Stumbling Colossus: The Red Army on the Eve of World WarGermany's surprise attack on June 22, 1941, shocked a Soviet Union woefully unprepared to defend itself. The day before the attack, the Red Army still comprised the world's largest fighting force. But by the end of the year, four and a half million of its soldiers lay dead. This new study, based on formerly classified Soviet archival material and neglected German sources, reveals the truth behind this national catastrophe. 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 that both Hitler and Stalin knew it. He provides the most 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. Stumbling Colossus describes the Red Army's command leadership, mobilization and war planning, intelligence activities, and active and reserve combat formations. It includes the first complete Order of Battle of Soviet forces on the eve of the German attack, documents the strength of Soviet armored forces during the war's initial period, and reproduces the first available texts of actual Soviet war plans. It also provides biographical sketches of Soviet officers and tells how Stalin's purges of the late 1930s left the Red Army leadership almost decimated. At a time when blame for the war in eastern Europe is being laid with a fallen regime, Glantz's book sets the record straight on the Soviet Union's readiness-and willingness-to fight. Boasting an extensive bibliography of Soviet and German sources, Stumbling Colossus is a convincing study that overshadows recent revisionist history and one that no student of World War II can ignore. |
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Contents
ONE RED ARMY FORCES | 9 |
Two COMMAND AND CONTROL AND COMMAND PERSONNEL | 26 |
THREE THE SOVIET SOLDIER | 56 |
FOUR STRATEGIC DEPLOYMENT PLANNING AND MOBILIZATION | 82 |
Ground COMBAT FORCES | 109 |
COMBAT SUPPORT | 160 |
SEVEN AIR FORCES | 184 |
EIGHT STAVKA AND STRATEGIC RESERVES | 205 |
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Common terms and phrases
22 June air defense Air Force aircraft airfields ammunition antiaircraft antitank archival armed forces armii armored Army commander artillery regiments attack aviation aviation regiments Baltic Special Military battalions boevykh bomber aviation border military districts brigades cadre combat operations combat readiness deployment Directorate enemy equipment fighter aviation Finnish War formations fortified regions G. K. Zhukov German ground forces headquarters Ibid iiulia infantry issue 37 July Kiev Kiev Special Military Leningrad Leningrad Military District Lieutenant Mechanized Corps Military Council MilRD mortars Moscow Nachal'nyi period Neman River NKVD organization Patriotic Patriotic War percent prepared purges rear service reconnaissance Red Army Rifle Corps Rifle Division SBDVOV sector shtaba Smolensk soldiers Southwestern Front Soviet military Soviet Union Special Military District Stalin Stavka strategic strength Tank Division Timoshenko tion units USSR Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny VIZh Voenizdat voisk voiskami Voroshilov wartime Western Front Western Special Military Zhukov
References to this book
A War To Be Won: fighting the Second World War Williamson Murray,Allan Reed Millett Limited preview - 2009 |
Barbarism and Civilization: A History of Europe in Our Time Bernard Wasserstein No preview available - 2007 |