In this episode, we discuss:
*Col Glantz’s Vietnam service
*How his experiences in Vietnam influenced him as a military historian and researcher
*What led him to study the Nazi-Soviet War
*The Army’s Art of War Symposia from 1984-1987
*How the Soviet Army and US Army defined doctrine (move???)
*The case for an operational level of war
*The introduction of the operational level of war to US Army doctrine
*The origins of the US Army’s AirLand Battle doctrine
*The 11 January 1976 Incident
*The evolution of Soviet operational mobile groups, tank corps, tank armies, and mechanized corps
*The concept of lessons learned and Col Glantz’s critique of it
*The Soviet approach to lessons learned, including the practice of Socialist Criticism
*The effect Stalin’s purges on the officer corps had on the Soviet military’s performance in World War II
*Col Glantz’s thoughts on why the Soviets didn’t march on Berlin in February 1945
*Comparing and Contrasting Zhukov and Rokossovsky
*How and why Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, failed
*Turning points of the Eastern Front
*Forgotten battles of the war
*Major myths of the war
*Correlation of forces
*Initiative and risk-taking in the Red Army
*Improvements in Soviet training
*German and Soviet penal battalions
*The work of Jack Radey and Charles Sharp
*Notable Soviet and German amphibious operations
*Some of the discoveries Col Glantz made in writing his trilogy on Stalingrad
*Similarities between the Soviet storm groups and the German stormtrooper units of WWII
*The 7th and 8th Guards Tank Armies as a potential “pocket force” at the end of WWII
*The relative levels of military-theoretical development the Soviets and Western Allies had reached by May 1945
*The Russian-language military history websites Col Glantz uses for research
*The movies Enemy at the Gates and Stalingrad
The founding of The Journal of Soviet Military Studies, now The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, and some of its more noteworthy pieces
*Persistent errors, misconceptions, and faulty interpretations in the literature of the Nazi-Soviet war
*Col Glantz’s advice to young scholars of the Soviet-Nazi War
*What service members can learn from the Eastern Front today, and Col Glantz’s advice on studying the war
*Areas of the Nazi-Soviet War we know relatively little about and where Col Glantz would like to see research done
*Col Glantz’s current projects
*His thoughts on the war in Ukraine
Errata
*Col Glantz states that Hermann Balck was the commander of 48th Panzer Corps during the German relief attempt of the Stalingrad Pocket. Balck, however, was the commander of 11th Panzer Division, a subordinate formation of 48th Panzer Corps.
Links
Col Glantz’s website for his self-published atlases and works
When Titans Clashed by Col David Glantz
Zhukov’s Greatest Defeat by Col David Glantz
The Soviet-German War: Myths and Realities by Col David Glantz
Fighting for the Soviet Motherland: Recollections from the Eastern Front by Dmitriy Loza
The Defense of Moscow 1941: The Northern Flank by Jack Radey and Charles Sharp
Kharkov 1942: Anatomy of a Military Disaster Through Soviet Eyes by Col David Glantz
Stumbling Colossus: The Red Army on the Eve of World War II by Col David Glantz