Reviews for The Battle of Kursk

The average rating for The Battle of Kursk based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-04-09 00:00:00 Kenneth Sawka With Kursk, Col Glantz uses both Soviet and German military archives to give a complete picture of the greatest tank battle of World War II. The author uses, at the time the book was written, recent access to the Soviet archival material to show light on the Red Army's plans and decision making. Col Glantz sets the stage for the July 1943 battle by looking at the situation on the Russia front in the spring of that year. The Soviet Winter Offensives following Stalingrad had driven the Germans back 100s of kilometers and resulted in a huge bulge in the front and around the city of Kursk. If the Germans could eliminate that bulge, they would shorten their lines significantly and release troops for other duties. This made Kursk a logical target for the coming German offensive. The author makes a point that the Russians could also read maps. They saw the same bulge and came to the same conclusions. While Stalin wanted an immediate offensive in the spring, his general staff, esp Gen Zhukov, convinced him that if they prepared the Kursk Salient properly and waited until the German attack had failed, they then could go on the offensive with much, much better results. Ergo, the Soviets spent the spring building defensive fortifications 100s of kilometers deep in the salient. In looking at the German planning for their offensive, Col Glantz looks at the delays that occurred and the reasons for them. The starting date slipped from May to the 5th of July mainly because Hitler wanted the newly designed and built German armor, the Panther and Tiger tanks as well as the Elephant assault gun, to take part. The author also points out as time passed senior German commanders became more and more concerned over Soviet defensive preparations in the attack areas. At the time of the attack Col Glantz states the Soviets outnumbered the attacking Germans in both available armored vehicles and sheer man power. The author states that both Guderian and Von Manstein urged Hitler to cancel the operation. When the assault kicks off, Col Glantz does a good job of telling just what the Soviet defenses did to the German assaults. To put in bluntly, on the north shoulder of the Kursk Bulge, they were stopped cold. Only in the south was there some modicum of success. The author tells the story the 2nd SS Panzer Corps, which were the best equipped in Von Manstein's army, advancing some 20 kms, the deepest penetration of any German units and ending up fighting the Battle of Prokhorovka. Contrary to what most historians think, Col Glantz opines that this was classic meeting engagement and units were fed into the maelstrom piecemeal. The result being that the German advance was halted, in spite of Soviet casualties exceeding German by as much as 4 to 1. Also at this time the Western Allies invaded Sicily and Hitler needed the 2nd SS Panzer Corps to reinforce Italy. So he stopped the battle and transferred the 2nd SS. While the focus of the narrative in not first person accounts, the author does provided a few. One of the most amusing is when the Germans used a captured T-34 to lead their advancing column during a night march. They ran into a Soviet column moving the opposite way. The Soviets seeing the T-34 took no notice of the German armor following it, allowing the Germans to get into position for the next day's attacks. In addition to detailing the combat operations, the author looks at the performance of the equipment used by both sides. The new German armor was found wanting in many details. For instance, while the Panther was an equal if not better tank than the Soviet T-34 if it was in action. It had so many teething problems that they were often unavailable due to mechanical break downs. The Elephant assault/tank destroyers also had mechanical problems, were extremely heavy causing mobility problems, but more importantly had to be accompanied by infantry due to poor point defense capability. The Tiger was probably the best performer of the three, but there were not enough of them. As with all of Col Glantz' books on World War II on the Eastern Front this is extremely well researched. He provides plenty of maps (even though some can be hard to read). The photos are also well chosen to illustrate both the equipment and leaders of both armies. It also a fairly succinct and readable narrative, esp compared with some of his other works. This is a solid 4 star read for me.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-07-02 00:00:00 Parry Nando There is no denying that this account of Kursk by David Glantz and Jonathan House is extremely well researched. The amount of detail is awe inspiring with 165 pages in the appendixes dedicated to OB's, strengths & losses, comparative armour strengths and key German & Soviet documents. The maps, some 32 in all, are very detailed however I must admit that at time they were still hard to read due to the amount of detail. The book itself was well presented and the photos were excellent. The only fault that I could find with the book was that at times it dragged. With the amount of detail being presented you need to catch your breath and close the book. It was not the type of book that had a free flowing narrative that kept you glued to the story, well not for me at least. Beside that however this would rank as the definitive account of this major Eastern Front battle and well worth the effort to read. No decent WW2 library would be complete without this book.