Men of steel

Readers discovered in 1995, with The Devil's Adjutant and in 1997 with STEEL INFERNO that Michael Reynolds' experience as a combat veteran and leader of soldiers, from platoon to mechanized division, informs his works with rare insight and realism. A rigorous, exacting researcher with an eye for telling drama, Reynolds is no armchair theoretician or chronicler of the minutes of High Command. He scrutinizes battles as they actually occurred - maelstroms of firepower, courage and flesh in which superior strength and combat skills were the sole, unvarnished factors in success.MEN OF STEEL follows Germany's largest remaining elite formation, 1 SS Panzer Corps, during the last five months of the World War II in Europe. Threatened with massive invasions from both the East and the West, in the last days of the Third Reich, Hitler opted to counter-attack. In December 1944 the Germans launched a last desperate offensive in the west, 1 SS Panzer Corps its cutting edge through the Ardennes in what became the greatest American battle since Gettysburg. After Anglo-American armies under Braadley, Patton and Montgomery had sealed off the Ardennes breakthrough, the panzer corps was transferred to mount an attack against the onrushing Soviets in the East. At Lake Balaton the 1 SS Panzer Corps waded into vastly superior Red Army forces in what became the last German offensive of the war.On both fronts the panzers were finally overwhelmed and the victors exulted in the annihilation of Nazi Germany. By examining in thorough detail the final death throes of Hitler's elite combat formations, Reynolds vividly illustrates the price of Allied victory, and why it was so difficult to achieve. Michael Reynolds retired from the British Army with the rank of Major General in 1986. His last command was NATO's International Mobile Force, and he subsequently became Director of its Military Plans and Policy Commission. His previous two books, The Devil's Adjutant (1995) and Steel Inferno (1997) were released to international acclaim.