Review of Nigel Askey's Operation Barbarossa: the Complete Organisational and Statistical Analysis, and Military Simulat

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Review of Nigel Askey's Operation Barbarossa: the Complete Organisational and Statistical Analysis, and Military Simulat

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Review of Operation Barbarossa: the Complete Organisational and Statistical Analysis, and Military Simulation, Volumes I & II by Nigel Askey.

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Review by Christer Bergström, author of Operation Barbarossa1941: Hitler against Stalin (2016), Black Cross/Red Star: Air War over the Eastern Front (2000-2006), Kursk: The Air Battle (2008), Bagration to Berlin (2008) and several other books on the war on the Eastern Front.

As a scholar on the Eastern Front during World War II, I find Nigel Askey’s Operation Barbarossa: the Complete Organisational and Statistical Analysis, and Military Simulation an absolutely indispensable work. There are a multitude of memoirs and books filled with anecdotes on the Eastern Front and Operation Barbarossa, but Askey’s book is totally unique. It is the first very comprehensive study on the armed forces on both sides. Thus it provides the reader with a most valuable key to the understanding of the hube war on the Eastern Front during World War II. It is a goldmine of information that answers many, many question that rise from reading other Eastern Front books.

Volume I is more directed towards war gaming, and although I am not a wargamer myself, I must say that the fantastic insights offered my Asker in this volume has to make it very hard to exceed.

Volume II deals with the Organisational and Statistical Analysis of the German armed forces during Hitler’s attack against the Soviet Union in 1941.

Volume II is divided into two parts. Part 1 (Volume IIA) provides us with an impressive amount of information on every weapon and important piece of equipment. What makes this book so unique is that not only does it give the performance statistics – which most similar books are limited to – but also how they actually worked in the field, the methods with which they were used, and which part they were assigned in a combined arm team.

Though this is not a book intended for reading from the first to the last page like a novel, even in a cursory leafing through of the pages will the reader find many, many passages where one has to stop and read. In the midst of all tables and statistics, the book completely littered with fascinating discussions and analyses. For instance, the equipment is compared with the equivalent equipment on the German opponent’s side in very interesting discussions. As one example of this, the German bomber Junkers Ju 88 is described on three pages, one of which deals with the technical specifications of the aircraft, and on two pages the use of the Ju 88 is discussed and a comparison with similar aircraft on ”the other side” (Soviet ones as well as French and British) is made.

Part 1 (Volume IIA) also gives us most valuable short unit chronicles, e.g. for each of the German divisions participating in Operation Barbarossa.

In Part 2 (Volume IIB), the order of battle for all German land and air forces are given, and this is covered on 290 pages – with tables that give both an overall view and very detailed tables that gives much food for thought.

Among the most interesting in Part 2, is the many tables on casualties on both sides during Operation Barbarossa. Monthy casulties are given and discussed. Also, casualties are compared from different perspectives and with other campaigns, and even the numbers of recuperated wounded soldiers who returned to action are given. A whole comprehensive chapter goes into detail with the supply distribution – and its efficiency! – in the German armed forces in 1941.

Another issue for which the author Nigel Askey deserves praise is his very detailed sources refernces, and the high quality of sources that he has used.

During the final work on my book Operation Barbarossa 1941: Hitler against Stalin, which was published in June 2016, Askey’s book was of tremendous importance since it collected this wealth of information in a way you can’t find anywhere else but through ardous work in archives. Without doubt, Askey’s work is a milestone, and an indispensable reference work on Operation Barbarossa for probably decades to come.

In the preface to my own book Operation Barbarossa 1941, I wrote:

”Writers such as Christopher Lawrence, David Glantz, Nigel Askey, Niklas Zetterling, Artem Drabkin, Mikhail Bykov, Grigoriy Krivosheev, and Vlad Antipov have used Soviet and German records to create a new breed of balanced accounts of the war on the Eastern Front that would have been unthinkable prior to the 1990s.”

There is a quite interesting website for the book (operationbarbarossa.net), where one is pleased to find the information that these two volumes will be followed up by no less than four new volumes:

Volume IIIA – The Soviet Forces, Mobilisation and War Economy: June to December 1941 (Part I)
Volume IIIB – The Soviet Forces, Mobilisation and War Economy: June to December 1941 (Part II)
Volume IV – The Finnish, Rumanian, Hungarian, Slovakian and Italian Forces on the East Front in 1941
Volume V – Relative Overall Combat Proficiency (ROCP) of Soviet and Axis Forces during WWII
Volume VI – The Science of War Gaming and Operation Barbarossa)

When the whole series is completed, it is bound to become a major reference work on the Eastern Front on the same level as John Erickson and David Glantz.


Operation Barbarossa: the Complete Organisational and Statistical Analysis, and Military Simulation is completely indispensable to any scholar on the on the Eastern Front during World War II. But it also makes a very, very interesting read also to anyone with just a general interested in World War II or modern military history at all. This is a book that you can return to over and over again, and you will always find new and interesting food for thought.

Christer Bergström, 18 June 2016
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Re: Review of Nigel Askey's Operation Barbarossa: the Complete Organisational and Statistical Analysis, and Military Sim

Post by krichter33 »

Hopefully more like Glantz, and less like Erickson...
Klaus Richter
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