The Battle of Tolstoye Woods is released today (20 October)

Christopher A. Lawrence
October 20, 2026

Turning the Tide at Kursk will be released today, Tuesday 20 October. It is the book that I have been calling The Battle of Tolstoye Woods. It is published by Stackpole book. This is the first day of the Fifth HAAC. Debating if I should bring some copies of books to the conference.

The full title of the book is Turning the Tide at Kursk: The Battle of Tostoye Woods and How the Red Army Thwarted German Tanks West of Prokhorovka. Turning the Tide at Kursk is probably a better title for marketing purposes. This was the Soviet attack on 12 July 1943 that succeeded, completely putting a halt to the XLVIII Panzer Corps advance.

The Battle of Kursk, in the south, consists of two panzer corps of equal strength advancing side-by-side to the north. The SS Panzer Corps, the Battle of Prokhorovka, the Fifth Guards Tank Army and General Pavel Rotmistrov get all the press. What was going on to the west was equally important, and in the Soviet attack succeeded (unlike Prokhorovka). This was the panzer corps with the bridging assets that was move north to cross the Psel and take Oboyan. This battle was at least as important as Prokhorovka, probably more so. General Paval Rotmistrov, who failed, is famous. General Mikhail Katukov, who succeeded, not as much

Anyhow, the link to Amazon to the book is here: Turning the Tide at Kursk: The Battle of Tolstoye Woods and How the Red Army Thwarted German Tanks West of Prokhorovka: Lawrence, Christopher A.: 9780811778053: Amazon.com: Books

The link to the Fifth HAAC is here: The Fifth HAAC is 20 – 22 October – The Dupuy Institute

Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.
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Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.
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His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) , The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019), The Battle for Kyiv (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2023), Aces at Kursk (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024), Hunting Falcon: The Story of WWI German Ace Hans-Joachim Buddecke (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024) and The Siege of Mariupol (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2024).
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Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

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