Publisher's Synopsis
About Downfall:
An all new Volume #32 for the Kirov Series. This book replaces the original #32, Field of Glory, which was moved to Book #1 in the Keyholder's Series. It features a special operation staged by the Germans to try and eliminate Ivan Volkov's Orenburg Federation from the war after he betrays Hitler and signs a peace treaty with Sergei Kirov. Can Germany's miracle worker make Volkov disappear? An outraged Hitler sends the very best of his legions to punish Volkov, including Steiner's 1st SS Panzerkorps augmented by 5th SS Wiking Division, and then a Wehrmacht Korps composed of the three most elite divisions in the regular Army, Grossdeutschland, Brandenburg Division, and the new Panzer Lehr. Their mission is to first take the oil fields at Grozny that eluded German capture in the 1942 Operation Edelweiss, and then press on to either Astrakhan or Baku. Volkov's tentative treaty with the Soviets receives a series of hard jolts when the Russians cross into the neutral zone under General Rokossovsky, and also cross the Volga. Like a hard pressed chess player against a Grandmaster of the art of maneuver warfare, Volkov matches wits against Manstein and castles to find the one place on the map where the elite German Panzer Divisions might not harm him. Then in an encore battle after their failure at Kursk, Manstein stages an alternate and expanded version of Operation Habicht-Panther to try and bag all the Soviet forces in the Izyum pocket and along the lower Donetz. East Front Action from start to finish in a volume presenting two battles that were not covered in the main series. Will Ivan Volkov meet his downfall at the hands of Germany's best?
