Dugdales OoB Books

[bdtj1815]

I have found a very good booksite selling the whole series of these books. Unfortunately cannot afford them all!! Which would be the most useful for details of SS and Heer divisional organisations for the start of the bulge battle.

Advice appreciated.

[Helmut]

Servus,
Would you care to share the booksite you have found?

Regards,

Helmut

[bdtj1815]

Here is the link. It was about the third option when I googled "Dugdale Panzer"! This is a UK company but there were links to others including in the US.

http://www.helion.co.uk/search.php?xSea ... mit=Search

[Lorenz]

Hmmm.....

I wonder who J.Dugdale is? He seems to be walking in the footsteps of Leo Niehorster, Biblio Verlag and a privately published series in German in an attempt to cover the same subject. It seems like with Tessin, Lexikon der Wehrmacht, AHF and Feldgrau, there should be enough German OB readily available out there to please even the most demanding customer. I just hope Mr. Dugdale can make enough to at least clear his expenses.

[michael kenny]

Dugdale is very thorough and detailed. He seems to have information not available to everyone else. His one 'failing' is an (understandable) desire to keep his sources to himself. You have to take him on trust!

[Lorenz]

Dugdale is very thorough and detailed. He seems to have information not available to everyone else. His one 'failing' is an (understandable) desire to keep his sources to himself. You have to take him on trust!

Probably not a good idea......researchers far enough into a subject to spend the sort of money needed to collect his series of volumes will probably also be multi-lingual and work with primary (archival) documentation. For an author to refuse to reveal his sources will not be well received by many of his customers.

[Christian]

For an author to refuse to reveal his sources will not be well received by many of his customers.

That is absolutely correct. For the most part such information is sought by people who are serious military history researchers and not providing references/sources will be a major issue. To be honest this sounds pretty fishy to me. Does Mr. Dugdale have something to hide?

Christian

[John W. Howard]

Hello Gents:
Some time ago, a forum member with access to Dugdale provided me with information about tank strength in a German unit; another forum member with access to official German records contradicted the Dugdale info. The difference was not a great one, but there was a difference. Some discussion of Dugdale's possible sources then ensued. The thread is on this site somewhere; a search might reveal it. Best wishes.

[Jan-Hendrik]

Well , still have had nothing from Mr.Dugdale in my hands , but sounds interesting !

Nafziger , well , was a surpise in negative way ...
Schmitz/Thies/Zweng "Die Deutschen Divisionen" was very impressive in positive way .

And , dear Lorenz , you forget to mention one of the most deatiled pages concerning OoBs on the whole internet :

http://www.diedeutschewehrmacht.de/



Jan-Hendrik

[Lorenz]

Ja, das ist so, Jan-Hendrik.

Das Besten für letzte!

I use it all the time, but forgot to add it to the list. My sincere apologies!!

--Lorenz

[Piet Duits]

Hi,

I have tried to contact Mr. Dugdale several times, with no effect. It was about some conflicting information from the Führer-Grenadier-Brigade.
Too bad the BA-MA doesn't have many records from this unit. I collected quite a few, and in some small things (but in my opinion still important, nitpicker as I am) there are differences.
His books are very detailed. Maybe too detailed in some ways, especially because of the lack of resources. Too bad.

Now I am just like Mulder from the X-files: I want to believe.

So it's good I am (still) rebuilding my home and do not have time to do any research at all: it gives him the time to add all the sources we need

[Kelvin]

Hi, Nafziger is suprise in negative way, what that mean ?
I have whole series of Dugdale books for Ardennes offensive and Waffen Panzer unit in Normandy, is very detailed than German monthly report e.g. German report one total sum for SPW, panzerspahwagen and artillery beob, he can divide the types into leSPW, mSPW, lepanzerspahwagen, schwere panzerspahwagen and beob, but no source make my research difficult. He also can provide detailed combat ready panzer strength of Lehr, 1st SS, 2nd SS, 9th SS, 12th SS, 116th panzer division and 15th PG division, FGB and FBB on 16th December 1944. (panzer strenght includes tank, tank destroyer, assault gun,SPW, panzerspahwagen and other armored vehicles.

Kelvin

[Rich]

Hi, Nafziger is suprise in negative way, what that mean ?

Nafziger is immense, expensive, and riddled with errors. The first two are understandable and unavoidable, but the last is problematic. And that is not to say that being error-free is possible, there are problems with some of the other sources also mentioned here, in such a massive subject errors are understandable. Even my work has a few.... (see, I even had to edit this post )

But Nafziger has a blooper on virtually every page of every volume that I have ever looked at, so it doesn't have the occasional undertsandable error, it is simply error prone.

I have whole series of Dugdale books for Ardennes offensive and Waffen Panzer unit in Normandy, is very detailed than German monthly report e.g. German report one total sum for SPW, panzerspahwagen and artillery beob, he can divide the types into leSPW, mSPW, lepanzerspahwagen, schwere panzerspahwagen and beob, but no source make my research difficult. He also can provide detailed combat ready panzer strength of Lehr, 1st SS, 2nd SS, 9th SS, 12th SS, 116th panzer division and 15th PG division, FGB and FBB on 16th December 1944. (panzer strenght includes tank, tank destroyer, assault gun,SPW, panzerspahwagen and other armored vehicles.

Kelvin

The problem with that has already been mentioned, since Dugdale and Wood refuse to give sources, it is impossible to replicate their findings and differences with other documents simply can't be explained. And history is in part a science and like any good science something usually isn't considered to be proven unless it can be replicated by other researchers. It is like "research' into cold fusion, the experimental results of others have not been repeated so it cannot be proven to exist. Or, to be unkind, it's "faith-based" research of the "I want to believe it is true, because it would be nice and helpful if it was true, so it must be true" ilk. And, frankly, I feel partly the same way, it would be nice if this level of detail existed so completely, but I doubt that it does.

It also did not give me a warm fuzzy feeling that when this subject last came up (as John Howard mentioned) I made similar remarks questioning them and received what can only be described as an "interesting" PM from one of the two (I now foregt if it was Dugdale or Wood). However, as per usual they refused to answer any of my follow-up questions, so as far as I am concerned their "data" remains problematic.

[Kelvin]

Hi Rich , some data from his book is match and some is not match with German montly report
German monthly report on 01st Dec 1944 give the figures for total combat ready SPW and panzerspahwagen for Lehr and 116 are 132 and 214 respectively, his report is match when combine his figure on SPW and le and schwere panzerspahwagen but not match in 9th panzer division. monthly report is 180 but his data is 179 but with breakdown into le and mSPW and le and schwere Panzerspahwagen. In this , i am confused.

[Rich]

In this , i am confused.

I understand, but my sense is that yours and ours confusion is not going to be resolved by Dugdale and Wood? Which is both sad and unnecessary. So, in the meantime your option is to spend the money and remain uncertain about the provenance of the data, or stick with incomplete data that at least has a provenance you can follow. My choice, reluctantly, has been the latter, since over the years I have been too badly burned, too many times, by accepting the "trust me" line fed to me by numerous "historians". Like I said, nothing in my experience gives me a "warm fuzzy" about this.