Review of Fighting for the Soviet Motherland: Recollections from the Eastern Front

You've done D-Day. You've done the Bulge. You just finished your carefully researched OSS campaign, which culminated in the simultaneous assassinations of Hitler, Himmler, and Goering. How on earth are you going to top that? Try sending your players on a one-way trip to the Eastern Front. As the Russians. Dmitriy Loza's Fighting for the Soviet Motherland will help you do it.

Colonel Loza's experiences in the Great Patriotic War began in 1942 when he (then a lieutenant) was assigned to 233rd Tank Brigade of 5th Mechanized Corps. At that time, 233rd Tank Brigade was armed with Lend Lease British Matilda II tanks, which were later replaced by M4A2 Shermans. This makes Loza's work all the more interesting, since during the Cold War, the Soviet military was very reluctant to discuss the contributions of Lend Lease equipment.

This book is not a linear narrative. Instead, it provides a series of snapshots of the Red Army in combat and at rest. There are a few good combat narratives, at least three of which can be used with little modification as adventures for the World War II rpg of your choice. However, that is the least of this book's use to a roleplayer.

Colonel Loza also describes, in detail, the Soviet medical evacuation system, ammunition resupply practices, leisure activities, and field mail system. There is an entire section on feeding the troops. Once you read this book, you will have a very good idea of how to play a Russian soldier, particularly a tanker. You will know that when a Sherman was destroyed, one of the first things to be removed was the seat covers, because the material made for good boots. You will learn the value of the extra radios of the Sherman. Every time your character opens a can of Lend Lease Spam, he will announce, "I am opening a can of Second Front!"

Colonel Loza provides a balanced picture of the Soviet Army. On the one hand, he freely discusses such things as friendly fire, poor communication, and defective armor plating. He devotes a chapter to a female tank hunter. He constantly emphasizes the skill and valor of the Russian soldier. Colonel Loza is proud of what he and his comrades in arms accomplished in defeating the Wehrmacht. And well he should be. Germany could have held out indefinitely if the Russians were the undisciplined rabble they are sometimes thought to be. In this, Loza parallels Stephen Ambrose, whose book Citizen Soldiers makes the same point concerning the U.S. Army.

If you have any plans to run or play in an Eastern Front campaign, get this book. You won't regret it.