Volume IIB is the second volume relating to (and completing) the Wehrmacht, and the German mobilisation and war-economy, from June to December 1941. It includes the most detailed Orders of Battle ever published on the German Heer, Luftwaffe, Waffen SS and Kriegsmarine, in all areas of the Reich, between 22nd June and 4th July 1941. Even small and obscure units are included, such as: flak companies, artillery HQs, observation battalions, bridging columns, Landesschutzen battalions, MP battalions, railroad companies, and Luftwaffe Kurierstaffeln, Verbindungsstaffeln and Sanitatsflugbereitschaften. The Luftwaffe OOBs also include details on aircraft types and strengths in each air unit.

In June 1941 the Wehrmacht launched Operation Barbarossa: the attack on the USSR and the largest land invasion in recorded history. Operation Barbarossa: the Complete Organisational and Statistical Analysis, and Military Simulation focuses on 1941 - when the USSR came closest to defeat. It includes full analyses of the belligerents' armed forces, weapons, equipment, personnel, transport, logistics, war-production, mobilisation and replacements. The work employs a unique military simulation methodology, extending from the tactical to the strategic level, and applies this methodology to each of the belligerents. Volume I, the first of six volumes, is primarily concerned with the structure of this methodology, but uses many of the events and weapons from Operation Barbarossa as illustrative case studies. The complete work represents the most historically accurate, advanced and comprehensive analysis of the first six months of the largest and most decisive military campaign of WWII.

Operation Barbarossa: Volume IIA concerns the Wehrmacht. All the significant German weapon systems and combat squads used in the campaign are analysed using the quantitative methodology detailed in Volume I, along with the contextual history. An assessment of each weapon system's inherent 'combat power' is provided, as well as attributes such as the relative anti-tank, anti-personnel and anti-aircraft values. Volume IIA then focuses on the detailed Kriegstarkenachweisungen (KStN, or TOE) for German land units (including those in the West), as well as the unit's actual organisation and equipment. All significant units in the German Army (Heer), Waffen SS, Luftwaffe and security forces are included; ranging from the largest panzer divisions, down to small anti-aircraft companies, military-police units, Landesschutzen battalions, and rail-road and construction companies. In all cases the data is presented in detailed tables, using the weapon systems and combat squads previously analysed.

The fourth of six volumes on the history of the Axis invasion of the USSR in 1941. Vol. IIIA examines the Soviet Armed Forces, Mobilisation and War Economy in detail. The complete series represents the most historically accurate, advanced and comprehensive analysis of the first six months of the largest and most decisive military campaign of WWII.

Sunday, June 22, 1941: three million German soldiers invaded the Soviet Union as part of Hitler’s long-planned Operation Barbarossa, which aimed to destroy the Soviet Union, secure its land as lebensraum for the Third Reich, and enslave its Slavic population. From launching points in newly acquired Poland, in three prongs—North, Central, South—German forces stormed western Russia, virtually from the Baltic to the Black Sea. By late fall, the invasion had foundered against Russian weather, terrain, and resistance, and by December, it had failed at the gates of Moscow, but early on, as the Germans sliced through Russian territory and soldiers with impunity, capturing hundreds of thousands, it seemed as though Russia would fall. In the spirit of Martin Middlebrook’s classic First Day on the Somme, Craig Luther narrates the events of June 22, 1941, a day when German military might was at its peak and seemed as though it would easily conquer the Soviet Union, a day the common soldiers would remember for its tension and the frogs bellowing in the Polish marshlands. It was a day when the German blitzkrieg decimated Soviet command and control within hours and seemed like nothing would stop it from taking Moscow. Luther narrates June 22—one of the pivotal days of World War II—from high command down to the tanks and soldiers at the sharp end, covering strategy as well as tactics and the vivid personal stories of the men who crossed the border into the Soviet Union that fateful day, which is the Eastern Front in microcosm, representing the years of industrial-scale warfare that followed and the unremitting hostility of Germans and Soviets.

A definitive account of World War II by America's preeminent military historian. World War II was the most lethal conflict in human history. Never before had a war been fought on so many diverse landscapes and in so many different ways, from rocket attacks in London to jungle fighting in Burma to armor strikes in Libya. The Second World Wars examines how combat unfolded in the air, at sea, and on land to show how distinct conflicts among disparate combatants coalesced into one interconnected global war. Drawing on 3,000 years of military history, bestselling author Victor Davis Hanson argues that despite its novel industrial barbarity, neither the war's origins nor its geography were unusual. Nor was its ultimate outcome surprising. The Axis powers were well prepared to win limited border conflicts, but once they blundered into global war, they had no hope of victory. An authoritative new history of astonishing breadth, The Second World Wars offers a stunning reinterpretation of history's deadliest conflict.