Reviews for To the Gates of Stalingrad: Soviet-German Combat Operations, April-August 1942, Vol. 1

The average rating for To the Gates of Stalingrad: Soviet-German Combat Operations, April-August 1942, Vol. 1 based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-04-21 00:00:00 Rodrigo Golla Well, the book is a very detailed work about the eastern front, Glantz show us a great book about the tactical and estrategical movement of armies. First the author discuse about the state the armies, after about the preliminaries the operation Blau, and covers the summer offensive, etc. About the author, Glantz is a great writer. The book is a very detailed work about the eastern front, with a extensive research notes. Maybe for some people are the problem, the information overload. If you looking that, is your book. He presents an excellent view of the battles leading up to Stalingrad, with a review the Red Army and the Wehrmacht, later Glantz presents the Operation Blau, the capture of Sevastopol, the advance to the Don River. I think this book have a problem: the maps, they're so tiny, but is the only error in this study. Finally a word of advice. This book are for well schollars of the Eastern Front, but undoubtedly I recommend it. Then let's start "Armageddon in Stalingrad".

Review # 2 was written on 2014-02-06 00:00:00 Ethan Golden I'm glad I read this, and I'll continue on to the next book in the trilogy (probably after a bit of a break), but there was definitely room for improvement. The dry recitation of facts is the kind of thing I expect from military history at the operational level. That's a big part of these kinds of histories. Detailing exactly which units did what and when they did it. The missing part here is why they did it. There is some analysis of overall events at the end of each chapter, but not nearly enough to make sense of it all without further study of other sources. Then there are the maps. The maps are simply awful. Did no one proof the maps? Most are all but unreadable, and none of them are very useful in helping to visualize things because of the poor quality of their reproduction. The maps alone dropped this from liking the book to just being OK. Edit: I'm tempted to raise this a star after reading this volume for a second time, but I think all my points still stand, especially the terrible maps, which still end up keeping me from raising this to three stars.