Word: tankful
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Iliushin, head of a state airplane-design bureau, revels in the reputation of a Man-Who-Gets-Things-Done. Stalin often visits Iliushin's offices, gives unexcited pep talks to the staff. When Hitler went on his rampage, Iliushin began to toy with the idea of a flying tank-buster. The seed of the idea was the memory of a frying pan with which many a Russian flyer armor-plated his plane seat in World War I. Out of the frying pan came the fiery Stormovik, which has destroyed so many Nazi tanks that the Germans renamed...
...hearty man after the Muscovite heart. Militarily, he is a product of the Soviet system. He learned his fighting in World War I, in the civil wars of 1918-20 and in the Russo-Polish campaign of 1920. In Frunze Military Academy, nursery of Soviet generals, he studied tank and air warfare. The priestly-looking Rokossovsky fought in the great battle of Smolensk in July 1941, which was a Pyrrhic victory for the Germans. He learned the essence of German tactics the hard way, and how to parry them. "By studying German tactics we changed our own method of attack...
...battle of Istra, north of Moscow, Rokossovsky's infantrymen stopped persistent German tank attacks with antitank rifles, Molotov cocktails and hand grenades. There he learned the staying power of foot soldiers properly equipped and properly led. This was the major blow in the Russian counterattack. Out of these engagements the towering blond man emerged with a shy, sly smile that hid his self-assurance. He had acquired a reputation as a brilliant, courageous leader...
...days last fall, wiry, greying Colonel Gurtiev held the "Barricades" factory in Stalingrad. His division repulsed 117 tank and infantry attacks. It withstood 80 hours of steady pounding by German artillery. FT a total of 320 hours the Luftwaffe bombed it. Watching the flames shrouding 'the tortured factory, anxious men elsewhere in Stalingrad said: "Stepan Gurtiev, that's the man for you." Of his 50 years, Gurtiev had spent 28 in the army. His men loved him, but feared him too, for "Tovarish Commander" tolerated no flaws in training, discipline or valor...
Pushing south and west from Kharkov, the Red Army will emerge onto open, forest-free flatland ideal for swift, grand-scale tank maneuvers and mobile warfare. The Germans already fear the loss of this year's harvest in the Ukraine. Trapped by a push that threatens to reach the southern anchor of the Dnieper line and the Crimea, they would be up against a more fearful strategic problem: to retreat would mean giving up their greatest prize; to stand and fight it out would be risking annihilation of approximately...