Ведущее английское военное издательство Helion and Company выпустило документальную монографию российского исследователя Игоря Небольсина, посвящённую боевому пути 2-й гвардейской танковой армии. Книгу, получившую при переводе название Stalin’s Favorite («Любимица Сталина»), высоко оценивают как специалисты, так и любители военной истории. К изданию в Англии готовится вторая монография этого же автора – о 1-й гвардейской танковой армии.
Вот лишь несколько отзывов, опубликованных за рубежом. «Я ещё в процессе чтения книги, но уже могу сказать, что она чрезвычайно интересна. Это невероятно детальная, даже уникальная монография, переведённая на английский язык, посвящённая богатейшей истории советской танковой армии». «Я получил истинное удовольствие от чтения этой книги. С нетерпением жду выхода следующего тома».
Автор книги Игорь Небольсин – успешный руководитель бизнес-подразделения крупной корпорации. В 1998 году он с отличием окончил Академию народного хозяйства при Правительстве РФ. Игорь с детства интересовался военной историей. Его дед капитан Пётр Харитонович Молочков воевал в 11-й отдельной гвардейской танковой бригаде 2-й гвардейской танковой армии. Прошёл путь от механика-водителя танка Т-34 до заместителя командира батальона. Участник Сталинградской битвы. Второй дед гвардии майор Яков Филиппович Небольсин был командиром ударно-штурмового батальона 178-го гвардейского стрелкового полка 34-го гвардейского стрелкового корпуса 5-й гвардейской армии, получил тяжёлое ранение после форсирования Одера в феврале 1945 года в боях под Бреслау. Восстанавливая боевой путь своих родных, Игорь увлёкся историей 2-й гвардейской танковой армии, познакомился с генерал-майором танковых войск Анатолием Петровичем Швебигом, который в годы войны был заместителем командира 12-го гвардейского танкового корпуса. Ветеран и подал идею написания документальной монографии по боевому пути армии. Он же стал главным консультантом при создании книги. Большую помощь оказала также директор музея боевой славы 2-й гвардейской танковой армии московской школы № 324 Наталья Зеленова.
В 2012 году монография была издана на личные средства автора небольшим тиражом и распространялась через интернет-магазин и специально созданный сайт по истории боевого пути 2-й гвардейской танковой армии:
http://www.www.2gvta.ru.
В процессе сбора материала для книги Игорь Небольсин познакомился с ветеранами и родственниками фронтовых танкистов, которые обратились к нему с просьбой создать такого же содержания труд и по другим армиям. Так появилась ещё одна документальная монография по 1-й гвардейской танковой армии, в работе над которой Игоря консультировали полковник запаса А.В. Бочковский, сын Героя Советского Союза Владимира Бочковского, и Н.А. Костерев, председатель Совета ветеранов 1-й гвардейской танковой армии. Вскоре будет завершена работа над книгой и по 6-й гвардейской танковой армии, которая готовится в соавторстве с председателем Совета ветеранов этого объединения генерал-лейтенантом танковых войск Ю.Г. Завизионом.
Трилогия – это совершенно новый тип исследования, основанный исключительно на архивных материалах
Чем примечательна и почему привлекла внимание не только российского, но и зарубежного читателя эта трилогия? Прежде всего тем, что это совершенно новый тип исследования, основанный исключительно на архивных материалах, в первую очередь документах Центрального архива Министерства обороны РФ, публикациях отечественных и зарубежных авторов и, что очень важно, воспоминаниях фронтовиков, в том числе написанных по «горячим следам» в 1945–1946 годах. В этих книгах впервые приведены точные данные о боевом составе армий, сведения из документов оперативных отделов, отчёты о состоянии материально-технической базы, потерях в живой силе, танках, иной бронетехнике и вооружении. Также публикуются эксклюзивные фотографии из личных коллекций, большинство из которых стали достоянием общественности впервые. Уникальность книг в том, что аналогичные данные приводятся и по противнику. Автору удалось получить доступ в зарубежные архивы, в частности немецкие, изучить подлинники ценных документов и свидетельства участников войны.
Большой интерес представляют главы о боевом наследии армий, выводы и рекомендации командования как с советской, так и с немецкой стороны, чего ранее практически нигде не встречалось в таком масштабе и объёме.
Таким образом, автору удалось всесторонне осветить и проанализировать стратегические операции, в которых были задействованы 1, 2 и 6-я гвардейские танковые армии, что позволяет читателю объективно оценить силы и потери сторон. Например, аргументированно, скрупулёзно и беспристрастно доказывается, что реальные безвозвратные потери в танках немецкой группы армий «Юг» в оборонительном сражении на Курской дуге составили не 191 единицу, как считают многие историки на Западе, а минимум 400 единиц. Объясняется это тем, что по немецкой системе учёта в безвозвратные потери записывались только танки, оставшиеся на территории противника, танки, не подлежавшие восстановлению, и техника, отправленная на ремонт в Германию. Любой другой подбитый танк, даже не эвакуированный с поля боя, записывался в графу «краткосрочный» (до трёх недель) или «долгосрочный ремонт» (более трёх недель), хотя многие из них никогда не возвращались в строй и позже списывались. Вот такие скрытые от учёта потери приводятся автором по каждой операции.
Вообще эту тему гитлеровские генералы старались замалчивать, поэтому события Второй мировой войны часто интерпретируются в искажённом виде. В книге немало таких примеров. Один из них касается потерь 1-й немецкой танковой армии генерала Хубе при выходе из окружения в Проскуровско-Черновицкой операции, о чём западные историки не пишут. Официально немецкое командование считало прорыв из котла успехом командующего группой армий «Юг» генерала Манштейна. А генерал Хубе был произведён в генерал-полковники и награждён бриллиантами к Рыцарскому кресту с дубовыми листьями и мечами. Игорь Небольсин в монографии «Первая среди гвардейских» документально доказывает, что этот «выход» стоил 1-й немецкой танковой армии, по сути, полной потери боевой матчасти. Речь идёт о безвозвратных потерях сотен танков, штурмовых орудий и другой техники. В книге подробно раскрывается вклад в разгром армии Хубе 1-й гвардейской танковой армии под командованием генерал-лейтенанта танковых войск М.Е. Катукова.
Нельзя не отметить, что в трилогии ярко показан героизм советских танкистов. Например, впечатляют подвиги командира танковой роты 107-й танковой бригады капитана Фёдора Донкова и его механика-водителя сержанта Бориса Макеева, первыми в 16-м танковом корпусе удостоенными звания Героя Советского Союза. Вот только один эпизод: рота Донкова без боя в страшную метель заняла имеющую важное стратегическое значение станцию Пырлица Сат в Молдавии. Немцы ещё в течение целых суток прибывали на станцию, не ведая о дерзком налёте советских танкистов. В полном окружении подразделение Донкова сражалось двое суток с численно превосходящим противником. Отстреливались до последнего патрона. Погибли все.
Положительные отзывы о книгах заинтересовали и российских издателей. Вскоре выйдут монографии по 1-й и 2-й гвардейским танковым армиям. Не пропустите, рекомендую.
ОТЗЫВЫ НА КНИГУ ОТ ЗАРУБЕЖНЫХ ЧИТАТЕЛЕЙ
The Combat History of the 2nd Guard's Tank Army from Kursk to Berlin Volume 1: January 1943-June 1944 by Igor Nebolsin, Translated and Edited by Stuart Britton, Helion & Company Ltd., 2015, 504 pages, $79.95
Review Type:
Book
Igor Nebolsin's
Stalin's Favorite
offers Second World War armored enthusiasts a treasure trove of information about one of the Red Army's top combat armies. One would be hard pressed to find an English language translation of a Soviet army's combat history, and in doing so here the team of Nebolsin and Britton have performed an invaluable service.
As the mouthful of a sub-title indicates this is the first of a two part look at the 2nd Guards Tank Army (hereinafter referred to in this review as the 2nd GTA). This volume covers events from the 2nd GTA's formation late in 1942 up to June of 1944. S
talin's Favorite
is organized into seven long chapters, each covering the army's participation in some of the Second World War's most important military operations including: at Kursk (both in defense and during the subsequent Orel offensive north of the Kursk bulge), Sevsk, Vinnitsa and Cherkassy/Korsun Pocket, Uman, and Targu-Frumos/Iasi.
In spite of each chapter's length Nebolsin does a superb job of providing a digestible format allowing the reader to absorb the sea of reports, tables, photographs, and analysis. To that end each chapter follows a near identical format featuring the 2nd GTA's organization and strength (with full TO&E) at the beginning of a given campaign, the objectives assigned to the army, the German opposition, and the terrain. This is followed by daily reports on the army's; movement to the front, prep for battle, and day's combat. Each chapter ends with a detailed analysis of not only each side's losses and efficacy in meeting their objectives, but archival reports describing the army's successes and failures. There are even first hand accounts from the 2nd GTA's officers and men, as well as a description of notable citations won during combat. And this is done for each of the army's major engagements, with a slew of tables (on average ten tables per chapter) provided to help make the text more accessible. And the photographs. There are at least twenty rare pictures within each chapter. Many of these pictures are from private collections, and the photographs alone do much to justify the book's price. The maps are full color and are mostly well done, but are perhaps too few in number considering the sheer volume of content presented here. In addition, there are a few not so minor errors that I was surprised to see on the Kursk map.
That said
Stalin's Favorite
represents a tremendous accomplishment. Nebolsin's research efforts must be commended. Not only has he mined data from the Central Archives of the Russian Defense Ministry, but he was assisted in his efforts by one of the 2nd GTA's officers (Anatoly Shvebig). In addition Nebolsin goes out of his way to present accurate information as to the strength and losses of the 2nd GTA's Axis opponents. This is important because, and for instance, it is one thing to read about how many enemy tanks one side or the other has claimed it has knocked out. It is quite another to see what the actual losses ultimately came to be. So when a 2nd GTA report states that on such and such day it destroyed x numbers of enemy tanks, Nebolsin follows up by presenting evidence from the German side of the hill showing that in fact only x number of tanks were written off as permanent losses. And vice versa. In this way the reader gets a better feel for what was actually occuring.
One of the more frustrating things about many books on the Second World War is that when it comes to the aerial war there has been a tremendous effort made by historians to show that claimed kills by fighter pilots were often badly off the mark compared to the actual numbers of enemy machines shot down. Nevertheless, historians examining the ground war often make little effort to differentiate between tanks claimed knocked out, tanks actually knocked out, tanks that were knocked out but retrieved, repaired, and returned to battle, and tanks actually irrevocably lost and/or incapable of being repaired. In contrast Nebolsin shows these differences.
In this vein one of the book's great strengths is in educating the reader on the daily number of operational/serviceable tanks the 2nd GTA put into the field. For someone who might have read nothing but German perspective accounts of these campaigns this is a huge eye opener. The fact is that the 2nd GTA rarely went into battle with more than 150 tanks and assault guns in running condition. And by the spring of 1944, and after months of continuous combat, the entire army was lucky to field 80-90 such armored fighting vehicles on any given day. So though many readers are well aquainted with the fact a German panzer division circa 1943-44 was lucky to put even half the number of it's authorized 180 tanks/assault guns into battle, that same reader often takes at face value a belief that a unit such as the 2nd GTA had two to three times as many tanks on any given day as even a German panzer corps. And at least in the 2nd GTA's case Nebolsin proves that simply is not true.
Another strength of
Stalin's Favorite
is in the analysis presented. After each campaign we get after-action reports from the 2nd GTA's leading officers explaining in stark detail as to how and why their units performed poorly or effectively. For the armored enthusiast there is a wealth of information presented in these pages. In particular the book does a superb job of covering the first operational deployments of the Soviet IS-Series heavy tanks (and in detail rarely found elsewhere).
In addition, the author is not afraid to defend his research. He aggressively takes on David Glantz - perhaps the foremost English speaking expert on the Nazi-Soviet war's operational military history - regarding the controversy over the composition of the German-Soviet armored forces, as well as their losses, during the spring 1944 fighting in Moldavia and northern Romania.
Stalin's Favorite
should be found on the bookshelf of anyone interested in tank warfare, and I highly recommend it to my readers.
http://www.globeatwar.com/review/stalins-favorite
Review of Stalin’s Favorite: The Combat History of the 2nd Guards Tank Army from Kursk to Berlin: Volume 1
March 7, 2016
Rat6
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Stalin's Favorite: The Combat History of the 2nd Guards Tank Army from Kursk to Berlin: Volume 1: January 1943-June 1944
Igor Nebolsin
Helion & Company
2015
Hardcover
447
http://www.amazon.com/Stalins-Favorite-History-January-1943-June/dp/1909982156/
World War two unit histories are an unfair category of military history, with the shelves dominated by the German SS, Panzer and US Airborne units.
The English language historiography of the Great Patriotic War has expanded over the past decade with Russian language authors providing fresh perspectives through operational histories, memoirs and battle studies. However, until now, no Soviet unit histories have joined that expanded historiography. Luckily, that has now been rectified with this fine history of the 2nd Guards Tank Army.
This book covers from the unit’s origins up through the fighting in Romania in early June 1944. Much of the format will be familiar to those that have read other World War 2 unit histories. Each operation the unit participated in has it’s own chapter, starting with an overview of the command structure, followed by an assessment of the equipment, supply and training of the Army. After that, a concept of operations is given (what they wanted to have happen) and an operational narrative of what actually did happen. Each chapter then ends with an assessment of the operation, selected veteran’s recollections, excerpts of subordinate unit histories and a list of soldiers who won commendations with a brief description of the actions that won them the award.
So, other than the fact that this covers a Soviet unit, how does it stack up? Pretty damn well, as it turns out. First, for anyone worried that this is simply some Russian biased account using only Russian sources, rest assured that is not the case. The author cites modern Western historiography to assess what the tactical situation was for the German units fighting 2nd Guards Tank Army during its operations. For the most part, the narrative feels balanced albeit from a Soviet point of view. When the author disagrees with a Western account, he is specific about what and why, citing primary documents to buttress his conclusions.
Second, the book contains numerous primary documents from 2nd Guards Tank Army, including internal performance assessments, periodic strength returns broken down by tank type, losses broken down by tank type and severity, and original operations orders. This is an absolute gold mine if you are attempting to independently assess how the combat went, particularly when the author is critical of the existing historical narrative. Korsun Pocket and Targu Frumos are examples of this in the book that made me go look at the existing literature.
Finally, the operational narratives are pretty good and the maps in the book make it reasonably easy to follow the action. My only complaint with the maps is that there aren’t quite enough of them, as I found myself looking for place names on Google maps then following the action that way at several times. This was particularly true of the fighting in Romania towards the end of the book.
Overall, this is a book you should definitely have if you are a student of the Great Patriotic War. It’s as factual as any German unit history I’ve ever read and far more rigorously supported by modern scholarship. I highly recommend it and would give it five stars!
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stalin’s Favorite
By
Ray Shields
on Sept. 8 2015
Stalin’s Favorite is incredibly detailed, yet unique in my experience. It provides a rich history so beautifully displayed.
Each chapter focuses on a particular combat operation ending June 1944 in Romania. The chapters begin with an overview of the operation, key orders, day by day combat descriptions, the after action reviews conducted, and key combatants who received medals or recognition in that operation. There are plenty of tables listing day by day tank and personal readiness which is a treasure trove of information found by Mr. Nebolsin through primary and secondary sources.
Some surprising facts in reading this book were:
1. As much as the Germans will remark upon the mud, rain, and snow, it also affected the Soviet forces equally. In both winter engagements (Jan/Feb 1943 and 1944) the weather had an adverse effect on the Army’s mobility and supply. This book highlights some of the Soviet after action reports that report the inability to transport artillery shells to support the operation.
2. During the battle of Kursk the Army was deployed on the Northern Front and this clearly lays out the three options that were developed in response to possible German actions prior to the commencement of operations. Day by day actions are recounted. The 16th Tank Corps disorganized assault which leaves the 107th Brigade decimated is laid bare. However, subsequent actions are also shown as being more successful contributing to the overall Soviet success at Kursk.
3. The Sevsk Operation is interesting in differentiating first day casualties in causing a breach and an inability to follow through on the offensive. The change in German tank tactics, to engaging at 1500 – 2000 m was interesting to note.
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Review of: Stalin’s Favorite: The Combat History of the 2nd Guards Tank Army from Kursk to Berlin
Posted on
August 27, 2015
by
arshields
in
Uncategorized
Stalin’s Favorite was a book that I was looking forward to reading and now that I am, I can honestly say it was worth the wait. It is incredibly detailed, yet unique in my experience in the English langue to read such a rich history so beautifully displayed.
Each chapter focuses on a particular combat operation ending in this volume in Romania in 1944. The chapter begins with an overview of the operation, key orders, day by day combat descriptions, the after action reviews conducted, and key combatants who received medals or recognition in that operation. There are plenty of tables listing day by day tank and personal readiness which is a treasure trove of information.
Some surprising facts in reading this book were:
1. As much as the Germans will remark upon the mud, rain, and snow, it also affected the Soviet forces equally. In both winter engagements (Jan/Feb 1943 and 1944) the weather had an adverse effect on the Army’s mobility and supply. This book goes into the inability to transport artillery shells to support the operation.
2. During the battle of Kursk the Army was deployed on the Northern Front and this clearly lays out the three options that were developed in response to possible German actions prior to the commencement of operations. Day by day action is recounted and when the 16th Tank Corps conducts a disorganized assault and has the 107th Brigade decimated the failure in this action is laid bare. However, subsequent actions are also shown as being more successful contributing to the overall Soviet success at Kursk.
3. The Sevesk Operation is interesting in differentiating first day casualties in causing a breach and an inability to follow through on the offensive. The change in German tank tactics, to engaging at 1500 – 2000 m was interesting to note.
4. Korsun, I have read the book “The Korsun Pocket” by Niklas Zetterling and while he talks about the challenges facing the German army in extracting Group Stemmermann due to the weather, he rarely utilizes Russian sources to show the impact the mud had on the mobility of the 2nd Guards Army in responding to the German push. This book is a welcomed and opposing counterpoint to this novel.
I was surprised to see the continued use of light tanks in the Army until 1944. Prior to the Korsun engagements the tank formations consist roughly 1/3 T-70 and 2/3rds T-34. The first mention of SU-85’s and JS-1’s (with the 85mm) is in the battles of the Korsun Pocket. The common perception that in 1943 the USSR had SU-85’s and in 1944 T-34/85’s is, at least from this armies perspective, false. I am aware that latter in 1944 they will receive T-34/85’s and JS-2’s and I am looking forward to reading how the army sees these tanks as an improvement. There is no doubt though, that for a period of almost a year in 43/44 the German tanks outclassed everything the USSR had.
For anyone interested in the eastern front and the Russian perspective of operations at the Brigade to Army level I would highly recommend this book, from operational summaries, to lessons learnt, and notable actions it is a wealth of information. I look forward to the second volume and the continued actions of this tank army.
Командир 1-го Красноградского Краснознамённого механизированного корпуса 2-й гвардейской танковой армии 1-го Белорусского фронта, гвардии генерал-лейтенант танковых войск
