The Battle for Kharkov, 1941–1943

The Battle for Kharkov, 1941–1943 PDF Author: Anthony Tucker-Jones
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473874440
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
A pictorial history of a series of World War II battles between the Soviet Red Army and the Nazi Wehrmacht around a city in present-day Ukraine. The four battles fought for Kharkov during the Second World War are often overshadowed by the battles for Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad, yet they were critical stages in the struggle between the Wehrmacht and the Red Army for control of the southern Soviet Union. Anthony Tucker-Jones, in this volume in the Images of War series, offers a visual record of the dramatic and bloody conflict that took place there, showing every grim aspect of the fighting. Kharkov became one of the most bitterly contested cities during the war on the Eastern Front, and this book presents a graphic overview of the atrocious conditions the soldiers on both sides had to endure. In 1941 Kharkov fell to Hitler’s Army Group South. In 1942 the Soviets tried and failed to retake it, losing 240,000 men in the Barvenkovo Bulge. Then, in 1943, the control of the battered city changed hands twice before the Soviets liberated it for good. The fate of Kharkov during the war reflects the history of the wider struggle between Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union. Praise for Battle for Kharkov “The collection of original un-published Scott Pick photos are exceptional with such quality and topic coverage that the material visually jumps off the pages. . . . Presents a hard hitting and furious review of the period. . . . The ability of the author to cover the lengthy period in a concise review is very solid, and creates a substantial quality of information versus time of reading commitment.” —Richard Wade, military historian

The Battle for Kharkov, 1941–1943

The Battle for Kharkov, 1941–1943 PDF Author: Anthony Tucker-Jones
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473874440
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
A pictorial history of a series of World War II battles between the Soviet Red Army and the Nazi Wehrmacht around a city in present-day Ukraine. The four battles fought for Kharkov during the Second World War are often overshadowed by the battles for Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad, yet they were critical stages in the struggle between the Wehrmacht and the Red Army for control of the southern Soviet Union. Anthony Tucker-Jones, in this volume in the Images of War series, offers a visual record of the dramatic and bloody conflict that took place there, showing every grim aspect of the fighting. Kharkov became one of the most bitterly contested cities during the war on the Eastern Front, and this book presents a graphic overview of the atrocious conditions the soldiers on both sides had to endure. In 1941 Kharkov fell to Hitler’s Army Group South. In 1942 the Soviets tried and failed to retake it, losing 240,000 men in the Barvenkovo Bulge. Then, in 1943, the control of the battered city changed hands twice before the Soviets liberated it for good. The fate of Kharkov during the war reflects the history of the wider struggle between Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union. Praise for Battle for Kharkov “The collection of original un-published Scott Pick photos are exceptional with such quality and topic coverage that the material visually jumps off the pages. . . . Presents a hard hitting and furious review of the period. . . . The ability of the author to cover the lengthy period in a concise review is very solid, and creates a substantial quality of information versus time of reading commitment.” —Richard Wade, military historian

Kharkov 1943

Kharkov 1943 PDF Author: Philippe Naud
Publisher: Histoire & Collections
ISBN: 9782352502371
Category : Kharkov, Battle of, Kharkiv, Ukraine, 1943
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This is the story of the fierce struggle between the Red Army and Axis troops between February and March 1943. By the end, although the situation had changed in favor of the Allies, the Eastern Front now had new protagonists; the Waffen-SS armored units on whom Hitler was counting to work some miracles and defeat his mortal enemy.

Demyansk 1942–43

Demyansk 1942–43 PDF Author: Robert Forczyk
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1780964420
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
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.

The Battle for Crimea, 1941–1944

The Battle for Crimea, 1941–1944 PDF Author: Anthony Tucker-Jones
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473867320
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
The selection of over 150 rare wartime photographs in this volume in Pen & Swords Images of War series offers a graphic visual record of the dramatic and bloody battles fought for the Crimea during the Second World War. They show every grim aspect of the fighting and reflect in many ways the ruthless character of the struggle across the entire Eastern Front. The German-led Axis forces took eight months to conquer the Crimea in 1941-2 the Soviet defenders of the fortified city-port of Sevastopol held out against repeated assaults for 250 days. In 1944, after the course of the war had turned against the Wehrmacht and their allies, the city was liberated by the Red Army, but only after over 120,000 Axis troops had been evacuated across the Black Sea. Naval operations involving the Soviet Black Sea Fleet and the Romanian Royal Navy are covered in the book, as is the battle in the air between the Luftwaffe and the Red Air Force. But perhaps the most memorable photographs give an insight into the ordinary soldiers experience of the fighting and show the enormous material damage the conflict left behind.

Kharkov 1942

Kharkov 1942 PDF Author: David Glantz
Publisher: Ian Allan Publishing
ISBN: 9780711034686
Category : Kharkov, Battle of, Kharkiv, Ukraine, 1942
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
America's foremost expert on Russian military history has written the first book in English on one of the great battles on the Eastern front during World War II. Illustrations & maps.

The End of the Gallop

The End of the Gallop PDF Author: Alexei Isaev
Publisher: Helion
ISBN: 9781804513811
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Based heavily on inaccessible Soviet records, this book presents a lively account of a pivotal battle on the Eastern Front, illustrated with photographs and maps. In the history of war there are not that many battles that changed one side's strategy over a considerable period of time, becoming not only a material, but also a psychological factor in decision making. A classic example of this is the Battle of Smolensk in 1941, which forced the German leadership to change their strategy for 'Barbarossa' and to deploy their troops towards the northern, and eastern flanks of the Soviet-German front. We can however find another example on the other side of the front line: this was the battle in the area around Kharkov in the winter of 1943, which had even more of an impact. Following the simultaneous defeat of several of the shock troops on the two fronts and the loss of a large tract of territory the vector of Soviet strategy changed. A passive expectation of the enemy's actions replaced the attacking momentum that was traditional for Soviet command. To begin with there were objective prerequisites: Red Army units were exhausted and had incurred heavy losses in the German counterattacks during February-March. By May 1943 however, when the troops had recuperated and reserves had been drawn up, the psychological factor continued to play a role. Recalling their bitter experience during the winter battles outside Kharkov the Supreme Soviet Command decided not to go on the offensive, but await the start of German offensive operations. Up until the very last day before the start of Operation 'Citadel' the Commander of the Voronezh front N.F. Vatutin was pleading, he demanded that precious summer days not be spent waiting for the enemy to attack but for the Red Army to take up the offensive themselves. All these proposals distracted supreme command, as they remembered Vatutin's failures outside Kharkov a few months previously. From a military historian's point of view the battles outside Kharkov between February-March 1943 were dramatic maneuvering battles and the success of both sides hung in the balance on a daily basis. Operations such as these are always much more interesting than the tedious, meat grinding positioning for a 'house in the forest', that is abundant in the histories of both world wars. Maneuvering, the deployment of corps and divisions around an area to attack an enemy where they are most vulnerable, played a much more important role than the arithmetic of the numbers of tanks and guns. The steady equalization of both Soviet and German sides added spice to this menu of a classic maneuvering battle. During the course of the battle for Kharkov Soviet forces encountered a new, powerful enemy in the shape of the Panzer divisions of the SS. These were elite mechanized formations equipped with the latest technology, which were soon to become leading participants in decisive battles in the East and the West in the second half of the war.

Smolensk 1943

Smolensk 1943 PDF Author: Robert Forczyk
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 147283075X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 97

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Book Description
With the German defeat at Kursk, the Soviet Stavka (high command) ordered the Western and Kalinin Fronts to launch Operation Suvorov in order to liberate the city of Smolensk. The Germans had held this city for two years and Heeresgruppe Mitte's (Army Group Centre) 4. Armee had heavily fortified the region. The Soviet offensive began in August 1943 and they quickly realized that the German defences were exceedingly tough and that the Western Front had not prepared adequately for an extended offensive. Consequently, the Soviets were forced to pause their offensive after only two weeks, in order to replenish their combat forces and then begin again. The German 4. Armee was commanded by Generaloberst Gotthard Heinrici, one of the Wehrmacht's top defensive experts. Although badly outnumbered, Heinrici's army gamely held off two Soviet fronts for seven weeks. Eventually, the 4. Armee's front was finally broken and Smolensk was liberated on 25 September 1943. However, the Western Front was too exhausted to pursue Heinrici's defeated army, which retreated to the fortified cities of Vitebsk, Orsha and Mogilev; the 4. Armee would hold these cities until the destruction of Army Group Centre in June 1944. Operation Suvorov focuses on a major offensive that is virtually unknown in the West and which set the stage for the decisive defeat of Heeresgruppe Mitte in the next summer offensive.

Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa PDF Author: David M Glantz
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0752468421
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
On 22 June 1941 Hilter unleashed his forces on the Soviet Union. Spearheaded by four powerful Panzer groups and protected by an impenetrable curtain of air support, the seemingly invincible Wehrmacht advanced from the Soviet Union's western borders to the immediate outskirts of Leningrad, Moscow and Rostov in the shockingly brief period of less than six months. The sudden, deep, relentless German advance virtually destroyed the entire peacetime Red Army and captured almost 40 percent of European Russia before expiring inexplicably at the gates of Moscow and Leningrad. An invasion designed to achieve victory in three to six weeks failed and, four years later, resulted in unprecendented and total German defeat. David Glantz challenges the time-honoured explanation that poor weather, bad terrain and Hitler's faulty strategic judgement produced German defeat, and reveals how the Red Army thwarted the German Army's dramatic and apparently inexorable invasion before it achieved its ambitious goals.

Kursk

Kursk PDF Author: Walter S. Dunn Jr.
Publisher: Stackpole Books
ISBN: 1461751225
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
The story of history's largest armored battle Descriptions of Tigers, Panthers, and T-34s in combat Based on declassified Russian documents and captured German records A significant turning point of World War II, the battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943 was the Germans' last major offensive on the Eastern Front. Marked by pitched clashes between German Tiger tanks and Soviet T-34s, the engagement began well enough for the Germans, but the Soviets delayed them long enough to bring their reserves forward, counterattack, and force Hitler to call off the attack. Hundreds of thousands lay dead or wounded on both sides, but the Soviets won the battle and seized the initiative for the rest of the war.

Soviet Night Operations in World War II

Soviet Night Operations in World War II PDF Author: Claude R. Sasso
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1428915966
Category : Night fighting (Military science)
Languages : en
Pages : 66

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Book Description