What Are You Reading?

Just picked up the new history of the 51st Highland Division by Richard Doherty.

Ross

 

sounds good, tell me how it was

 

Sounds good Ross. I have the original.

 

I just bought a copy of Tank Rider: Into the Third Reich With the Red Army by Evgeni Bessonov. The author recounts his experiances as a platoon and company commander with a motorized rifle brigade in WW 2. It is a unique first hand account of a small unit's actions in the Red Army. It amazes me the Soviets won after reading it.
Bessonov talks a lot about scrounging for food everywhere the unit goes. They rarely get army provisions or fed from their battalion kitchen. Frequently his unit is massively understrength often having a company strenght of 30 to 50 men. All too often they are very short on ammunition and forced to use captured weapons. They only occasionally get outside support and their battalion often has no heavy weapons operable due to loss or lack of ammo. The leadership from above is laced with political and personal rivalrys. There is little coordination between units and rarely any communications other than runners.
When replacements arrive they are usually nearly or completely untrained, often do not speak Russian and, often do not even have uniforms! The company is expected to train and equip them somehow!
No wonder the Germans were so successful on occasions where they could muster a handful of tanks and vehicles for a counterattack. I come away with the impression if the Germans were not hamstrung by a vehicle and fuel shortage the Russians would have been in very serious trouble.

 

Ahhhh, yes, I have to agree with you. The Red Army had swollen to much to be minimally organised.

 

Hello gentlemen,

I'm reading Fighters over the desert, 1969, by Christopher Shores and Hans Ring.

Just ordered Red Beauty 2, Yak-1 and Yak-7 Combat Operations by Harold E. Stockton.

Regards,
Fats

 

Hello again gentlemen,

I forgot the most important:

-Polikarpov I-16, the history of a revolutionary aircraft, by Patrick Laureau, 2002
-Memoires d'un p'tit gars des faubourgs de Madrid, by Angel Sanz, 2005, ( A Spanish pilot flying I-16's for the Republic in the Spanish Civil War )

They don't come any better !!

Regards,
Fats

 

A couple of new books:

Jacek Solarz: Wiking 1941-1945

Werner Müller: Sound locators, fire control systems and searchlights of the German heavy flak units.

German Railroad Guns in Action-Squadron/Signal 1976

Panzergrenadiers in Action-Squadron/Signal 1980

 

Hollywood Fats, welcome to The forum! Fine choice's, by the way.

What a name!

 

Night-elie wiesel

it is a book i wa sassigned for school, but appropriate, because the aniversary of the holocaust, and i thought it was a very moving book

 

Just started to read Hitler's Secret Headquarters
by Franz W. Sedler (Author), Dider Ziegert (Author).

It seems alright

 

I've got that one, JTF...it's not a bad book at all, but it reads a bit 'dry' - possibly due to the translation. It makes more sense when read alongside the 'After The Battle' magazine about the Fuhrerhauptquartiere.

 

Thanks Martin, I'll check into that. I agree with the translation, point you made.

 

Wow! That sounds bad!

So how bad were the Germans if they couldn't beat up on an army of that status!!!?

 

Just finished Johan Voss´ Black Edelweiss which is "great" because it also deals actions in Finland- both for and against.

 

Re - reading Harrison - Place's Military Training in the British Army. A good look at how an army prepares for war.

 

Hello gentlemen,

Just got "In the Skies of Europe, Air Forces allied to the Luftwaffe 1939-1945", by Hans Werner Neulen, The Crowood Press Ltd. ,2000.

Impressive book, nice part about the Regia Aeronautica. I am checking out Italian Fighter combat performance at the moment but it's hard to find useful authentic material in english or it's priced outragiously> Chris Dunning's "Courage Alone" is offered for 1800,- USD !!

Regards,
Hollywood Fats

 

HITLER’S WAR DIRECTIVES
BY HUGH TREVOR-ROPER

Just finished reading this one as you may have guest, you get to read all of Hitler’s 51 war directives. From number 1 the plan of attack on Poland dated 31st August to his last one, number 51 where Hitler as to take steps to face a possible two front war from the west dated 3rd November 1943.

The second part of the book now deals with the defensive war, Hitler has now stopped issuing directives, now take the form of special orders. What I found to be interesting a lot of these were directive towards his Gauleiters, which suggests Hitler has lost faith in his army. His final order of the day was issued on 15th April 1945 to the soldiers of the German Eastern Front, whom he urges to choke the Bolshevik assault in a bath of blood.

Interesting book if you want to read up on Hitler’s war directives, some of them I found to be very interesting indeed.

 

Richard, does this cover Hitler's Commando Order of October '42?

No.9

 

thats a decent book, good read