Red Army Order of Battle book

[new world]

Title: THE RED ARMY ORDER OF BATTLE IN THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR.

Authors: Robert G. Poirier & Albert Z. Conner

Published in 1985.

Size: 408 pages.

Hardcover book

This book is about EVERY SINGLE SOVIET MILITARY UNIT THAT WAS IN SERVICE IN WORLD WAR 2, AND THIS DOES INCLUDE ARMIES, CORPS, BRIGADES, REGIMENTS, BATTALIONS AND EVERY BRANCH OF SERVICE.

IT ALSO INCLUDES WHERE EACH UNIT SAW ACTION, AND FOUGHT, IF THEY WERE DESTROYED, AND WHEN, WHERE AND BY WHAT GERMAN UNIT! IT ALSO TELLS IF THE UNIT SURVIVED THE WAR, AND IF SO, WHERE IT WAS LOCATED AT THE END OF WW2, AND WHERE IT WAS STATIONED RIGHT AFTER THE WAR!

[Dave]

This is an excellent book! I highly recommend owning both this book and the 12 volume set of "Soviet Order of Battle World War II" by Charles Sharp. Sharp's books give a detailed history of nearly every division, brigade, etc., but it does not give the histories of the Army and Corps level units, which the Red Army Order of Battle does.

Here's my ready reference shelf- the one I have right next to me at the computer for easy access (I have more books, but I have to scoot my chair all the way across my office to get them!) :)

As you can see, I have both orders of battle, other Soviet reference books, a Bulgarian reference book, my US Academy registers and some British books. A nice cross-section!

--Dave

[new world]

Dave,

Nice collection of references!

Which one is Bulgarian reference and what's so special about it?

Best,
William

[Dave]

William-

Thanks for the compliment, but I actually have several hundred more references than just these. It's just that these are right next to my desk so I don't have to get out of my chair whenever I need to use them!

Anyway, the Bulgarian one is one of the small maroon ones (the other two small maroon ones are issue #1 of Ordenskaya Knizhka, and their Gold Star number reference book). It is entitled "Bulgarian Communist Titles Orders and Medals 1945-2002". It's a nice book for referencing Bulgarian awards, since I have a small collection of Bulgarian groups that include Soviet awards. It's an interesting and cheap way to get a neat group with 'foreigner' Soviet awards!

--Dave

[new world]

Dave,

If you are interested in books on Bulgarian awards - there are two great titles I can recommend.

I bought both of them, as I have extensive collection of Bulgarian awards.


(1) Todor Petrov - "BULGARIAN ORDERS and MEDALS"
ISBN: 954-509-240-8

Printed in: March, 2003 Sofia; NEW third edition of the book.

Pages: 278 pp. , hard cover, Large size 34/ 24 sm.

Language: Text in Bulgarian, the names of all phoots are translated in English + short summary.

Photos: about 500 full color pictures.

There are about 500 colour and black-and-white photos of their different classes/ categories and varieties. The total number of the distinctions dwelt upon in this book are 23 Orders, 5 badges, 69 Medals and 10 Titles, i.e. the book embraces all the 107 official Bulgarian distinctions which have existed from the restoration of Bulgarian statehood in 1878 till 1991.

(2) Petko Pavlov - "BULGARIAN ORDERS and MEDALS" + Price catalogue,

Printed in: March, 2003 Sofia

Pages: 360 pp., hard cover, Large size 34/ 24 sm.

Language: Parallel text in English and Bulgarian.

Photos: about 900 full color pictures of the awards in their actual sizes.

Covers both Royal and Communist awards.

Best,
William

[salyan]

Referencing the Red Army OOB book listed first in this string... I had a copy - lost it in a move. Does anyone know a dealer or fellow forum member that has one for sale at this time?
Regards,
Dan

[Dave]

Dan-

I don't know of anyone that has them for sale right now, but I have seen them on e! from time to time. I was able to get mine through Amazon.com's out-of-print book service for a very reasonable price.

--Dave

[new world]

Dan,

I just saw one sold on eBay for $20+. They do some up quite often.

William

[otlichnik]

Dave and William,

The Poirier and Conner OB book is a good book. However, I would have to say that it can no longer be considered an excellent book these days. Still, it belongs on every good reference library.

It was indeed an awesome book in its time. When I first began studying the Soviet military in 1986 (two years before I started collecting because I saw nothing for sale for two years) this was the best, and only, unclassified OB out there.

However, it was done without access to the Soviet archives. It was an enormous labour of love - a database compiling all known references to Soviet units. Data came from open Soviet sources, including good ones like VIZh (the military history journal), and from Western - mainly German - information.

It has two big problems. It is wrong in some cases and it is patchy. The Germans were not 100% with their information (to say the least) and some Soviet data was also wrong. I'd say the data in the book is 90-95% accurate. That is quite good but when you have a couple of 1000 units with an average of say a half dozen entries per unit there are many hundreds of errors.

The patchiness is in many ways an even bigger a problem. Because the information comes from a wide range of sources which are usually fixed at only one point in history say a battle) and not on the unit itself, you only get short glimpses of what a unit did. So the authors may have found references to the unit at battles X, Y and Z when they looked at histories of those battles, but the fact that the unit was also at battles S, T, U, V and W is missed. The entries are a bit like trying to get an idea of a movie by looking a a handful of still photos. The picture is a true one but you miss a lot.

The data is worst when it comes to a unit's sub-units. While the data given is still fairly accurate (say 90%) it is also only a snapshot and bacause units' compositions changed a lot it may only be acurate for a short part of the unit's life.

As Dave says, Charles Sharp's books are much, much better and more detailed. However, to get them all requires a few hundred dollars - a big outlay unless you are a serious research geek like Dave and I. You get a good begining "bite" from the Poirier and Conner volume.

As Dave also says, Sharp does not/not cover Corps and Armies. There is a reason for this. These were not fixed units but were instead simply headquarters units. Their composition changed very frequently. Some stayed the same for many months or even years while others changed composition several times a month. So the Corps and Army data in Poirier and Conner is even less useful.

However, there are fewer alternatives. The best one is very costly and hard to find - the 1250 page plus, Russian language, formerly secret General Staff report "Boevoi Sostav Sovetskoi Armii" (Combat composition of the Soviet Army). This work lists the OB of the RKKA (including air force and air defence force) down t the divisional level (or independent regiment or battalion for sme specialist types of units) for the first day of everymonth of the war. Even it is not perfect as things that change more than once in a given month ore not recorded.

I put all this down not to deter people from buying Poirier and Conner, quite the opposite - try to get a copy. Just t be aware of its limitations.

Shawn

[salyan]

Shawn
Wholeheartedly agree with your comments on the Red Army OOB book - my copy arrived 3 days ago in the mail, and although I like the layout of the book, I started noticing holes at the Division/regiment level within 10 minutes of perusing the book...
THanks for sharing your comments! Dan