This book describes one of the most terrible tragedies of the Second World War and the events preceding it. The horrible miscalculations made by the Stavka of the Soviet Supreme High Command and the Front commands led in October 1941 to the deaths and imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of their own people. Until recently, the magnitude of the defeats suffered by the Red Army at Viaz'ma and Briansk were simply kept hushed up. For the first time, in this book a full picture of the combat operations that led to this tragedy are laid out in detail, using previously unknown or little-used documents.

The author was driven to write this book after his long years of fruitless search to learn what happened to his father Colonel N.I. Lopukhovsky, the commander of the 120th Howitzer Artillery Regiment, who disappeared together with his unit in the maelstrom of Operation Typhoon. He became determined to break the official silence surrounding the military disaster on the approaches to Moscow in the autumn of 1941.

In the present edition, the author additionally introduces documents from German military archives, which will doubtlessly interest not only scholars, but also students of the Eastern Front of the Second World War. Lopukhovsky substantiates his position on the matter of the true extent of the losses of the Red Army in men and equipment, which greatly exceeded the official data. In the Epilogue, he briefly discusses the searches he has conducted with the aim of revealing the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Soviet soldiers, who to this point have been listed among the missing-in-action - including his own father. The narrative is enhanced by numerous photographs, color maps and tables.

Lev Nikolaevich Lopukhovsky graduated from the prestigious Frunze Military Academy in 1962 and spent the next ten years serving in the Soviet Union's Strategic Rocket forces, rising to the rank of colonel and a regiment commander, before transferring to a teaching position in the Frunze Military Academy in 1972 due to health reasons. Lopukhovsky is a professor with the Russian Federation's Academy of Military Sciences (2008), and has been a member of Russia's Union of Journalists since 2004. Since 1989 he has been engaged in the search for those defenders of the Fatherland who went missing-in-action in the Second World War, including his own father Colonel N.I. Lopukhovsky, who is now known to have been killed while breaking out of encirclement in October 1941. Motivated by his father's disappearance, he had previously taken up the intense study of the Viaz'ma defensive operation and wrote the initial manuscript of the present book. In 1980 this manuscript was rejected by military censors, because it contradicted official views. Lopukhovsky is the author of several other books about the war, including Prokhorovka bez grifa sekretnosti [Prokhorovka without the seal of secrecy] (2005), Pervye dni voiny [First days of the war] (2007) and is the co-author of Iiun' 1941: Zaprogrammirovannoe porazhenie [June 1941: A Programmed Defeat] (2010). For his active search work, he was awarded the civilian Order of the Silver Star.

Stuart Britton is a freelance translator and editor residing in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He has been responsible for making a growing number of Russian titles available to readers of the English language, consisting primarily of memoirs by Red Army veterans and recent historical research concerning the Eastern Front of the Second World War and Soviet air operations in the Korean War. Notable recent titles include Valeriy Zamulin's award-winning 'Demolishing the Myth: The Tank Battle at Prokhorovka, Kursk, July 1943: An Operational Narrative ' (Helion, 2011), Boris Gorbachevsky's 'Through the Maelstrom: A Red Army Soldier's War on the Eastern Front 1942-45' (University Press of Kansas, 2008) and Yuri Sutiagin's and Igor Seidov's 'MiG Menace Over Korea: The Story of Soviet Fighter Ace Nikolai Sutiagin' (Pen & Sword Aviation, 2009). Future books will include Svetlana Gerasimova's analysis of the prolonged and savage fighting against Army Group Center in 1942-43 to liberate the city of Rzhev, and more of Igor Seidov's studies of the Soviet side of the air war in Korea, 1951-1953.

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of photographs
• List of maps
• Key to map abbreviations
• List of tables
• Introduction
• Part 1: Instead of a Prologue
  • The General Situation on the Soviet-German front by September 1941
  • Soviet operations on the Western strategic direction
  • The German march on Moscow pauses
  • Soviet forces launch a counteroffensive
  • The Dukhovshchina and El’nia offensives
  • Results of the Smolensk battles
• Part 2: Before the Storm
  • The plans of the Nazi command
  • The relative strength of the opposing sides
  • The Stavka orders a rigid defense
  • The defensive fronts organize their defenses
  • The defensive lines on the approaches to the capital
  • The creation and composition of the Moscow militia
  • General Eremenko neglects his defenses and instead attacks
• Part 3: The Typhoon Gathers Strength
  • Guderian initiates Operation Typhoon
  • Von Bock sets his troops in motion
  • The Luftwaffe disrupts command and control
  • The Germans seize Dnepr River bridges
  • The commanders of Briansk Front and Western Front request permission to withdraw
  • The causes for the collapse of three Soviet Front defenses
• Part 4: The Retreat
  • The Western Front and Group Boldin are involved in heavy fighting
  • The German breakthrough to Iukhnov
  • Questions surrounding the decision to withdraw
  • The Western Front retreats to the Rzhev – Viaz’ma line
  • The ring of encirclement snaps shut
  • The Germans hunt for ‘Timoshenko’s headquarters’
  • The Reserve Front commander goes missing
• Photo Gallery
• Part 5: In Encirclement
  • Von Bock’s further plans
  • The prepared defensive line along the Dnepr must be abandoned
  • General Lukin assumes command of the encircled forces west of Viaz’ma
  • The retreat from the Dnepr River line
  • Attempts to break out of encirclement on 9 and 10 October
  • The situation of the Red Army forces encircled southwest of Viaz’ma
  • Changes in the higher command of the Red Army
  • The Stavka’s dilemma
  • The situation in the Briansk Front sector
  • Briansk Front creates a breach in the encircling German lines
  • Western Front’s Military Council deliberates: Defend or break out?
• Part 6: Catastrophe
  • Initial steps to rebuild a strategic front
  • Could the Stavka have rescued the forces encircled west of Viaz’ma?
  • The 19th Army prepares to break out of encirclement
  • The 19th Army’s breakout attempt on 11 October fails
  • The decision to break out to the south is reached
  • The fighting southwest of Viaz’ma
  • The fighting in the Viaz’ma area winds down
  • Von Bock is compelled to suspend the offensive
  • Hitler’s plan to crush the Soviet forces and seize Moscow is a failure
• Part 7: The Dimensions of the Defeat
  • Operation Typhoon triggers a panic in Moscow; a state of siege is declared
  • Official data on the Soviet losses are sharply understated
  • An unsuccessful method of calculating losses, or a political order?
• Part 8: Epilogue
• Appendices
  • Appendix I: Comparative Strength of a Soviet Rifle Division and a German Infantry Division, 1941
  • Appendix II: German Unit Organizations
  • Appendix III: Comparative Strength of a Soviet Tank and German Panzer Division, 1941
  • Appendix IV: Operational Strength of the Wehrmacht’s Panzer Divisions and Separate Panzer Battalions at the Start of Operation Barbarossa
  • Appendix V: Irreplaceable Losses of the Wehrmacht in Armor and Anti-Tank Guns on the Eastern Front in 1941
  • Appendix VI: Available Tanks in the Third Panzer Group’s Panzer Divisions in September 1941
  • Appendix VII: Available Tanks in the Panzer Groups of Army Group Center for Operation Typhoon
  • Appendix VIII: Comparative Technical and Performance Characteristics of Soviet and German Tanks and their Armament
  • Appendix IX: State Defense Committee Decree “On the Voluntary Mobilization of the Workers of Moscow and Moscow Oblast for the People’s Militia Divisions”
  • Appendix X: Roster and Organization of the People’s Militia Divisions of Moscow that had joined the Acting Army by the start of Operation Typhoon
  • Appendix XI: Hitler’s Order of the Day to the German troops on the Eastern Front issued 2 October 1941
  • Appendix XII: The title page from L. N. Lopukhovsky’s book on the history of the 120th Howitzer Artillery Regiment of the Supreme Command Reserve, showing the Frunze Military Academy military censor’s approval for publication
  • Appendix XIII: The 32nd Army commander’s order for the withdrawal of the 2nd Rifle Division (original)
  • Appendix XIV: The 19th Army commander’s operational instruction that countermanded the order from the 32nd Army commander
  • Appendix XV: The 19th Army commander’s Combat Order No. 73 from 8 October 1941 to the commander of the 2nd Rifle Division about escaping the encirclement (original)
  • Appendix XVI: The 19th Army commander’s Combat Instruction No. 74 from 9 October 1941 about withdrawing the units of the 2nd Rifle Division (original)
  • Appendix XVII: Combat Order No. 71
  • Appendix XVIII: Explanation of the commander of the 166th Rifle Division Major- General M. Ia. Dodonov
  • Appendix XIX: State Defense Committee Decree on the Evacuation of the Capital City of the USSR Moscow, 15 October 1941
  • Appendix XX: State Defense Committee Decree No. 813 from 19 October 1941 about Implementing a State of Siege in Moscow and the Adjacent Areas from 20 October
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
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