The Dnepr 1943

Against the wishes of Hitler, German forces under Erich von Manstein were forced to retreat following the failure of the Kursk offensive of July 1943. The weakened force only had one possible refuge, behind the wide Dnepr River. The race to the natural defensive line was on, with the Soviets launching one of their largest offensives of the war – with over 2 million men on the move. Expert Eastern Front historian Robert Forczyk describes the dramatic four-month campaign that saw the Red Army not only succeed in crossing the Dnepr at multiple points, but also liberate Kiev, capital of the Ukraine. Revealing new detail about the largest Soviet airborne operation of the war and the increasingly desperate delaying tactics employed by Manstein as catastrophic casualties mounted on both sides, Forczyk charts the course of the battle that confirmed to many observers that the relentless Soviet advance westward could not be halted. Berlin would be next.

In mid-December 1942, after encircling the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad, Soviet forces in southern Russia began a series of offensive operations which continued unabated into February 1943. In these offensives the Soviet High Command attempted to smash German resistance and encircle the bulk of two German army groups. For two months the German forces struck back. In a well co-ordinated counterstroke they inflicted a major operational defeat on the Soviets and stabilized the front until the summer. The two-month period of Soviet offensive activity during the winter of 1942-1943 saw the Red Army test new operational and tactical techniques and experiment with forces and methods for conducting mobile armoured warfare. Through victory and defeat the Red Army learnt its lesson well. Out of this period, and the three month period of relative calm that followed, emerged the new Red Army, which would defeat blitzkreig at Kursk and would achieve two years of virtually uninterrupted battlefield success, culminating in their defeat of Nazi Germany.

An account of the Red Army's advance along the southwest strategic direction during the offensive that followed the Battle of Kursk in July-August 1943.

This book provides an in-depth study of the Soviet Army during the offensive operations that started with Battle of Stalingrad in December 1942 and went until Spring 1943. The lessons learned by the Soviet Army from these experiences helped design the military steamroller that decimated the German panzer divisions at Kursk in the Summer of 1943.

Against the wishes of Hitler, German forces under Erich von Manstein were forced to retreat following the failure of the Kursk offensive of July 1943. The weakened force only had one possible refuge, behind the wide Dnepr River. The race to the natural defensive line was on, with the Soviets launching one of their largest offensives of the war – with over 2 million men on the move. Expert Eastern Front historian Robert Forczyk describes the dramatic four-month campaign that saw the Red Army not only succeed in crossing the Dnepr at multiple points, but also liberate Kiev, capital of the Ukraine. Revealing new detail about the largest Soviet airborne operation of the war and the increasingly desperate delaying tactics employed by Manstein as catastrophic casualties mounted on both sides, Forczyk charts the course of the battle that confirmed to many observers that the relentless Soviet advance westward could not be halted. Berlin would be next.

From critically acclaimed Eastern Front expert Prit Buttar comes this paperback edition of his detailed and engrossing account of the World War II's Eastern Front as German forces were driven back following the Battle of Kursk. Making use of the extensive memoirs of German and Russian soldiers to bring this story to life, Retribution follows on from On A Knife's Edge, which described the encirclement and destruction of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad and the offensives and counteroffensives that followed throughout the winter of 1942–43. Beginning towards the end of the Battle of Kursk, Retribution tells the story of the massive Soviet offensive that followed the end of Operation Zitadelle, which saw depleted and desperate German troops forced out of Western Ukraine. This title describes in detail the little-known series of near-constant battles that saw a weakened German army confronted by a tactically sophisticated force of over six million Soviet troops. As a result, the Wehrmacht was driven back to the Dnepr and German forces remaining in the Kuban Peninsula south of Rostov were forced back into the Crimea, a retreat which would become one of many in the months that followed.

With the German defeat at Kursk, the Soviet Stavka (high command) ordered the Western and Kalinin Fronts to launch Operation Suvorov in order to liberate the city of Smolensk. The Germans had held this city for two years and Heeresgruppe Mitte's (Army Group Centre) 4. Armee had heavily fortified the region. The Soviet offensive began in August 1943 and they quickly realized that the German defences were exceedingly tough and that the Western Front had not prepared adequately for an extended offensive. Consequently, the Soviets were forced to pause their offensive after only two weeks, in order to replenish their combat forces and then begin again. The German 4. Armee was commanded by Generaloberst Gotthard Heinrici, one of the Wehrmacht's top defensive experts. Although badly outnumbered, Heinrici's army gamely held off two Soviet fronts for seven weeks. Eventually, the 4. Armee's front was finally broken and Smolensk was liberated on 25 September 1943. However, the Western Front was too exhausted to pursue Heinrici's defeated army, which retreated to the fortified cities of Vitebsk, Orsha and Mogilev; the 4. Armee would hold these cities until the destruction of Army Group Centre in June 1944. Operation Suvorov focuses on a major offensive that is virtually unknown in the West and which set the stage for the decisive defeat of Heeresgruppe Mitte in the next summer offensive.