Kursk - Books on and innacuracies

[doogal]

OK just reading Lloyd clarks KURSK the greatest battleand on page 237 he says the following "The Gross Deutschlands panzer Division was the main the main attacking force " and then " The Gross deutschlands 384 (?) tanks included the usual Panzer 3s & 4s but also a heavy company of 15 Tigers and 200 Panthers (wtf) "..
This guy teaches at Sandhurst but it took me all of 5 mins on line to find the GD and figures which show that the attached Panzer regt had four companies of four tanks x 2...Also i have never heard of a German Pzr Div in 1943 having that many AFV. Also was the GD not an Motorised Infantry division with 2 attached Panzer regts ??????
This leads into my next question ? why do so many supposedly historical works by Proffessional have such glaringly strange figures ( and this book is from 2011 so there isnt really an excuse for it)

Puzzled
Dooogal

[apollo144]

Even historians are human beings that make mistakes.

[Qvist]

He's not wrong, at least not much. There was a brigade of Panthers attached to GrD, and if that is included, the tank strength sounds about right - this in addition to its own pz rgt. GrD was at this time effectively not just a pz division, but an unusually large one.

[Mr.No one]

According to Thomas L. Jentz in his Die Deutsche Panzertruppe 1943-1945 Band II page 76,81 and 82 the Panzer-Grenadier-Division Grossdeutschland on the 1st of July 1943 had the following forces:

Pz.Rgt.G.D. :

---2 Panzer Battalions with 3 Panzer Companies each
---1 Heavy tank company(Tiger Ausf.E)

Which included 4 PzII(kz),1 PzIII(kz),20 PzIII(lg),2 PzIII(7.5),5 PzIV(kz),63 PzIV(lg),15 PzVI,8 PzBef. and 14 Flammpz.



Pz.Rgt.39 which was under it's command:

---2 Panzer Battalions(Pz.Abt.51 and Pz.Abt.52) which altogether had:

200 Pz.Kpfw. V 'Panther'



Séan

[Rob - wssob2]

David Glantz in his book The Battle of Kursk points out that regarding numbers of armored vehicles, sources can vary. For example, Stadler wrote that the II SS Panzer Corps has 356 tanks and 95 assault guns on July 4, but Heinrici wrote that the corps had 352 tanks and 91 assault guns on July 5.

Note too that day by day the numbers can vary, with vehicles undergoing maintenence.

[paspartoo]

Because noone is forced to adhere to specific standards. Here is another example , best seller 'The Storm of War' says that in the 'two month battle of Kursk' the Germans lose 500.000 casualties vs the Russians 750.000.

[bf109 emil]

The Battle of Kursk: Myths and Reality
http://www.uni.edu/~licari/citadel.htm

[nebelwerferXXX]

How about the book of Geoffrey Jukes ? Kursk: the clash of armour. Does it have inaccuracies also ?

[bf109 emil]

How about the book of Geoffrey Jukes ? Kursk: the clash of armour. Does it have inaccuracies also ?

I have never read it, and unsure where he sourced his information, in order to form and make his conclusions and data from.

[Dutto1]

How about the book of Geoffrey Jukes ? Kursk: the clash of armour. Does it have inaccuracies also ?

Geoffrey Jukes's Kursk book is very outdated.

I will ist a few here that are more modern studies.

Citadel-The Battle of Kursk by Robin Cross. [1993]

This book is not a bad account and gives the reader a good basic account of what happened.However Robin Cross helped the BBC with a documentary about Operation Zitadelle where German and Russian veterans were interviewed.For some reason he did not utilise these for his book.

Operation Zitadelle by Franz Kurowski. [2003]

This book is written in typical Kurowski style,lots of first-hand accounts sandwiched with filler to make up for the rest.The book is very disjointed but is worth having for the first-hand accounts alone if it can be obtained at a reasonable price.

Kursk: The Greatest Battle by Lloyd Clark [2011]

This book actually suprised me it is crammed with first-hand accounts and the text is pretty good too.Clark interviewed veterans of both sides and used many Divisional histories to flesh out his account.There are one or two points it could improve on but the book is far better than Kurowski's and Cross's tomes.



Two more books which are modern and highly rated are these two that deal with Prokhorovka.

Blood,Steel,and Myth :The II SS Panzerkorps and the Road to Prokhorovka by Geroge M.Nipe.

I ordered mine with Amazon they sold out.Now they go for crazy money !


Demolishing The Myth:The Tank Battle At Prokhorovka Kursk 1943:An Operational Narritive.By Valeriy Zamulin.

This book is from the Russian perspective and is on my to buy list.


Regards,

Ron

[nebelwerferXXX]

Geoffrey Jukes's Kursk book is very outdated.
Citadel - The Battle of Kursk by Robin Cross. [1993]
Operation Zitadelle by Franz Kurowski. [2003]
Kursk: The Greatest Battle by Lloyd Clark [2011]

For comparison:
Kursk: the clash of armour by Geoffrey Jukes(1968)
But lots of black and white photos plus artworks of John Batchelor and maps of Richard Natkiel...

[edgardo gil]

Well, as you know, the Battle of Kursk is plenty of myths repeated again and again in many books and documental series on TV. And Jukes´s book, writing in the sixties is one of them, the author obviously had not access to the russian sources that today are open for the scholars.
I have read the two books of George M. Nipe Jr. "Decision in the Ukraine" and "Blood, Steel, & Myth: The II. SS Panzer Corps and the Road to Prochorowka" and believe me, they worth every dollar that I pay for them.
In the second one the author arrive to interesting conclusions (not mentioned in the first book) about the chances of the germans to win the battle.
The second principally, have many maps (not excellent but very good ones), and interesting photos.
Both books are really mith busters, based on first hand german sources.
I like to know if someone read "Demolishing The Myth:The Tank Battle At Prokhorovka Kursk 1943: An Operational Narrative".By Valeriy Zamulin that is the russian perpective of the battle.