This book traces the development of the Russian Army in reaction to the rise of Hitler. Caught by surprise in 1941, the Red Army had achieved superiority over the Germans by 1943, and had no real need for Western military assistance. The Russians, as this book establishes, won because they had better organization and equipment--i.e., a better and more effective army. By delaying the second front, the Allies gave Stalin the opportunity to enslave Eastern Europe.
The battle of Kursk was the last major German offensive on the Eastern Front. The battle began well for the Germans, but the Russians delayed them long enough for reserves to come forward. Soon the defenders outnumbered the attackers, and Hitler called off the attack. The Russian victory at Kursk resulted from a massive rebuilding of the Red Army in 1943, which included new unit organizations and weapons designed to counter the German Tiger and Panther tanks. The German defeat signalled the transfer of the initiative to the Russians and demonstrated to the Western Allies that the Soviet Union could defeat the Germans without a second front. Based on recently declassified Russian information and an analysis of captured German records, this book gives a detailed description of both the German and Soviet forces involved and evaluates the quality of the units on both sides.
Drawing on recently declassified Soviet Orders of Battle and the monumental files he has accumulated writing previously about the Red Army, Dunn offers a detailed account of what was perhaps the largest battle of all time and certainly one of the most significant of World War II. In two weeks two million Russians pushed a million Germans across 275 kilometers of bad roads and marshy terrain, destroying 50 divisions, capturing 50,000 soldiers, and terminally crushing Germany strength on the eastern front. The Russians, he says, had mastered the German style of war and turned the tables on them.