Storm of Steel: The Development of Armor Doctrine in Germany and the Soviet Union, 1919-1939 (review)

1919. In the wake of the first great Twentieth Century war are a frustrated Germany forced to surrender with its forces still on French soil, a defeated Russia in spasms of violent social revolution, Britain and France, among winners, but each minus great national treasure and a generation of young men. The search for what might come next faced further challenge by the onset of the Industrial Revolution in war weaponry, characterized by machine guns, devastatingly accurate artillery, and above all the tank; the first two having stalemated the war just finished, the tank promising to restore to land forces, sunk in trench mire, the capability to maneuver tactically and operationally.

In a brilliant recounting of parallel developments recorded in extensive documentation from both sides, much of it exposed by the demise of the Soviet state, this book sets forth a stunning review of the next twenty years of development of national goals and accompanying military doctrine from which were derived requirements for equipment, organization and force structure, training and education of soldiers and leaders. The telescope focuses on Germany and Russia, where the Red Army and the Reichswehr/Wehrmacht, after two decades of professional debate, extensive organizational and matériel development, field experimentation, and participation in small wars, arrived at new concepts for war fighting at tactical and operational levels.

The names of the principal actors and events in this story should be familiar to serious students of doctrine and related developments later characterized by armor employment in the second great twentieth-century war. On either side were towering intellectuals in the history of military art; from the Red Army's Tukhachevskii and Triandafillov, to Germans from von Seeckt to Beck and Guderian, citing just a few. Milestones include British field trials, the Spanish Civil War—Soviets supporting Republicans, Germans supporting Franco, each evaluating armor doctrine—the debate over whether armor should operate as an independent force or just to accompany infantry. In battles against the Japanese on the Mongolian-Chinese border—Khalkhin-gol and Lake Khasan—the Red Army further evaluated armor doctrine. Both sides learned from Kazan, where from 1926 to 1933 the Germans operated an armor school and training center for the Red Army. Misreading armor in the Spanish Civil War, Stalin purged the Red Army of its great military thinkers, relegating armor to infantry support, only to reverse himself after observing the Wehrmacht in Poland and the West. As the heretofore invincible Wehrmacht set eastward against the Soviets in 1941, two competing concepts confronted one another, with Wehrmacht Panzer spearheads very nearly winning out.

Impressive research and analysis; here is the highest standard for the description of armies changed by evolving national and military strategies, intellectual development of war-fighting doctrine, imperatives of changing technology, and the need to organize and train effective military units, soldiers and leaders, to fight their nations' wars.