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Glantz, David M. The Red Army in 1943: Central Command and Control Organs and Leaders. n.p.: Self-published, 1999
no ISBN Glantz, David M. The Red Army in 1943: Strength, Organization, and Equipment. n.p.: Self-published, 1999
no ISBN Glantz, David M. Forgotten Battles of the German-Soviet War, 1941-1945, volume I: The Summer-Fall Campaign, 22 June - 4 December 1941. n.p.: Self-published, 1999
no ISBN Glantz, David M. Forgotten Battles of the German-Soviet War, 1941-1945, volume II: The Winter Campaign, 5 December 1941 - April 1942. n.p.: Self-published, 1999
no ISBN
Glantz, David M. Forgotten Battles of the German-Soviet War, 1941-1945, volume III: The Summer Campaign, 12 May - 18 November 1942. n.p.: Self-published, 1999
no ISBN Colonel David Glantz has for several years maintained an astonishing regimen of writing, editing, and translating which includes self-publishing intensely detailed volumes about little-known aspects of the Russo-German War. These five books are more of the same: black-and-white desktop-published tomes with copy-shop binding, but packed with the bountiful fruits of Glantz's efforts to bring to an English-language audience fresh material drawn largely from obscure Soviet sources, notably newly opened archives. The Red Army in 1943, broken into two volumes with a third planned for the future ("on people and the human dimension"), is in many ways similar to Glantz's Stumbling Colossus. While that latter book served as a snapshot of the state of the Red Army at the beginning of the Second World War, the new volumes show how far it had developed by 1943.
In 1943 the Red Army completed a significant, painful, and costly transition that had begun in the spring of 1942. During this period of just over one year, the Red Army evolved from a force barely able to survive in combat on the battlefield with the German Wehrmacht to one that ultimately vanquished its less numerous but significantly more capable foe. In Central Command and Control Organs and Leaders, Glantz reviews the upper echelons of the Red Army structure. Chapters delve into the following topics:
The State Defense Committee (GKO) This amounts to a grand tour through the upper levels of the Red Army hierarchy, including stops along the way at branches as diverse as Armored Forces, Signals, River Transport, the Veterinary Service, Internal Security Forces, Ciphers, and Counterintelligence. For each of these departments, Glantz discusses its organization and responsibilities and in some cases reproduces wartime documents concerned with the bureau's activities. There are also some nuggets such as a chart of the organization and disposition of railroad brigades on 22 June 1941. In his appendix, Glantz discusses Soviet procedures for accounting for casualties and reprints several wartime directives on those processes. In closing, Glantz writes "The command and control and administrative structures of the Red Army and the Soviet Armed Forces as a whole were massive, complex, and often opaque." Indeed! Quite removed from more familiar narratives of front-line combat, the breadth and depth of organizational material in this volume will almost certainly prove to be eye-opening news to all but the most knowledgeable Russian Front specialists. The next volume covering the state of the Army, Strength, Organization, and Equipment, inspects Stalin's forces at a level closer to the ground and is divided into three main sections, each with several chapters:
The Red Army's Strength and Major Components In the opening section Glantz covers the larger formations such as fronts and armies with data about their organization, responsibilities, and in some cases their component units as of February and July 1943. The second section focuses on corps, divisions, brigade, regiments, and battalions of the different combat arms. This material is a combination of TOE data, tabular comparisons of strengths and structure, and lists of specific combat units and the HQs to which they were subordinate in February and July 1943. While there are no overall orders of battle for the Red Army as a whole, it would be possible to assemble complete OBs for February and July 1943 from the various tables of subordinations. In addition to common units such as tank regiments and rifle divisions, the second section also includes unusual formations such as aerosleigh battalions, armored trains, decontaminating battalions, backpack-flamethrower companies, and penal battalions. Almost twenty pages are devoted to air units, including extensive tables with OB/subordination information for February and July.
One of the most unique units in the Red Army armored and mechanized force structure was the aerosleigh [aerosanyi] battalions, 62 of which were formed beginning in January 1942. Considered by the Stavka to be a type of mechanized force, there were 48 aerosleigh battalions in the February 1943 force structure and 57 in July 1943. The aerosleigh battalion consisted of a headquarters and supply company with 10 cargo sleds and 3 combat companies with 10 aerosleighs each. The company consisted of three platoons with three sleighs each and a tenth command sled. The overall strength of the battalion was about 100 men with about 45 NKL-16 or NKL-26 aerosleighs. The NKL-16 aerosleigh consisted of an armor-plated turret with a 7.62mm machine gun mounted on four skis. It was propelled by a rear-mounted aircraft type engine and propeller and could transport 4-5 men. The NKL-26 had the same armament but was more powerful and more heavily armored. Aerosleigh battalions were employed in winter raids, to combat enemy ski troops, to transport supplies, and in operations across difficult terrain in snow conditions, often in conjunction with ski battalions and brigades. Figure 54 shows the deployment of aerosleigh battalions in February and July 1943. The third, relatively short section of this volume details the weapons with which the Red Army was equipped. Beginning with pistols, rifles, and sub-machineguns, this runs the full gamut of armored fighting vehicles, field artillery, anti-tank artillery, aircraft, mines, bridges, radios, smoke generators, flamethrowers, "flame bottles", and more. Although production figures are not divulged, technical specifications are included for almost all these systems. This is valuable, top-notch stuff, but it's important to note that this kind of organizational and weapons material should not be confused with unit histories such as those found in Charles Sharp's Soviet OB volumes published by George Nafziger. Along with the first two Red Army in 1943 volumes, the first books in the Forgotten Battles series are also available. The series of "unknown campaign" volumes is expected eventually to total eight titles. The three provided for review include an array of operations scarcely mentioned in other histories of the Russo-German war:
The Lepel' Offensive Operations Although they might sound like chess openings, in reality these are operations -- for the most part failures -- ordered by Stavka but relegated to the dustbin of history. Glantz explains:
For over fifty years major gaps have existed in the historical record of operations on the German-Soviet front during the Second World War. This has been so largely because archival evidence has been lacking on the Soviet side regarding the Soviet High Command's (Stavka) strategic intent and the Red Army's performance in operations that generally failed. It is indeed sad but true that failed operations often vanish from history without a trace.... In each of these volumes Glantz opens with a chapter entitled "Context" which describes the situation on the front at the time of the operations, and closes with a chapter of "Reflections" to assess the overall results and note areas in which Russian archival material remains unavailable. In between, each operation is covered with anywhere from a few paragraphs to many pages of text. About thirty-five pages, for example, are devoted to the Crimean operation of February through April 1942. While there is not always a great deal of OB material for every operation, the narrative is accompanied by copies of Stavka orders and even transcripts of conferences. One ominous order went to the Northwestern Front over Zhukov's signature:
The Stavka of the High Command and the State Defense Committee are absolutely dissatisfied with the work of the Northwestern Front's command and headquarters. In a similar vein, Zhukov and Stalin discuss intelligence gleaned from a German prisoner:
Zhukov: Today a German soldier deserted to our side, who indicated that this evening the 267th Infantry Division will relieve the beaten 23d Infantry Division, and that he also observed SS units. The attack to the north is still advantageous because it will occur against the junction of the two divisions.... Most of the documents and transcripts are considerably meatier than these brief examples. The documents contain general directives from Stavka to fronts as well as specific orders from the fronts to their armies with detailed instructions for carrying out operations. Likewise, the transcripts tend to be fairly lengthy records of conversations between Moscow and front commanders, with Stalin, or Stavka officers speaking in his name, asking hard questions, demanding successful results, and threatening dire consequences. Glantz's narrative ties together the documents and transcripts and adds material from the official Soviet histories of the war, Russian unit histories, and some perspectives from the German side of the lines.
When the planning was fairly complete, the February offensive [in the Crimea] was a scaled-down version of the initial plan in that it did not require any offensive operations by the Coastal Army in Sevastopol'. Instead the 44th and 51st Armies would attack toward Karasubazar to assist the Sevastopol' garrison. Specifically, the two armies were to deliver enveloping blows in the direction of Tulumchak, Apak-Dzhankoi, Sheikh-Eli, and Staryi Krym with the immediate mission of encircling and destroying the enemy Feodosiia grouping and creating favorable conditions for a subsequent attack into the depths. The 47th Army, in front second echelon, was positioned behind the junction of the two first echelon armies. Its mission was to "develop the penetration in the direction of Tulumchak, Islam-Terek, and Saly to complete the encirclement and destruction of the enemy Feodosiia grouping." On the first day of the attack the two first echelon armies were to penetrate 12 kilometers into the enemy's defense. The following day they were to widen the penetration to 28-30 kilometers and, on the third day, 47th Army was to go into action and begin the exploitation. Finally, between the sixth and eighth day of the operation, the German Feodosiia group was supposed to have been encircled and destroyed. The narrative, documents, and transcripts are also accompanied by many maps which seem to have been taken from a wide range of sources. These unfortunately don't always live up to the quality of the remainder of the contents, and in fact -- often hand-lettered, blurred, and hard to read -- they are the only element to betray the self-published DTP nature of the work. Despite the poor quality of some of the maps, this is a case where the printing and paper and binding are definitely secondary to the enormous accumulation of knowledge on the pages. Colonel Glantz has done his usual thorough job of bringing otherwise inaccessible material to an English-language audience, and anyone with an interest in the Russian Front will find Glantz's efforts have paid off with mountains of fresh information and insights. In some cases these exercises in self-publishing prove to be precursors of Glantz's professionally published editions on the same topics released by the likes of University Press of Kansas, Frank Cass, and Sarpedon. Due to some recent events in his personal life, the author has indicated he will be reducing his phenomenal output of professional and self-published books, and it looks like this batch of desktop-published tomes in particular might not see new editions. Thus, serious students of the Russian Front will want to make every effort to acquire these items in order not to miss out on so much valuable data-- data which is available nowhere else and likely to remain that way. Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from the author. Thanks to David Glantz for providing these review copies.
Reviewed 20 January 2000
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