This study analyzes the German failure to decisively conclude Operation Barbarossa by capturing Moscow, asking whether this failure was the result of disregard for the principle of the objective. The failure at Moscow was the first significant...
Blau, George E.; Office of the Chief of Military History
The purpose of this study is to describe German planning and operations in the first part of the campaign against Russia. The narrative starts with Hitler's initial plans for an invasion of Russia and ends at the time of Germany's maximum...
Blitzkrieg has been variously described as strategy, tactics, and even operational art. This ambiguity, coupled with a misinterpretation of this form of offensive combat, can cause false conclusions when studying the history of World War II and...
This narrative recounts the operational history of XIXth Panzer Corps' advance from 10 to 15 May 1940. Its primary focus is directed at the breakthrough at Sedan. The political and military situations influencing the decision makers of the German...
This monograph analyzes the modern doctrinal concept called operational art with regard to its practical utility for operational level commanders and staffs. It uses three campaigns, examined in light of criteria which form the component parts of...
The operational level of war translates strategic goals into guidance for tactical actions. Because war has expanded in terms of time, space, and mass, modern wars cannot be decided in a single battle; instead commanders must concentrate combat...
This paper provides an excellent survey of the intricacies of employing defensive tactics against a powerful opponent. Using after-action reports, unit war diaries, and other primary materials, the author analyzes the doctrine and tactics that the...
This study examines the evolution of the German Army's defensive doctrine on the Russian Front from 1941 to 1945. It begins by reviewing prewar doctrine as expressed in German field manuals and professional journals. German defensive techniques are...
This volume describes two campaigns that the Germans conducted in their northern theater of operations. The first they launched, on 9 April 1940, against Denmark and Norway. The second they conducted out of Finland in partnership with the Finns...
This monograph seeks to determine what implications for crisis action planning and operational art in combined environments can be derived from the German experience in the invasion of Yugoslavia (April 1941). This study has two collateral...
This private war journal comprises seven volumes covering the dates 14 August 1939 to 24 September 1942, the date of Halder's dismissal by Hitler. The journal was kept by Halder personally in his own shorthand and contains notes on conferences,...
The purpose of this text is to provide the Army with a factual account of the organization and operations of the Soviet resistance movement behind the German forces on the Eastern Front during World War II. This movement offers a particularly...
In recent years a plethora of comments have appeared praising the impressive combat effectiveness of the pre-1945 German Army. Many of these comments have attributed a large measure of the Germans' tactical success to the concept now referred to as...
This private war journal comprises seven volumes covering the dates 14 August 1939 to 24 September 1942, the date of Halder's dismissal by Hitler. The journal was kept by Halder personally in his own shorthand and contains notes on conferences,...
This private war journal comprises seven volumes covering the dates 14 August 1939 to 24 September 1942, the date of Halder's dismissal by Hitler. The journal was kept by Halder personally in his own shorthand and contains notes on conferences,...
United States. Army. Engineer Center and Fort Leonard Wood.
The Guidon came into being as a weekly publication in 1966 under the title Fort Leonard Wood Guidon. Between 1966 and 1987 the title was simplified to Guidon before becoming Essayons in 1988. The name reverted back to Guidon in 1999. It has been...
This private war journal comprises seven volumes covering the dates 14 August 1939 to 24 September 1942, the date of Halder's dismissal by Hitler. The journal was kept by Halder personally in his own shorthand and contains notes on conferences,...
The German General Staff launched Operation Barbarossa in June 1941 assuming the eastern campaign would last only three months. However, within six months after the initiation of hostilities the Red Army blunted the Wehrmacht’s attack outside the...