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Book Suggestions - 5/25/2016 12:48:45 AM   
dereck


Posts: 2800
Joined: 9/7/2004
From: Romulus, MI
Status: offline 		I've been getting ebooks for my Kindle on the Western Front and trying to get books for the Eastern front.

The only problem with the Eastern front is I'd like to find a book on the Eastern Front going from 1941 all the way through 1945 but most of them stop after 18 months.

Any suggestions for books?

Thanks

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Post #: 1
RE: Book Suggestions - 5/25/2016 1:04:38 AM   
rainman2015

 

Posts: 229
Joined: 2/12/2015
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: dereck

I've been getting ebooks for my Kindle on the Western Front and trying to get books for the Eastern front.

The only problem with the Eastern front is I'd like to find a book on the Eastern Front going from 1941 all the way through 1945 but most of them stop after 18 months.

Any suggestions for books?

Thanks


http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3812861&mpage=1&key=best%2Cbook

Lots of suggestions here...:)

Randy
:)

(in reply to dereck)
Post #: 2
RE: Book Suggestions - 5/25/2016 11:01:18 AM   
Gefreiter Wardstein

 

Posts: 39
Joined: 9/17/2011
Status: offline 		The John Erickson books are good... The Road to Stalingrad & The Road to Berlin.

(in reply to rainman2015)
Post #: 3
RE: Book Suggestions - 5/25/2016 5:52:13 PM   
javats


Posts: 55
Joined: 1/21/2012
From: Flatland
Status: offline 		The sad truth is that many of the early pub. books were bias or just wrong (which I have read them all and believed ).
But with opening of soviet archives 1980 to 1990s much new information about both sides of Eastern front/ patriotic war came to light .
For most informed. Please see Author David Glantz at Amazon and on youtube .

The one most telling is The Soviet-German War, 1941-1945: Myths and Realities
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Clz27nghIg

Or
personal accounts of service there
example "Tigers in the Mud: The Combat Career of German Panzer Commander Otto Carius"

By the way I was a play tester for "Fire the East" by GDW.

(in reply to Gefreiter Wardstein)
Post #: 4
RE: Book Suggestions - 5/26/2016 1:51:00 AM   
Farfarer61

 

Posts: 713
Joined: 7/21/2004
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Dark_Star

By the way I was a play tester for "Fire the East" by GDW.


I had that game and the Scorched earth expansion set up on a converted and expanded pool table for YEARS. A doctor friend got me these enormous tweezers so I could pick those giant stacks of units. I wish WITE had those Navy ships :).

(in reply to javats)
Post #: 5
RE: Book Suggestions - 5/27/2016 5:17:41 PM   
EwaldvonKleist


Posts: 2038
Joined: 4/14/2016
From: Berlin, Germany
Status: offline 		For the people who prefer hard numbers over novel-style history books this book series about Operation barbarossa is maybe worth a look. I haven't purchased the books yet as they are quite expensive but they are for sure the most exhausting and well researched ones when it comes to OOBs and all such stuff:
http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/

(in reply to Farfarer61)
Post #: 6
RE: Book Suggestions - 5/27/2016 5:45:04 PM   
swkuh

 

Posts: 1034
Joined: 10/5/2009
Status: offline 		@EvK: Note that final volume of series is said to include a computer simulation game of 6/22 to 12/31 at scale more detailed (!) than WitE (hex=2.5km.) Hmmm...we'll see.

(in reply to EwaldvonKleist)
Post #: 7
RE: Book Suggestions - 5/27/2016 5:56:01 PM   
EwaldvonKleist


Posts: 2038
Joined: 4/14/2016
From: Berlin, Germany
Status: offline 		Yes, the final goal is a TOAW IV simulation of Barbarossa. What i especially like about the book series is the way the author demands/tries to provide evidence with numbers for everything.
I mean: If a single soldier writes something about fanatic resistance or high losses this means nothing if there is no proof.
High losses for a GI might mean something different than for a Red Army soldier. How is the definition of fanatic resistance? The defenders had 20,30,80 per cent losses??? This is something that i never liked in military history books (also in books like when titans clashed from Glantz). Severe logistic constraints? What does this mean? No fuel, 20% fuel, 50% fuel?
I really appreciate the more mathematical way of Nigel Askey to describe military history (well, he is a physicist, maybe more physicists, mathematicians etc. should write history books?).
Same with losses: A table of losses helps nobody if the way it was calculated is not explained/the definitions are unclear.

(in reply to swkuh)
Post #: 8
RE: Book Suggestions - 5/28/2016 1:59:02 AM   
swkuh

 

Posts: 1034
Joined: 10/5/2009
Status: offline 		One value of "single soldier" books is exactly the personal perspective, just beware of extrapolating that perspective to the entire situation. Numbers, numbers, numbers need careful evaluation and where do you go to validate them?

Good historians can write good histories, and historical participants can write valuable memoires. Just keep your wits about yourself. Diaries of Hitler, Stalin, Roosevelt, & Tojo are still in editors' hands.

(in reply to EwaldvonKleist)
Post #: 9
RE: Book Suggestions - 5/28/2016 2:29:05 AM   
Michael T


Posts: 4443
Joined: 10/22/2006
From: Queensland, Australia.
Status: offline 		The game sounds interesting. But doomed to fail if it relies on TOAW IV.

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Post #: 10
RE: Book Suggestions - 5/28/2016 12:25:35 PM   
EwaldvonKleist


Posts: 2038
Joined: 4/14/2016
From: Berlin, Germany
Status: offline 		@rrbill: I agree with you, but i think the extrapolating to the enitre perspective is done too often. But i am still convinced that some mathematicians/physicians/engineers whatever with their maybe a bit different way of thinking and their knowledge how to deal with statistics and the goal to get formulas is a good addition to the "normal" historicians.

@Micheal T: I tried to find the information it is based on TOAW IV again but i did not succeed. Maybe it was TOAW 3, i am not sure. But what is wrong with IV? Developement problems?

(in reply to Michael T)
Post #: 11
RE: Book Suggestions - 5/28/2016 11:07:09 PM   
JTP

 

Posts: 85
Joined: 1/24/2016
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Dark_Star

The sad truth is that many of the early pub. books were bias or just wrong (which I have read them all and believed ).
But with opening of soviet archives 1980 to 1990s much new information about both sides of Eastern front/ patriotic war came to light .
For most informed. Please see Author David Glantz at Amazon and on youtube .

The one most telling is The Soviet-German War, 1941-1945: Myths and Realities
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Clz27nghIg

Or
personal accounts of service there
example "Tigers in the Mud: The Combat Career of German Panzer Commander Otto Carius"

By the way I was a play tester for "Fire the East" by GDW.




I like Glantz's work as well as the next guy, but........................

- anyone who takes Soviet archives at their face value........I have some swampland in Florida for sale <g>. They made German propaganda look like nightly news.

- Glantz himself has an obvious Soviet bias. For that matter, very few authors don't of some sort, or at the least, an agenda.

(in reply to javats)
Post #: 12
RE: Book Suggestions - 5/29/2016 12:14:54 AM   
Michael T


Posts: 4443
Joined: 10/22/2006
From: Queensland, Australia.
Status: offline
quote:

Glantz himself has an obvious Soviet bias



+1

So much so I ignore pretty much everything the guys says.

I read one of his books, that was enough.

_____________________________


(in reply to JTP)
Post #: 13
RE: Book Suggestions - 5/29/2016 12:23:16 AM   
Michael T


Posts: 4443
Joined: 10/22/2006
From: Queensland, Australia.
Status: offline 		As for TOAW, I have played lots of I, II and III. None IMO hit the mark. The system tries to work for company level right up to army level. It just can't stack up to games designed specifically for one subject at one time/scale. TOAW has a 'one size fits all' ethos. It doesn't and can't work. The game has it's fans and good luck to them. I gave up with TOAW III and I am not getting a copy of IV.

So I really hope this Eastern Front game the author of the books in question has announced is not based on TOAW IV.

< Message edited by Michael T -- 5/29/2016 12:47:33 PM >

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(in reply to Michael T)
Post #: 14
RE: Book Suggestions - 5/29/2016 10:01:14 AM   
STEF78


Posts: 2094
Joined: 2/19/2012
From: Versailles, France
Status: offline 		I played some years ago a Barbarossa scenario built for TOAW. It was fun at the first glance but totally unrealistic

(in reply to Michael T)
Post #: 15
RE: Book Suggestions - 5/29/2016 11:20:01 AM   
EwaldvonKleist


Posts: 2038
Joined: 4/14/2016
From: Berlin, Germany
Status: offline 		Glantz: I have only read "how Titans Clashed" so far and it left me asking myself why the soviets were not in berlin in mid 1944. He seems to be a bit soviet focused/biased. To his defense one could say that he wants to change the western view on the soviet army, which was often described as an army of robots which won through enormous superiority only. So he tries to compensate this with the opposite bias :-)
But its always worth to read this side too.

(in reply to STEF78)
Post #: 16
RE: Book Suggestions - 5/29/2016 12:48:52 PM   
Michael T


Posts: 4443
Joined: 10/22/2006
From: Queensland, Australia.
Status: offline 		From the Soviet perspective I found Erickson much better.

_____________________________


(in reply to EwaldvonKleist)
Post #: 17
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