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Kursk: The Greatest Tank Battle (2011)

by Lloyd Clark(Favorite Author)

3.79 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0755336380 (ISBN13: 9780755336388)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Headline Review

review 1: Excellent and insightful book with not only descriptions of the battle of Kursk and Operation Citadel, but also the "Origins of Annihilation" giving a backstory about the rise of Adolf Hitler's National Socialist German Worker's Party and Lenin/Stalin's Bolshevik Revolution coupled with reasons leading to the point of the Eastern Front. Furthermore, Lloyd Clark's Battle of the Tanks also goes further into giving the backstory leading towards the death grip at Kursk through describing the initial German invasion "Operation Barbarossa" in 1941, Russian counter-offensives, and the German southern thrust "Operation Blue" in 1942, and the subsequent Soviet counter-offensive "Operation Uranus" resulting in the surrounding Fredric Paulus' Sixth Army at Stalingrad. The description... mores and details of the operation of "Operation Citadel" are unparalleled and well researched. This piece of historical literature is well written, supported by pictures and maps, and is filled with information that many historical World War II buffs would enjoy immensely. As this book not only describes Hitler's ideological short comings, it also displays how this "War of Annihilation" was operated in such a matter of ferocity and human suffering that it cannot be described in words. If you as an individual wishes to learn more about the Wehrmacht's and Red Army's failings and operational disasters on the Eastern Front and to also address the human aspect of determination and suffering, and to learn more about this theatre of World War II in general, than I would highly suggest this book for your book collection.
review 2: First, I'd like to address those who complain that the first third of this book is not about Kursk, but in fact covers the period after WWI for both Germany and Russia, Operation Barbarossa, the Battle of Moscow, and the Battle of Stalingrad. To these people, I'd like to point out that there is a handy little thing called a "table of contents". No one is forcing you to read the bits you don't want to read.For myself, I liked the backstory. It's backstory that I know fairly well, but it's well stated, and really is necessary to understand the true import of Kursk. Without understanding the tenuous position of the Wehrmacht in the summer of 1942, following the halts at Moscow and Stalingrad, the reader doesn’t grasp how much hinged on the German assault.The book itself is very well-written, with a great sense of drama, without being overly fictionalized. The author has a great ability to write non-fictional narrative, which can escape some historians. He uses a great deal of quotes from common soldiers, which adds to the feeling of the gritty, almost WWI-style combat.If there is a criticism to be made, it’s in the lack of sufficient maps. Of course, you can’t expect a map on every page, but there should have been one per major action, at least. Instead, we get huge, front-encompassing maps which often don’t feature what is being mentioned at the time, and sometimes don’t show towns that are mentioned in the text at all. This is a problem when we’re dealing with a battle that isn’t set permanently into the minds of military history readers (whereas I can draw a pretty good map of the area around Gettysburg from memory). If there had been such maps, this would have been a superb book, and would have helped with the chaos of the last few days of the battle, which became, at times, overwhelmingly confusing.All in all, a great read, and a reasonably good primer on the Eastern Front at large, for those unfamiliar with the major events. less

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