Category Kursk

The Prokhorovka book is still discounted

Even though The Battle of Prokhorovka book has been released, it is still available through Amazon.com for $28.43: Buy from Amazon. The list price on the hardcover is $44.95. I have no idea for how long Amazon.com will continue to sell it at this price.

The chapters for the book are listed in this post:

https://dupuyinstitute.org/2019/05/07/the-battle-of-prokhorovka-16-chapters/

What else is in the book (besides words) is listed in this post:

https://dupuyinstitute.org/2019/05/08/the-battle-of-prokhorovka-what-does-the-book-consist-of/

The reason why I wrote this book is discussed in this post:

https://dupuyinstitute.org/2019/05/09/the-battle-of-prokhorovka-book-why/

The book can obtained from Stackpole at: Stackpole Books

Or from Amazon.com at: Buy from Amazon

One Last Reminder (Today is the last day !!!)

One last reminder, if you pre-order The Battle of Prokhorovka through Amazon.com it is selling for $28.43: Buy from Amazon. The list price on the hardcover is $44.95. I do not know what price it will be listed at on Saturday, 1 June 2019 (nor do I have any involvement or say in these matters).

The chapters for the book are listed in this post:

https://dupuyinstitute.org/2019/05/07/the-battle-of-prokhorovka-16-chapters/

What else is in the book (besides words) is listed in this post:

https://dupuyinstitute.org/2019/05/08/the-battle-of-prokhorovka-what-does-the-book-consist-of/

The reason why I wrote this book is discussed in this post:

https://dupuyinstitute.org/2019/05/09/the-battle-of-prokhorovka-book-why/

The book can obtained from Stackpole at: Stackpole Books

Or from Amazon.com at: Buy from Amazon

One More Reminder

One more reminder, if you pre-order The Battle of Prokhorovka through Amazon.com it is selling for $28.43: Buy from Amazon. The list price on the hardcover is $44.95. I do not know what price it will be listed at on 1 June 2019 (nor do I have any involvement or say in these matters).

The chapters for the book are listed in this post:

https://dupuyinstitute.org/2019/05/07/the-battle-of-prokhorovka-16-chapters/

What else is in the book (besides words) is listed in this post:

https://dupuyinstitute.org/2019/05/08/the-battle-of-prokhorovka-what-does-the-book-consist-of/

The reason why I wrote this book is discussed in this post:

https://dupuyinstitute.org/2019/05/09/the-battle-of-prokhorovka-book-why/

The book can obtained from Stackpole at: Stackpole Books

Or from Amazon.com at: Buy from Amazon

Just a Reminder

Just a reminder, if you pre-order The Battle of Prokhorovka through Amazon.com it is selling for $28.43: Buy from Amazon. The list price on the hardcover is $44.95. I do not know what price it will be listed at on 1 June 2019 (nor do I have any involvement or say in these matters).

The chapters for the book are listed in this post:

https://dupuyinstitute.org/2019/05/07/the-battle-of-prokhorovka-16-chapters/

What else is in the book (besides words) is listed in this post:

https://dupuyinstitute.org/2019/05/08/the-battle-of-prokhorovka-what-does-the-book-consist-of/

The reason why I wrote this book is discussed in this post:

https://dupuyinstitute.org/2019/05/09/the-battle-of-prokhorovka-book-why/

The book can obtained from Stackpole at: Stackpole Books

Or from Amazon.com at: Buy from Amazon

You might want to pre-order the book

By the way, if you pre-order The Battle of Prokhorovka through amazon.com it is selling for $28.43: Buy from Amazon The list price on the hardcover is  $44.95. I do not know what price it will be listed at on 1 June 2019 (nor do I have any involvement or say in these matters).

The book can obtained from Stackpole at: Stackpole Books

Or from Amazon.com at: Buy from Amazon

The Battle of Prokhorovka book — why?

My original contract back in 1999 to prepare the Kursk book was for a single book of 450 pages. During the writing process….the book grew. This is discussed in this article: http://www.aberdeenbookstore.com/the-largest-history-book-ever

When I realized how large the book was, I contacted the publisher and discussed the issue with him. I suggested that we go ahead and complete the large book I was writing and then go back and do an abridged version. He graciously agreed, but unfortunately I was unable to complete the original book in 2003/2004 (although it was mostly done) due to my work at The Dupuy Institute, magnified by a war or two going on.

So, when I was finally able to get back to this book (thanks to government budget cuts and sequestration), I was left with an original book of 1,662 pages. Clearly there was a need for a smaller book.

This is not that book. This book is the updated chapters of the original book that focus on the fighting by the SS Panzer Corps, III Panzer Corps, parts of the Sixth Guards Army, Sixty-Ninth Army, Fifth Guards Army, Fifth Guard Tank Army and parts of the Seventh Guards Army from 9 to 17 July 1943. As such, it is 40% of the original book sectioned off as a separate stand alone book.

I could do four such books from my original book. This is the first of these books. I am currently finishing up a second such book (Aces at Kursk: The Belgorod Offensive Air War). I could do two more books along that line (Battle of Tolstoye Woods and The Belgorod Offensive), although I am not sure that I ever will. It depends on demand, sales, the publisher’s interest, my time, and my mood.

I may also get around to writing a single 300-page book summarizing the offensive in the south. We shall see. There are a lot of other projects I am also considering.

The book can obtained from Stackpole at: Stackpole Books

Or from Amazon.com at: Buy from Amazon

The Battle of Prokhorovka — what does the book consist of

The book consists of:

  1. 638 numbered pages (and 14 pages of front matter)
  2. 75 Listed illustrations and maps
  3. Four photo sections
    1. 15 terrain photos
    2. 12 recon photos
    3. 64 battlefield photos
    4. 70 commander photos
  4. One map section with 17 maps
  5. 18 numbered tables
  6. 21 graphs
  7. 44 sidebars
  8. 76 engagement sheets

Just for the record, my original mega-book consisted of 192 engagement sheets. So one could make the argument that this book covers 40% of the Belgorod offensive (at least compared to the original book).

The book was edited by the same editor of the original book, Ariane Smith of Capital A: http://www.capitala.net/. Therefore, it is of a very similar format and style.

The book can obtained from Stackpole at: Stackpole Books

Or from Amazon.com at: Buy from Amazon

The Battle of Prokhorovka – 16 chapters

My new book The Battle of Prokhorovka consists of 16 chapters (the original mega-book had 27). The chapters are:

1. Preparing for the Showdown…..page 13
2. The Soviets Prepare…..page 35
3. The Belgorod Offensive: 4-8 July 1943…..page 51
4. The XLVIII Panzer Corps Heads West: 9 – 11 July 1943…..page 113
5. The Advance on Prokhorovka: 9-11 July…..page 133
6. The Advance on the Severnyii Donets: 9-11 July 1943…..page 203
7. The Situation as of 11 July 1943…..page 229
8. The Air War: 9-18 July 1943…..page 243
9. The Tank Fields of Prokhorovka, 12 July 1943…..page 291
10. SS Panzer Corps Attack Stalls, 13 July 1943…..page 359
11. Soviet Counterattacks against the III Panzer Corps: 12-13 July 1943…..page 375
12. Aftermath of Prokhorovka: 13 July 1943…..page 401
13. Cleaning Up the Donets Triangle: 14-15 July 1943…..page 475
14. The Battlefield is Quiet: 16-17 July 1943…..page 511
15. The German Withdrawal: 18-24 July 1943…..page 539
16. Post-Mortem…..page 559

There are only two short appendices in this book (the original book had 7 appendices totaling 342 pages):

Appendix I: German and Soviet Terminology…..page 615
Appendix II: The Engagements…..page 623

The book can obtained from Stackpole at: Stackpole Books

Or from Amazon.com at: Buy from Amazon

Million Dollar Books

Most of our work at The Dupuy Institute involved contracts from the U.S. Government. These were often six digit efforts. So for example, the Kursk Data Base was funded for three years (1993-1996) and involved a dozen people. The Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base (ACSDB) was actually a larger effort (1987-1990). Our various combat databases like DLEDB, BODB and BaDB were created by us independent of any contractual effort. They were originally based upon the LWDB (that became CHASE), the work we did on Kursk and Ardennes, the engagements we added because of our Urban Warfare studies, our Enemy Prisoner of War Capture Rates studies, our Situational Awareness study, our internal validation efforts, several modeling  related contracts from Boeing, etc. All of these were expanded and modified bit-by-bit as a result of a series of contracts from different sources. So, certainly over time, hundreds of thousands have been spent on each of these efforts, and involved the work of a half-dozen or more people.

So, when I sit down to write a book like Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (based off of the Kursk Data Base) or America’s Modern Wars (based on our insurgency studies) or War by Numbers (which used our combat databases and significant parts of our various studies), these are books developed from an extensive collection of existing work. Certainly hundreds of thousands of dollars and the work of at least 6 to 12 people were involved in the studies and analysis that preceded these books. In some cases, like our insurgency studies, it was clearly more than a million dollars.

This is a unique situation, for me to be able to write a book based upon a million dollars of research and analysis. It is something that I could never have done as a single scholar or a professor or a teacher somewhere. It is not work I could of done working for the U.S. government. These are not books that I could have written based upon only my own work and research.

In many respects, this is what needs to be norm in the industry. Research and analysis efforts need to be properly funded and conducted by teams of people. There is a limit to what a single scholar, working in isolation, can do. Being with The Dupuy Institute allowed me to conduct research and analysis above and beyond anything I could have done on my own.