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Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 3, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Decisive Battles of the Twentieth Century. It's written like an encyclopedia, with 23 different chapters/entries which are each about 30 pages deep. The book is pretty light on exposition, the chapter on Kursk for example has about 2 pages detailing the previous 6 months fighting, but to it's credit the book also goes fairly in depth with force composition and the planning/implementation of Zitadelle. Despite this the authors can't resist describing the armor and gun of the "fearsome Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger Ausf. H", which pleased me, but older and more serious historians might take issue with that bit of indulgence.

My other issue with the book is it's title, which seems to hint at setpiece battles resulting in the annihilation of the enemy, yet they include chapters on Verdun and The Marne, neither of which were conclusive. Also the book shoehorns in the Battle of Britain which I'm pretty ambivalent about. The greatest tragedy is that this book was published in 1976, so it doesn't have Desert Storm. Maybe it's because I recently read Robert M. Citino's Blitzkreig to Desert Storm: The Evolution of Operational Warfare but I would really like a re-release which focuses on maneuver warfare.

8/10