Fighting in Hell

The definitive guide to why you should not start a land war in Asia.

Compiled by Peter Tsouras this is a collection of writings by German generals gathered at the request of the US Army and now made public. During the fifties, intelligence needed information to brief officers on the presumed next enemy. And so they went to the experts on Russians-Germans. The works thus resulting were published by the army without comment or correction and no more then the Not Safe for Work warning needed because of the various writers earlier employer.

The work describes the conditions of the Eastern Front and the techniques of the rival powers in great detail. Despite it's flashy sounding name, it is a staff volume, not a popular history and written in an encyclopedic manner. A good source for someone interested in the subject.

Tropes used in Fighting in Hell include:

• Big Book of War
• Cool Versus Awesome: Finns, Russians, and Germans are each in their own way Badass armies.
• Crapsack World: You probably figured that out.
• Decontamination Chamber: Aside from the obvious need to keep soldiers warm, field saunas were used as this. They were a reasonably efficient way to simply cook lice to death.
• Dirty Communists: Interestingly, these are complimented for making Russia more militarily efficient then the Czarists did.
• Easy Logistics: Inverted. Logistics in Russia were absolutely not easy.
• Enemy Mine: The reason the works were written
• Everything Is Trying to Kill You: What did we nice German boys ever do?
• Finns With Fearsome Forests: Praised tremendously. Though Finns might find that annoying it takes quite a bit of prowess to get the professional admiration of a German Staff Officer.
• Four-Star Badass: Gehard Raus, one of the primary writers.
• Grim Up North
• HAD to Be Sharp: Pretty much everyone. Forget victory. Surviving this makes you a Badass.
• La Résistance: Partisans
• The Lost Woods: All over Russia. Not only did partisans hide in them but main forces could assemble unexpectedly before rushing the German lines.
• Opposing Combat Philosophies: Germans are more mechanically minded and skilled at large scale maneuver and were the ultimate blitzkriegers. To be honest the provincialism of Germans was remarkable and they are seldom called on it. To many military writers seem to assume that Central Europe was the norm and places where nature does not do what it is told to are treated as strange; the Germans amazingly didn't even do a research on Eastern European warfare before then as if assuming that all wars would be with Austria or France. Despite all that the Germans managed to adapt fairly well to Russia. Russian's couldn't usually maneuver with the virtuousity of Germans(nobody could really) and were plagued a lot more by Obstructive Bureaucrat s then Germans. However they had a lot of advantages. Russians depended a lot on reserves as the stereotype indicates. And on the sheer toughness of their soldiers. But they also depended a lot on their remarkable wilderness talents. They were skilled at deceptions and guerrilla warfare and made up for their unsophistication by German standards with their ingenuity and improvisations. Finns had neither the firepower of the Germans nor the mass of the Russians. But they were even more wilderness savvy then the Russians and definitely more then the Germans and had an environment that was even more unpleasant to campaign in then Russia.
• Moral Myopia: The writers are shocked, absolutely shocked, that Russians should have no respect for human life.
• Mother Russia Makes You Strong: And how.
• Mugging the Monster: Russia does not take kindly to being invaded.
• Nazis With Gnarly Weapons: The writers and of course the German side.
• Swamps Are Evil: The Pripet Marshes
• The Trains Run On Time: No they didn't. Train tracks were the first target of partisans.
• Unreliable Narrator
• Villainous Valor
• War Is Hell: Invoked in the title.
• Weather of War: Russia's General Winter as expected. But also taking pride of place is Major Mud. During springtime all the packed snow floods out over the steepes and in fall rains come pouring down making Russia one big swamp. In summer it is scorching and desert like. Basically Russia was a Death World. And that is before you start making the inhabitants mad at you.
• We Have Reserves: The Russians again
• World War II