Overview

In this first volume of a planned two-volume set, Zamulin takes a close look at the condition of the German and Soviet forces following the winter campaign. Analysing first the German side, the author demonstrates that the Germans were in a woeful condition, especially with respect to the number of serviceable armored vehicles and the lack of infantry. However, Hitler was determined to regain the initiative in the East, though some German commanders expressed concerns. Zamulin then looks at the German plans for the summer of 1943 and the process of rebuilding its forces. As he shows through data, the Germans struggled to replenish Army Group South and Model's Ninth Army in the north, and the latter was hampered almost right up to the launching of Operation Citadel by the need to conduct a major anti-partisan operation in the woods and thickets in the German rear, using panzer and infantry divisions that had been earmarked for Citadel. Zamulin next examines the Soviet side, and discusses the planning for the summer campaign, including the decision to adopt a pre-meditated defense of the Kursk salient and to create a multi-echeloned system of defense (though incomplete in depth). The author demonstrates that the Red Army was able quickly to replenish its forces and also create a large mobile reserve, the Steppe Front. Thus, the delay in launching Citadel was not the fatal German error, and it would have failed even if launched earlier. 114 photographs, 39 tables

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9781914059223

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"""...masterfully adds new life and energy into a largely over-saturated and stale historiography of World War II.""-- ""ARMOR Magazine"""

...masterfully adds new life and energy into a largely over-saturated and stale historiography of World War II. -- ARMOR Magazine

Author Information

"Valeriy Nikolaevich Zamulin, a PhD candidate, is a leading Russian scholar of the Battle of Kursk. Since 1996, he has been working intensively in the most important Russian and foreign archival institutes, including the Central Archive of Russia’s Ministry of Defense and in the US National Archive, in order to gather and analyze documentary sources on the events in the Kursk bulge in the summer of 1943. In 2002, he was the first to describe the course of the famous Prokhorovka tank clash on a documentary basis, to publish previously unknown figures on the Red Army’s armor losses in the tank battle of 12 July 1943, and to give his assessment of the results, which differed from that previously accepted in Russia. He is the author of more than 60 scholarly works, including six books, in both the Russian and English languages, which have attracted great interest among scholars and history buffs. His most well-known work is ""Demolishing the Myth: The Tank Battle at Prokhorovka, Kursk, July 1943: An Operational Narrative"" (Helion, 2011). The results of V.N. Zamulin’s scholarly work are broadly used by military-historical authors, professors of state universities and Russia’s military museums. Several documentary films and television programs have been made with his participation. In 2010-2011, he was the academic consultant during the creation of the new military history museum in the legendary village of Ponyri, which in the Battle of Kursk was the epicenter of the most savage and bloody fighting. At present, Zamulin is a member of the faculty of Kursk State University. Stuart Britton is a freelance translator and editor residing in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He has been responsible for making a growing number of Russian titles available to readers of the English language, consisting primarily of memoirs by Red Army veterans and recent historical research concerning the Eastern Front of the Second World War and Soviet air operations in the Korean War. Notable recent titles include Boris Gorbachevsky's Through the Maelstrom: A Red Army Soldier's War on the Eastern Front 1942-45 (University Press of Kansas, 2008) and Yuri Sutiagin's and Igor Seidov's MiG Menace Over Korea: The Story of Soviet Fighter Ace Nikolai Sutiagin (Pen & Sword Aviation, 2009). Future books will include Lev Lopukhovsky's detailed study of the Soviet disaster at Viazma in 1941, Svetlana Gerasimova's analysis of the prolonged and savage fighting against Army Group Center in 1942-43 to liberate the city of Rzhev, and more of Igor Seidov's studies of the Soviet side of the air war in Korea, 1951-1953."

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