About the Book
Volume 2 is devoted to the preparation by Moscow of hostilities near Kursk in the spring and early summer of 1943 and consists of two parts. Part I analyses the activities of the Stavka B of the Air Command, the General Staff of the Red Army, the command of the Central and Voronezh fronts to restore troops after the battles in the winter of 1942-1943 and their strengthening before the summer campaign. All events in the north and south of the Kursk Bulge are considered in parallel, in strict chronological sequence, which allows the author to provide a detailed account of the preparation for the Battle of Kursk. One of the most interesting and important sections of the first part is devoted to the analysis and assessment of the level of professional training of the senior and higher command levels of the Central and Voronezh fronts. The difficult situation in the leadership of the 70th and 48th armies of the Central Front, which developed in the spring of 1943, is examined in detail, as well as the socio-demographic data and professional qualities of the commanders of the rifle divisions that formed the basis of the fronts defending the Kursk arc. For the material for this section the author not only collected materials from Russian archives and museums, but also amongst the families of the officers throughout Russia and in the republics of the former USSR. This section also provides a significant array of recently declassified statistical data on the state of the formations of the three main branches of the armed forces (rifle, tank and artillery) of the Central and Voronezh fronts and their defense at the beginning of the battles. In the second part the author describes the Red Army's planning in the area of the Kursk salient in late June - early July 1943, and also considers the major problems that arose for them during this period. This part links together material presented in both volumes. In it, for the first time, unknown documents of the contending forces, are discussed in detail. There is detailed coverage of the work carried out by the headquarters of the Central and Voronezh fronts in late June - early July to determine the date and time of the beginning of the offensive of the German troops, was analyzed. In the preparation of both parts of Volume 2 a complex array of recently declassified Soviet documents, including operational material of brigade or divisional headquarters were used, along with additional archival sources and memoirs of the participants. At the same time, in order to answer a number of important questions that have been actively discussed by Russian and Western historians in the postwar period, the author utilises a wide range of captured German sources from the US National Archives, which allow us to not only expand our understanding of those events, but to clarify a number of facts and details, and to provide a more balanced, reasonable assessment of the events that took place in the in the spring and early summer of 1943. The book includes an appendix with significant statistical material, summarised in tables, which will help the reader to better comprehend what is stated in the text of the book. In addition, it is illustrated by rare photographs collected in domestic and foreign archives, in museums and private collections. AUTHOR: Ralph Riccio was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and is a retired US Army officer who has been interested in military history and military equipment since his youth. He has written and co-authored a number of books on Italian small arms, armor and artillery, as well as several books on aspects of Irish military history. He has also written numerous magazine articles both in English and Italian dealing with a broad spectrum of military subjects. He has a native Italian language fluency, speaks several other languages as well, and is active in translating books and magazine articles from Italian into English for Italian authors who specialise in military affairs. In 1981 he was awarded an honorary Italian knighthood. He lives with his wife Charlene in a rural community in Pennsylvania. 79 b/w photos, 39 tables, 7 colour maps
About the Author :
Valeriy Nikolaevich Zamulin, a PhD candidate, is a leading Russian scholar of the Battle of Kursk. Since 1996, he has been working intensively in the most important Russian and foreign archival institutes, including the Central Archive of Russia’s Ministry of Defense and in the US National Archive, in order to gather and analyze documentary sources on the events in the Kursk bulge in the summer of 1943. In 2002, he was the first to describe the course of the famous Prokhorovka tank clash on a documentary basis, to publish previously unknown figures on the Red Army’s armor losses in the tank battle of 12 July 1943, and to give his assessment of the results, which differed from that previously accepted in Russia. He is the author of more than 60 scholarly works, including six books, in both the Russian and English languages, which have attracted great interest among scholars and history buffs. His most well-known work is "Demolishing the Myth: The Tank Battle at Prokhorovka, Kursk, July 1943: An Operational Narrative" (Helion, 2011). The results of V.N. Zamulin s scholarly work are broadly used by military-historical authors, professors of state universities and Russia s military museums. Several documentary films and television programs have been made with his participation. In 2010-2011, he was the academic consultant during the creation of the new military history museum in the legendary village of Ponyri, which in the Battle of Kursk was the epicenter of the most savage and bloody fighting. At present, Zamulin is a member of the faculty of Kursk State University. Stuart Britton is a freelance translator who resides in Cedar Rapids, IA. He is responsible for a growing number of translated Russian military memoirs, battle histories and operational studies, which saw an explosion in Russia with the opening of secret military archives and the emergence of new Russian scholars who take a more objective look at the events and historical figures. Two works that received prizes or prominent acclaim were Valeriy Zamulin’s Demolishing a Myth: The Tank Battle at Prokhorovka, Kursk 1943 and Lev Lopukhovsky’s The Viaz’ma Catastrophe, 1941: The Red Army’s Disastrous Stand Against Operation Typhoon. Notable recent translations include Valeriy Zamulin’s The Battle of Kursk: Controversial and Neglected Aspects and Igor Sdvizhkov’s Confronting Case Blue: Briansk Front’s Attempt to Derail the German Drive to the Caucasus, July 1942. Future translated publications include Nikolai Ovcharenko’s analysis of the defense, occupation and liberation of Odessa, 1941-1944, and Zamulin’s detailed study of 7th Guards Army’s role and performance in the Battle of Kursk against Army Detachment Kempf.
