Looking for informations: Soviets Nov/Dec 1942 - Mid/late 1943

[Der_Forscher]

Hello,

it is one of my biggest passions to recreate the battles of WW2 as detailed as possible with digital BOardgames like "War in the East 2". I have very detailed literature and map material about the time from 22.6.1941 - about November 1942 for the German side.

Now I'd like to learn more about the Russians. But there is much less material especially no microfilm rolls and few situation maps. But surely more can be found? I am interested in the period Nov 1942 - Summer 43 on the Eastern Front on the Russian side. A very good book is for example by David Glantz: "After Stalingrad- the red armys winter offensive 1942-43". Sources in this density would please me.

I would like to have detailed maps like this one: https://www.loc.gov/resource/g7001sm.gct00491/?sp=9 - only on the Russian side. Also good would be "schematische Kriegsgliederungen" (I only know the word in German, or maybe you say "Order of Battle"?), so that I know which division was subordinated to which HQ and when. So something like "units and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS" from Tessin ("Verbände und Truppen der deutschen Wehrmacht und Waffen-SS im Zweiten Weltkrieg")- for the Russians. A website or online database would also fit it. Another super book I found online is: "Soviet Army Order of Battle in World War II" - unfortunately I found only "From June 22 to December 1, 1941". So that you know, what I want to find.

I would appreciate any help!

[Art]

Monthly official Soviet orders of battle are posted down the link:
viewtopic.php?p=1892303#p1892303

Or they can be accessed from the title page, which also contains a list of abbreviations used on OOBs:
http://www.teatrskazka.com/Raznoe/Boevo ... tavSA.html

Regarding maps more specifics is needed: what part of the front, what period etc. I believe, there are no equivalents of Lage Ost, that is original Soviet situation maps for the entire front, in open access. However, many archival situation maps for some sectors of the front are available online. Also there are maps/schemes drawn for varios books.

[FredT]

Get the Charles Pettibone Soviet OOB books: they tell you which army each unit was assigned to and when. Volume V Book A has the rifle divisions and Volume V Book B has the other Soviet units. His British OOB book, however, was a disappointment. It was just a collection of names. After that experience I didn't risk buying any more from his series.

Richard Harrison translated some excellent Soviet reports covering December 1942-January 1943 in Rollback: The Red Army's Winter Offensive along the Southwestern Strategic Direction, 1942-43. This book enabled me to understand what's going on in the Soviet Voronezh-Kastornoe situation map on Pamyat Naroda, which is a mess of multiple days crammed into the same map. And the map is necessary to understand the text, because the maps in the book aren't that great. I used the book to design the scenario in GMT Games' Little Saturn/Winter Storm Stalingrad '42 Expansion. I read the book in front of my computer with the situation map open, and moved the pieces in the Vassal module to construct my turn by turn storyboard. The research was also used in Compass Games' Kharkov Battles: Before & After Fall Blau.

There's a gap in the situation maps for 1st Guards Army and Mobile Group Popov from 1/24/43 to 2/6/43, but the Southwestern Front's war journal gives you daily positions of units so I was able to make my own situation maps for that period. Some of the February pages are so faint and blurry that it was a challenge to decipher them. This research will end up in Multi-Man Publishing's upcoming game on 3rd Kharkov.