Tank Rider : Into the Reich with the Red Army

Fighting in a somewhat forgotten corner of Empire during the Second World War, the British and Indian armoured regiments called upon to harness the power of tank warfare to extreme new levels did so in an effort to outwit an army until that point considered invincible - the Imperial Japanese Army. Their collective efforts were heroic and massively effective, giving the Japanese a taste of mechanised warfare from which they never recovered. Bryan Perrett describes the full course of the armoured units' efforts, illustrating the importance of the mighty 7th Armoured Brigade; a 'magnificent formation' in General Slim's estimation. In a conflict that saw much development in the field of tank design and production, Perrett illustrates the practical repercussions of such advances in this most extreme of wartime environments. Detailed research has produced hard evidence of the Japanese use of gas against British tanks, and countless instances of Japan's human-bomb anti-tank technique. Above all, this book shows to what extent the tank can prove a decisive weapon in the unlikeliest areas.

The climax of Operation Citadel, the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943 involved as many as 6, 000 tanks, 4, 000 aircraft and 2 million fighting men. The largest tank battle of the Second World War, it had major consequences for Germany, being the last major offensive its forces launched in Russia. Hitler’s hopes of victory on the Eastern Front were brought crashing down, and from that moment on the Axis armies faced retreat in the face of the onslaught from Stalin’s Red Army.One of the men in the vanguard of that Soviet offensive was Evgeni Bessonov – who had seen action for the first time at Kursk. A platoon leader and junior officer in an elite guards unit of the Red Army, Bessonov rode tanks from Kursk, through a western Russia and Poland devastated by the Germans, and right into the heart of the Third Reich – a journey that ended in the ruins of Berlin in 1945.Honest and irrepressibly frank, in Tank Rider Bessonov dramatically his years of service at the vanguard of the Red Army and daily encounters with the German foe. He brings large-scale battles to life, recounts the sniping and skirmishing that tried and tested soldiers on both sides, and narrates the overwhelming tragedy and horror of apocalyptic warfare on the Eastern Front.So much of the Soviet experience of the Second World War remains untold, but this memoir provides an important glimpse into some of the most decisive moments of this part of the world’s history.

The climax of Operation Citadel, the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943 involved as many as 6,000 tanks, 4,000 aircraft and 2 million fighting men. The largest tank battle of the Second World War, it had major consequences for Germany, being the last major offensive its forces launched in Russia. Hitler's hopes of victory on the Eastern Front were brought crashing down, and from that moment on the Axis armies faced retreat in the face of the onslaught from Stalin's Red Army. One of the men in the vanguard of that Soviet offensive was Evgeni Bessonov who had seen action for the first time at Kursk. A platoon leader and junior officer in an elite guards unit of the Red Army, Bessonov rode tanks from Kursk, through a western Russia and Poland devastated by the Germans, and right into the heart of the Third Reich a journey that ended in the ruins of Berlin in 1945. Honest and irrepressibly frank, in Tank Rider Bessonov dramatically recalls his years of service at the vanguard of the Red Army and the daily encounters with the German foe. He brings large-scale battles to life, recounts the sniping and skirmishing that tried and tested soldiers on both sides, and narrates the overwhelming tragedy and horror of apocalyptic warfare on the Eastern Front. So much of the Soviet experience of the Second World War remains untold, but this memoir provides an important glimpse into some of the most decisive moments of this part of the world's history A sobering account of fighting on the Eastern Front in the Second World War told from the perspective of a front line Russian soldier.