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Osprey Campaign #359
Stalingrad 1942–43 (1): The German Advance to the Volga
The first in a three-book series examining the Stalingrad campaign, one of the most decisive military operations in World War II that set the stage for the ultimate defeat of the Third Reich.
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 armor than the tanks employed at Prokhorovka in 1943.
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 armor than the tanks employed at Prokhorovka in 1943.
96 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 26, 2021
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About the author
Robert Forczyk
58 books72 followersRobert Forczyk has a PhD in International Relations and National Security from the University of Maryland and a strong background in European and Asian military history.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 19, 2023
A Well Written and Researched Book that Fills an Important Gap in the Literature
Any review of this book would have to start off by stating that this book is part of Osprey Publishing's “campaign” series. For the uninitiated, books in this series are relatively short at only about 96 pages. A significant portion (unscientifically and roughly about a quarter to a third) of these pages include illustrations of one type or another (i.e..maps, contemporary photographs of equipment and leading personalities, etc.). Hence if one is looking for an academic tome on the subject this is not it. If that is what the reader is looking for this reviewer recommends Dr.David Glantz's "To the Gates of Stallingrad: Soviet German Combat Operations, April-August 1942 (Modern War Studies)".This book is written by a Professor at the US War College at Carlyle, PA and is a encyclopedic (approximately) 700 pages in length. Due to the differences in book sizes it would not be justifiable to compare this book to Dr.Forcyzk's "Stalingrad 1942-43: The German Advance to the Volga".
The relevant question should really be how well does the book does in term of the limitations imposed by its format? The answer is very, very well. It is very well researched (the author makes extensive use of original German language documents, not just secondary sources as so many books In this Osprey series do).It also covers a gap in the literature. There is no shortage of books on the actual battle of Stalingrad itself, and not too few on the post Stalin grad Soviet push (and German relief efforts) but, unfortunately, there are not many that cover the operation from the beginning of operation Blue to the gates of Stalingrad (the second edition of this book. yet to be published, will cover the actual battle in Stalingrad Itself).
The book Itself, like all Osprey series "Campaign” books has various short chapters on setting up the strategic position of both sides before the campaign, opposing commanders, opposing forces, opposing plans, how the actual campaign Itself played out and a concluding analysis. In the chapter setting up the battle Dr. Forczyk discusses the strategic options available to the Germans, especially considering the fact that their options by this of this stage of the war, due to limited resources, could only cover one major thrust along one axis instead of everywhere, like in Barbarossa. Leningrad was dropped from consideration as a victory there would not change the strategic picture of the war. Moscow was excluded as it would only lead to Russian military losses and would be the hardest nut to crack as that is where the Soviet Union was expecting to be attacked.The Southern Front was eventually chosen as it was expected to yield not only major Soviet losses but the losses of important economic assets such as factories and oil fields (nearly all Soviet oil production was there and a large part of industrial military production). The Soviet Union, on the other hand, ironically did not have any strategic plan (hard to believe but Dr. Forcyzk makes this argument well).It did, however, have the wisdom to create a valuable strategic reserve.
With respect to leadership, Hitler had started to micromanage a lot more than he did in the past and, just as badly, chose leaders like Welchs who, albeit competent, were not very aggressive. Paulus also left much to be desired as was a staff officer and never a commanded even an Army or Corps in the field. From the Soviet perspective, the original leaders in place were quite mediocre though Stalin would end up picking better able ones as the campaign progressed.The changes of high level leadership occurred, however, during critical moments and probably made things worse on the ground than otherwise would be the case, at least in the short run.
The forces were also discussed. In short the Germans were better in terms of quality of men and lower level officers and NCOs but, in terms of quality of tanks, they were far behind. The Soviets had many more T-34s and KV-1s than the Germans had long barreled Pz Ill and IVs. The narrative of the battle then is put forth. Very good in terms of what transpired in terms of gains and losses (with the Soviet's having more than ten times the losses of the Germans).
Lastly the author concludes with the "Analysis" chapter. He concludes (first page in Analysis chapter) "Hitler's ambition to achieve a decisive operational-level success in southern Russia was frustrated more by logistical problems at the front than any other factor. Time and again, German mechanized spearheads were brought to a halt by fuel and ammunition shortages, just as opportunities for decisive success presented themselves." With respect to the Soviets, their early performance was "uninspiring• (a bit of an understatement) but the performance did improve over time.
All and all an excellent book in terms of research and being able, by being well written, to overcome the problems imposed by the format (especially the too short length).The book does, though, have a few weaknesses. One is that it lacks extensive footnotes which is quite a shame considering the research that went into the book. The publisher does quite a disservice to both the author and the reader (hope someone from Osprey Publshing is reading this). A second problem, at least in the Kindle edition for Google, is that the 3-D topological maps are far too small and there is no way to magnify them. If one is able to overlook these two weaknesses, a five star book. Considering the book's other positives this is easy to do however.
Any review of this book would have to start off by stating that this book is part of Osprey Publishing's “campaign” series. For the uninitiated, books in this series are relatively short at only about 96 pages. A significant portion (unscientifically and roughly about a quarter to a third) of these pages include illustrations of one type or another (i.e..maps, contemporary photographs of equipment and leading personalities, etc.). Hence if one is looking for an academic tome on the subject this is not it. If that is what the reader is looking for this reviewer recommends Dr.David Glantz's "To the Gates of Stallingrad: Soviet German Combat Operations, April-August 1942 (Modern War Studies)".This book is written by a Professor at the US War College at Carlyle, PA and is a encyclopedic (approximately) 700 pages in length. Due to the differences in book sizes it would not be justifiable to compare this book to Dr.Forcyzk's "Stalingrad 1942-43: The German Advance to the Volga".
The relevant question should really be how well does the book does in term of the limitations imposed by its format? The answer is very, very well. It is very well researched (the author makes extensive use of original German language documents, not just secondary sources as so many books In this Osprey series do).It also covers a gap in the literature. There is no shortage of books on the actual battle of Stalingrad itself, and not too few on the post Stalin grad Soviet push (and German relief efforts) but, unfortunately, there are not many that cover the operation from the beginning of operation Blue to the gates of Stalingrad (the second edition of this book. yet to be published, will cover the actual battle in Stalingrad Itself).
The book Itself, like all Osprey series "Campaign” books has various short chapters on setting up the strategic position of both sides before the campaign, opposing commanders, opposing forces, opposing plans, how the actual campaign Itself played out and a concluding analysis. In the chapter setting up the battle Dr. Forczyk discusses the strategic options available to the Germans, especially considering the fact that their options by this of this stage of the war, due to limited resources, could only cover one major thrust along one axis instead of everywhere, like in Barbarossa. Leningrad was dropped from consideration as a victory there would not change the strategic picture of the war. Moscow was excluded as it would only lead to Russian military losses and would be the hardest nut to crack as that is where the Soviet Union was expecting to be attacked.The Southern Front was eventually chosen as it was expected to yield not only major Soviet losses but the losses of important economic assets such as factories and oil fields (nearly all Soviet oil production was there and a large part of industrial military production). The Soviet Union, on the other hand, ironically did not have any strategic plan (hard to believe but Dr. Forcyzk makes this argument well).It did, however, have the wisdom to create a valuable strategic reserve.
With respect to leadership, Hitler had started to micromanage a lot more than he did in the past and, just as badly, chose leaders like Welchs who, albeit competent, were not very aggressive. Paulus also left much to be desired as was a staff officer and never a commanded even an Army or Corps in the field. From the Soviet perspective, the original leaders in place were quite mediocre though Stalin would end up picking better able ones as the campaign progressed.The changes of high level leadership occurred, however, during critical moments and probably made things worse on the ground than otherwise would be the case, at least in the short run.
The forces were also discussed. In short the Germans were better in terms of quality of men and lower level officers and NCOs but, in terms of quality of tanks, they were far behind. The Soviets had many more T-34s and KV-1s than the Germans had long barreled Pz Ill and IVs. The narrative of the battle then is put forth. Very good in terms of what transpired in terms of gains and losses (with the Soviet's having more than ten times the losses of the Germans).
Lastly the author concludes with the "Analysis" chapter. He concludes (first page in Analysis chapter) "Hitler's ambition to achieve a decisive operational-level success in southern Russia was frustrated more by logistical problems at the front than any other factor. Time and again, German mechanized spearheads were brought to a halt by fuel and ammunition shortages, just as opportunities for decisive success presented themselves." With respect to the Soviets, their early performance was "uninspiring• (a bit of an understatement) but the performance did improve over time.
All and all an excellent book in terms of research and being able, by being well written, to overcome the problems imposed by the format (especially the too short length).The book does, though, have a few weaknesses. One is that it lacks extensive footnotes which is quite a shame considering the research that went into the book. The publisher does quite a disservice to both the author and the reader (hope someone from Osprey Publshing is reading this). A second problem, at least in the Kindle edition for Google, is that the 3-D topological maps are far too small and there is no way to magnify them. If one is able to overlook these two weaknesses, a five star book. Considering the book's other positives this is easy to do however.
December 31, 2024
Forczyk, as always, explains the actual history of the Eastern Front.
Many commonly accepted myths are debunked and a much more nuanced retelling of the 1942 campaign is told here.
Many commonly accepted myths are debunked and a much more nuanced retelling of the 1942 campaign is told here.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews