some of the largest tank battles of World War II – involving more armour than the tanks employed at Prokhorovka in 1943.

Download or read book Thunder in the East written by Evan Mawdsley and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-19 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thunder in the East, originally published in 2005, is widely regarded as the best short history of the entire Nazi-Soviet military conflict. It tells the story from the pre-war expectations of Hitler and Stalin, through the pivotal battles deep in Russia in 1942-43, and on to the huge Soviet offensives across Eastern Europe in 1944-45. This final 'march of liberation' destroyed the Third Reich and set Europe's history for the next 45 years. The book provides penetrating answers to vital questions: Why did the war in the East develop as it did? Why did Hitler's Wehrmacht lose? Why did the Red Army win, and why did the people of Soviet Russia pay such a high price for victory? The first edition took advantage of the flood of new sources that followed the end of the Soviet era. This second edition takes account of what has been written over the last decade; the Nazi-Soviet war, in all its aspects, has continued to be the subject of extensive and innovative research and heated controversy.

Download or read book Death of the Wehrmacht written by Robert Michael Citino and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A deft, lively, and highly readable history of the demise of the German way of war. As the allies found an antidote to the "shock and awe" approach of the Wehrmacht, the once mighty German army underwent an epic fall from remarkable operational victories to crushing operational defeats, forced to take on a defensive stance in a war it could never win.

Download or read book LIFE written by and published by . This book was released on 1943-01-04 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: LIFE Magazine is the treasured photographic magazine that chronicled the 20th Century. It now lives on at LIFE.com, the largest, most amazing collection of professional photography on the internet. Users can browse, search and view photos of today’s people and events. They have free access to share, print and post images for personal use.

Download or read book Nuclear Russia written by Paul Josephson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-10-20 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first cultural and political history of the Russian nuclear age, Paul Josephson describes the rise of nuclear physics in the USSR, the enthusiastic pursuit of military and peaceful nuclear programs through the Chernobyl disaster and the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the ongoing, self-proclaimed 'renaissance' of nuclear power in Russia in the 21st century. At the height of their power, the Soviets commanded 39,000 nuclear warheads, yet claimed to be servants of the 'peaceful atom' – which they also pursued avidly. This book examines both military and peaceful Soviet and post-Soviet nuclear programs for the long durée – before the war, during the Cold War, and in Russia to the present – whilst also grappling with the political and ideological importance of nuclear technologies, the associated economic goals, the social and environmental costs, and the cultural embrace of nuclear power. Nuclear Russia probes the juncture of history of science and technology, political and cultural history, and environmental history. It considers the atom in Russian society as a reflection of Leninist technological utopianism, Cold War imperatives, scientific hubris, public acceptance, and a state desire to conquer nature. Furthermore the book examines the vital – and perhaps unexpected – significance of ethnicity and gender in nuclear history by looking at how Kazakhs and Nenets lost their homelands and their health in Russia in the wake of nuclear testing, as well as the surprising sexualization of the taming of the female atom in the Russian 'Miss Atom' contests that commenced in the 21st century.

Download or read book Kursk 1943 written by Robert Forczyk and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-09-20 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Kursk campaign was the major German offensive of 1943 and the last strategic offensive the Germans were to launch on the Eastern Front in World War II. In the summer of 1943, recoiling from defeat at Stalingrad, Hitler conducted a limited objective offensive to eliminate the Soviet Kursk salient. Operating a classic pincer attack of the kind that succeeded during the 1942 Kharkov campaign he hoped that the resulting heavy losses inflicted on the Red Army would give the Wehrmacht time to recover its strength. However, the Soviet anticipation of the attack led to extensive losses on both sides as Soviet anti-tank mines and fierce fighting pushed the Germans back, liberating the German-held Orel in the process. Focusing on the northern front of the battle with Generaloberst, Walter Model's forces pitted against General Rokossovsky's Central Front between 5 July and 18 August, this volume will explore both the German offensive and the Soviet counteroffensive. Using documents from both sides, extensive photographs – both contemporary and modern, maps and bird's-eye-views this title will shed new light on this often ignored part of the battle.