Stalingrad: City on Fire

Stalingrad: City on Fire

Stalingrad: City on Fire

Stalingrad: City on Fire

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Overview

So much has been written about the Battle of Stalingrad – the Soviet victory that turned the tide of the Second World War – that we should know everything about it. But the history of the war, and the battle, is evolving and is being written anew, and Alexey Isaev’s engrossing account is a striking example of this fresh approach.

By bringing together previously unpublished Russian archive material – strategic directives and orders, after-action reports and official records of all kinds – with the vivid recollections of soldiers who were there, in the front lines, he reconstructs what happened in extraordinary detail. The evidence leads him to question common assumptions about the conduct of the battle – about the use of tanks and mechanized forces, for instance, and the combat capability, and tenacity, of the defeated and surrounded German Sixth Army in the last weeks before it surrendered.

His gripping narrative carries the reader through the course of the entire battle from the first small-scale encounters on the approaches to Stalingrad in July 1942, through the intense continuous fighting through the city, to the encirclement, the beating back of the relieving force and the capitulation of the Sixth Army in February 1943.

Alexey Isaev’s latest book is an important contribution to the literature on this decisive battle. It offers a thought-provoking revised view of events for readers who are already familiar with the story, and it is a fascinating introduction for those who are coming to it for the first time.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781526742650
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Publication date: 12/26/2019
Pages: 336
Sales rank: 523,800
Product dimensions: 6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Alexey Isaev is one of the leading Russian military historians of the conflict on the Eastern Front during the Second World War.

Richard W. Harrison earned degrees from Georgetown University, where he specialized in Russian Area Studies. He later earned his doctorate in War Studies from King’s College London. He spent several years living and working in post-communist Russia and has taught Russian History and Military History at the US Military Academy at West Point.

Dr Harrison lives with his family near Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

List of Maps vii

List of Illustrations viii

Acknowledgements x

Translator's Introduction xi

Preface xii

Part I The Art of Sowing the Whirlwind 1

Chapter 1 Thermite Rain 2

Chapter 2 Heat. 'The Cauldron' 36

Chapter 3 The Results of the Tank Battle in the Great Bend of the Don 44

Chapter 4 The Elimination of the Sirotinskaya Bridgehead 47

Chapter 5 Reinforced Defence I. Abganerovo 51

Chapter 6 Serafimovich. The Foundation of Future Success 61

Chapter 7 The Formation of the 'Northern Covering Detachment' 66

Chapter 8 Reinforced Defence II. Beketovka 84

Chapter 9 Conclusions to Part I 88

Part II The Verdun of the Steppes 91

Chapter 10 The Battle for the Semaphore. The Beginning 92

Chapter 11 A City Under Siege 96

Chapter 12 The First Assault on the City. 14-26 September 1942. The Beginning 98

Chapter 13 The First Assault on the City. 14-26 September 1942. The Centre 109

Chapter 14 The First Assault on the City. 13-26 September 1942. To the South of the Tsaritsa River 134

Chapter 15 The Battle for the Semaphore II. The Counterblow of 18-19 September 1942 142

Chapter 16 The Second Assault on the City. 27 September-7 October 1942 159

Chapter 17 The Third Assault on the City. 14-19 October 178

Chapter 18 The Fighting for the 'Red October' Factory 199

Chapter 19 The Landing in the Latashanka Area 208

Chapter 20 The Last Inch. November 1942 213

Chapter 21 Conclusions to Part II 220

Part III Hot Snow 225

Chapter 22 The Father of the Gods: Uranus 226

Chapter 23 The Tank Army. The First Success 242

Chapter 24 Mechanized Pincers 255

Chapter 25 The Failure of Winter Storm 261

Chapter 26 The Hydraulic Press. Operation Ring 277

Chapter 27 Conclusions to Part III 294

Conclusions 298

Notes 301

Bibliography 318

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