tactical accounts of BAGRATION?

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tactical accounts of BAGRATION?

#1

Post by Cult Icon » 23 Nov 2019, 04:32

There are numerous operational-level books on Operation BAGRATION- at corps/army level type of coverage. However these books and Ph.D thesis tend to be weak in tactical coverage.

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Re: tactical accounts of BAGRATION?

#2

Post by krichter33 » 01 Dec 2019, 10:22

I would like to know too!


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Jeff Leach
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Re: tactical accounts of BAGRATION?

#3

Post by Jeff Leach » 01 Dec 2019, 11:57

You might try Rolf Hinze's East Front Drama. It gives some details but like most of Hinze's book are difficult to read.

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Re: tactical accounts of BAGRATION?

#4

Post by Cult Icon » 03 Dec 2019, 18:36

Jeff Leach wrote:
01 Dec 2019, 11:57
You might try Rolf Hinze's East Front Drama. It gives some details but like most of Hinze's book are difficult to read.
I have the other books- yea the thing with Hinze's books is that they are written in extremely symbolic language, like some of Glantz's older material.

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Re: tactical accounts of BAGRATION?

#5

Post by Sheldrake » 05 Nov 2020, 01:44

The trouble with looking for a tactical level account of Op Bagration is like looking for a tactical level account of the Normandy campaign. It would be a very big book and likely to have some big gaps.

I have a copy of the English translation of Gerd Niepold's Battle for White Russia - translated by Richard Simpkin with lessons for NATO.
and Paul Adair's Hitler's Greatest Defeat: the collapse of Army Group Centre June 1944. This was written based on Niepold's book which also includes first hand accounts from German veterans used in the or the SSVC (British Army) film on the campaign. Neipold was the Ia of 12 Panzer Division and later na senior Bundeswehr officer. Both books were prepared for an art of war symposium in the US on the art of war in 1985 with the aim of extracting lessons for NATO.

Adair's acknowledgements include a big thank you to David Glantz for his input on the Soviet side.

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Re: tactical accounts of BAGRATION?

#6

Post by Cult Icon » 29 Nov 2020, 18:30

I read Adair's book a long time ago- White Russia is now out of print. Adair's book however is not really adequate.

Maybe it's due to the loss of the army group - eg. documentation lost? so the history was lost?

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Re: tactical accounts of BAGRATION?

#7

Post by hucks216 » 30 Nov 2020, 12:22

Cult Icon wrote:
29 Nov 2020, 18:30
...
Maybe it's due to the loss of the army group - eg. documentation lost? so the history was lost?
I dare say that is part of it but the sheer scale of Bagration would make such an undertaking almost impossible and if someone was to pick up the gauntlet I dare say it would take a lifetime to complete with researching surviving German records and also the Russian accounts and even then it would have large gaps in it due to loss of records, personnel etc.
Compare how many books are available for D-Day and the first week in the Normandy Campaign with official unit histories, personal accounts on record etc that provide the tactical level detail. You would need far more to cover Bagration in the same depth due to the size of the campaign, battles fought and distances covered.

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