Matrix Games Forums

... "When Titans Clashed - How The Red Army Stopped Hitler"
by David M. and Glantz and Jonathan House

Great book ! Should have read it years ago.

Yes I reckon Glantz is required reading. You may also like Barbarossa Derailed (multiple volumes, and can be expensive even for the paperbacks), plus his Kursk and Stalingrad books, well mostly all of them, really.

ORIGINAL: Zug

Yes I reckon Glantz is required reading. You may also like Barbarossa Derailed (multiple volumes, and can be expensive even for the paperbacks), plus his Kursk and Stalingrad books, well mostly all of them, really.

Barbarossa Derailed

Sure, will add them on my to-read list !

Is your copy the 2011 second edition? (expanded, updated w/corrections)

Nope, not sure, seems it's the original 1995 edition.

Glantz is popular at the moment as he is a Russian speaker - and one of the first English speakers to really get stuck into the archives since the Soviet Union fell. As such a useful corrective to the old accounts that were mostly all written from German sources

ORIGINAL: Colbert

Glantz is popular at the moment as he is a Russian speaker - and one of the first English speakers to really get stuck into the archives since the Soviet Union fell. As such a useful corrective to the old accounts that were mostly all written from German sources

Do you think he could be biaised toward rather pro-soviet analysis ?

ORIGINAL: nukkxx

ORIGINAL: Colbert

Glantz is popular at the moment as he is a Russian speaker - and one of the first English speakers to really get stuck into the archives since the Soviet Union fell. As such a useful corrective to the old accounts that were mostly all written from German sources

Do you think he could be biaised toward rather pro-soviet analysis ?

I heard someone make that very point to me the other day actually! [:)] So I guess it is a common question

I would also be interested to know more on the critical assessments others make on Glantz as I do not know enough about this - although I suspect it may be many more years before we get the proper full academic critic and update on his work. At the very least though you could say he is unearthing new archives with new evidence and facts to be presented.

It's interesting because that's the first impression I had (the pro-soviet biais) after reading the first 50 pages ...

Great read anyway !! And very useful to even better love WITE I'm really enjoyinmg the book and can't wait to continue my reading later tonight !

"Panzer Leader" from Guderian is great to read when you play the German, you can really follow the Army Group Center's operations while you play it!

ORIGINAL: AlexSF

"Panzer Leader" from Guderian is great to read when you play the German, you can really follow the Army Group Center's operations while you play it!

Interesting ! Didn't know Guderian wrote ! Will try to find it after I finished "Titans"

By the way, reading 'When Titans Clashed' make me realize the high level of incertitude the Soviets had about where would the attack come from, if it came at all ! And even the weeks before the 22th of June they were still positioning units here and there, north or south of below the pripyat swamp with many discussion/disagrement within the Chief of staff office. They decided to move back troops to the south to better protect Kiev etc.

So, and as far as the game (WITE) is concerned I'm wondering about the possibility for the players to have a "May 41" pre-game turn to position troops. Of course, the available spots should be realistic and contained within some historically credible boundaries but at the same time giving enough freedom to make surprises possible. What do you think ? Would you like this feature in WITE-2 ?? Would like to read your views about it...
PS: this free setup would be totally optional of course, not the standard setup.

I have emailed Mr. Glantz and he writes back.!!!
I have his Barbarossa Derailed, two giant books. I tend to think that's it's not a Soviet bias but the folly of the entire invasion. We have been brought up with all the writings from the former German officers, thousands of books, authors from the west and during the Cold War, you wonder why we have this outlook. All I know, it happened and I can make changes in the Matrix games of dccb, war in the East, case blue etc.

Yes, Glantz books are filled with numbers and more numbers, tough to read at times.

Agreed. It was one of the first in my library on the subject.

If you want to get a bird's eye view of the war from the foot slogging Landser's experience,

I suggest "FRONTSOLDATEN" by Stephen G. Fritz.

ORIGINAL: AlexSF

"Panzer Leader" from Guderian is great to read when you play the German, you can really follow the Army Group Center's operations while you play it!

It's worth a read, but like most memoirs tends to be heavily biased that the author was always right, and everyone else was wrong. It also has the post war "Blame Hitler/tell the West what they want to hear to" tendency that was in fashion at the time. Manstein's is the same.

ORIGINAL: JTP

ORIGINAL: AlexSF

"Panzer Leader" from Guderian is great to read when you play the German, you can really follow the Army Group Center's operations while you play it!

It's worth a read, but like most memoirs tends to be heavily biased that the author was always right, and everyone else was wrong. It also has the post war "Blame Hitler/tell the West what they want to hear to" tendency that was in fashion at the time. Manstein's is the same.

Although they all agree that Hitler made most of the mistakes! [:D]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

ORIGINAL: JTP

ORIGINAL: AlexSF

"Panzer Leader" from Guderian is great to read when you play the German, you can really follow the Army Group Center's operations while you play it!

It's worth a read, but like most memoirs tends to be heavily biased that the author was always right, and everyone else was wrong. It also has the post war "Blame Hitler/tell the West what they want to hear to" tendency that was in fashion at the time. Manstein's is the same.

Although they all agree that Hitler made most of the mistakes! [:D]

Yes, and none of them ever made any or agreed with him about anything according to their memoirs.

About Guderian's book I was mainly advising it as an interesting almost day to day description of the progression of Army Group Center from June 41 till January 42.
Pretty cool to be able to follow the same units you have in your game and compare it with the historical situation. This is why WitE is so good in my opinion. Perfect combination of historical units setup and initiative left to the player to follow history or try something else.

Glantz does cover a lot of the Soviet side of the situation but if you read a lot of his work he even talks about this...his reasoning is that most of the German side has already been covered by many other authors.

Having read his massive series on Stalingrad I think he does justice to both sides as he talks in-depth about what both sides did during the entire series of battles and operations leading up to Stalingrad and its aftermath.

Since he uses actual records for both sides during the battle you get a very accurate depiction of the terrible state the German 6th Army was in even before encirclement. This also goes on into the terrible losses the Soviets suffered esp in trying to hold the city. It was IMO an extremely unpleasant fight for both sides and I wouldn't have wanted to be an infantryman on either side to be honest.

I would highly recommend his work as very informative, esp since instead of using many inaccurate books by various generals from both sides as sources he uses actual archives from sides that statistically show the situation. In fact if I remember right he even goes to length to prove a certain famous German general in fact lied or misrepresented facts in his book.

You will quickly see the German army is not the invincible juggernaut many seem to think it was, and in fact German soldiers were killed and injured in fairly large numbers during the campaign...as well as massive logistical issues on the German side even in the summer of 1942. People need to remember in WW2 Soldiers effectively have no protective combat gear other than a helmet so even winning forces often suffered heavy losses.

ORIGINAL: AlexSF

About Guderian's book I was mainly advising it as an interesting almost day to day description of the progression of Army Group Center from June 41 till January 42.
Pretty cool to be able to follow the same units you have in your game and compare it with the historical situation. This is why WitE is so good in my opinion. Perfect combination of historical units setup and initiative left to the player to follow history or try something else.

+1

I never got beyond the early pages of Guderian explaining which city he was being posted to each week for an army that then did not really exist at all.