Trevor Nevitt Dupuy (1916–1995)

Options of Command:

Truly one of the worst books I have read in years. It deals with alternate scenarios of what might have been had one side or the other made different decisions during WWII. I typically love these kinds of books, but beware, this book is definitely biased. It has a fair amount of “what if’s” from both sides, but most of the alternate scenarios work out for the Allies, whereas almost none of the alternate scenarios work out for the Axis. If these were legitimate, I would not have any issues, but as you will see, this is truly not the case.
The first alternate scenario I had major issue with is the Battle of Britain/Sea Lion alternate scenario. The big change from history in this scenario was the Germans focusing on taking out all of the British airfields instead of changing their targets to London (after Berlin was bombed). In the authors scenario the Germans pound all of the British airfields into ruins, and then launch the seaborne portion of the attack in October. So far so good, but then the author says that the Royal Navy is scrambled to meet the oncoming invasion fleet. Again, so far so good. But here is where things go off the rails. According to the author, the Luftwaffe is not able to intercede very effectively against the Royal Navy, and the Royal Navy hammers the invasion fleet so that very few German units land in England, and the few that do are destroyed after only a couple of days. Clearly, the author does not know his history, as the Luftwaffe (under very similar circumstances) absolutely hammered the Royal Navy at Crete, as the Stukas had an absolute heyday sinking ship after ship. Assuredly the same thing would have happened (since in this scenario the Royal Air Force has been smashed), but yet at the end of the scenario the Stukas are literally nowhere to be found. Truly a massive oversight. It makes this scenario null and void.
The second alternate scenario that reaches to the realms of fantasy was Barbarossa boomerang. With this one, the author dreams up a super-secret reserve Army that goes into the counterattack after the Germans have been stopped after, what could be considered to be relatively small gains, and then proceeds to destroy multiple German armies, all the while new high tech Soviet airplanes wrest control of the skies from the Germans. All of this is just pure fantasy. These Soviet planes were merely on the “drawing board” and nowhere near ready to send into production, and the idea of a massive grouping of Reserve Armies that was ready to counterattack and destroy German Armies in 1941 is again, just pure fantasy. The Soviet leaders had a lot of learning to do yet, and they were in no way equal to the task.
The third alternate scenario is a Moscow scenario, where the Germans push onto Moscow in late August 1941, my thinking is that they could have pushed onto Moscow in early August, but to make it even more difficult for the Germans, the author on purpose, pushes the beginning of the offensive to late August. At any rate, he describes events as they historically did happen in September and October 1941, and then even says the Germans surrounded Moscow by early October, and then he says that the Russians had accumulated their “Siberian” Armies/divisions on the flanks of this massive bulge, and then the Soviets launched a counterattack into the flanks of AGC. What is interesting here is that the author just described how the Germans were struggling to move forward in the autumn mud, but yet when the Soviets counterattack, there is no mud, and they simply break through and advance at a super-fast rate (like it was mid-summer). Obviously, this is complete bunk, as the Russians would have sunk up to their axles in the mud as well, even their calvary divisions would have been hard pressed to make much ground during October. On top of that, these so-called Siberian units would not have been ready by early October (a full two months before they did go onto the offensive). More than likely the Soviets would have been in no condition to launch a coordinated counter attack in October of 1941. One other thing that is unhistorical, is that the author has Stalin giving up Moscow (mostly), and he has them withdrawing all of their 1st line units out of the encirclement. This is also extremely doubtful, since Moscow was the capital, and I am almost positive that Stalin would have fought for it. This so-called alternate scenario is again pure rubbish. The idea that the Germans might have launched an offensive towards Moscow in early (or late) August is not so far-fetched, but the Soviet responses are merely fantasy. The thing that should be added is that from the research of Nigel Askey, he has found that the Germans at this time, had around 1,000 to 1500 tanks in depots in Germany that could have been released to the Eastern Army, but were not, for whatever reason released. If these tanks had been released, this would have more than made up for all losses so far on the eastern front, and these tanks were modern Pz. III and Pz. IV, so they would have been replacing the old German tanks which had taken the majority of the losses (i.e. Pz. I and Pz. II), so if these tanks had been released, the German Panzers on the Eastern front would have increased massively in strength.

Overall I would not recommend this book. There are far better “what if” books out there than this one.… (altro)

This is a well researched, albeit brief, survey book dealing with the collaboration between Hindenburg and Ludendorff during World War I. Discussion begins with their work on the Eastern Front against Russia and assisting the poorly performing Austro-Hungarian forces. The book, then shifts to the Western Front and the attempts to break through the mire of trench warfare. Many of the major battles are discussed, again in brief. Dupuy gives some attention to the relegation of German civilian leadership to the background of events, and Kaiser Wilhelm II is characterised as indecisive and bumbling, being held captive by the military leaders. This is a good book to use as an introduction to the German side of the Great War from its military perspective (aws opposed to the political and domestic aspects).… (altro)