Barbarossa Derailed

[rzhev42]

I am almost finished reading it. This is a very detail account of The Battle of Smolensk. One thing about Glantz now is that he seems to have taken heed of the criticism that he does not use German Archive source in his books. Both of the Stalingrad volumes and this book use KTB records for all the German units involved. So although the book is slightly more Soviet sided then German it seems to be very well balanced in it's coverage.

As for the OOB's, there is much inforamtion in the book. While Glantz's Soviet listings are striaght from the BSSA (Like July 1, July 10 and August 1 listings) there is quite a lot of OOB detail listed in the various battle orders and reports. Glantz has extensively used the Soviet "SBDVOV" documents (Which are a collection of combat documents for the GPW) In these docs are Stavka, Front and Army orders and reports on and almost daily basis. In these reports and orders are a trove of OOB info like AT and Artillery regiments assigned to armies and divisions, along with army and divisional reassignments. Also Army and Front creation dates and Commander assignments and axings. There are decent German KGL's but nothing much on GHQ units involved, so there is less info for the Germans. It does indicate very well how the Germans reassigned units to there various Korps and Armies on a continuous basis. Even shows that early in the battle 4.AOK was actually redesignated as a Panzer Army for a short period and had both PzGr.2 and PzGr.3 assign to it. Then later in July 4.AOK actually was a HQ's only with no divisions attached (all Infantry Korps went to 2.AOK and PzGr.2).

As for the maps, there are plenty in the volume but not very well reproduced. I had created a set of maps for this battle for David back in 2002 for his 11x17 Atlas (computer generated from his handrawn maps). These are reproduced in the book and are readable, but the various archival maps are much less readable. I have to say that they do read better in his 11x17 Atlas then in this book. I have been using the Atlas while reading the book.

All in all this is a must have book for anyone interested in the East Front and the Battle of Smolensk. I already have ordered the second volume. Glantz's books are getting much better with the inclusion of archival German material. Although he is a very dry read, no one includes the type of detailed information he has been including in his latest books. This is why he is doing multiple volumes for each of these battles. According to his notes in the introduction he is planning on a 3rd an maybe a 4th volume in this set, with the 3rd being exact translations on the SBDVOV documents used in the book but in their entirety. and a 4th volume of just maps.

If you are interested in Soviet OOB info, the best place to start is the BSSA. But there is quite a lot more archival material that is becoming available. I recently purchased a set of volumes that have the OOB for each Army on the 1st, 10th and 20th of each month. I have 12 volumes so far that cover 1941-1943. Unfortunately these are only 2 volumes available for 1944 and none for 45. With these you can get an accurate OOB for pretty much any Soviet Operation, as this is basically a complete listing every 10 days.

Regards
Michael Avanzini