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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Land forces & warfare > General
In the aftermath of the Winter War, Finland found itself drawing ever closer to Nazi Germany and eventually took part in Operation Barbarossa in 1941. For the Finns this was a chance to right the wrongs of the Winter War, and having reached suitable defensive positions, the army was ordered to halt. Years of uneasy trench warfare followed, known as the Continuation War, during which Finland desperately sought a way out, German dreams of victory were dashed, and the Soviet Union built the strongest army in the world. In the summer of 1944, the whole might of the Red Army was launched against the Finnish defences on the narrow Karelian Isthmus. Over several weeks of fierce fighting, the Finns managed to halt the Soviet assault. With Stalin forced to divert his armies to the race to Berlin, an armistice agreement was reached, the harsh terms of which forced the Finns to take on their erstwhile German allies in Lapland. Featuring rare photographs and first-hand accounts, this second volume of a two-part study, publishing in paperback for the first time, details the high price Finland had to pay to retain its independence and freedom.
The German Tiger I was the most feared battle tank of the Second World War. Its invincibility lay in its main 8.8cm gun and heavy defensive armour. This book gives a rare insight into acquiring, owning and operating one of these awesome fighting machines, using the UK's Tank Museum's Tiger 131 - the only Tiger I in the world that has been restored to full running order. As well as offering unique insights into maintenance and driving the Tiger, the book includes vivid personal recollections from wartime German tank crewmen and reveals what it was like to operate this 57-ton giant in combat.
Irish troops had fought for Louis XIV in the 1670s, under Irish officers who had little choice but to fight in foreign service, with the blessing of Charles II. With the accession of James II, and the religious politics of who might earn the English crown, they became embroiled in the Jacobite succession crisis, fighting in Ireland, then sent to France under Lord Mountcashel in 1689. With the fall of Limerick in 1691, Patrick Sarsfield led the second 'flight' of 'Wild Geese' to the continent, to fight in a war for the French, against the Grand Alliance of Europe, in the vain hope that their loyalty might warrant French support in a return to Ireland under a Jacobite king. From the Nine Years War, through the War of the Spanish Succession, and beyond, their descendents would be present at Fontenoy, Culloden and in the Americas, forever destined to fight for a cause and land which had changed beyond recognition. D.P.Graham explains the origins of the brigade and its regiments, the personalities who led them and formed their reputation, and the circumstances of their final dissolution in the aftermath of French Revolution.
This book is an authoritative history and directory of tanks and their immediate derivatives, such as ARVs (armoured recovery vehicles), tank destroyers, command versions, bridgelayers, mine-clearers and other Funnies, and AFVs such as armoured cars, armoured personnel carriers and self-propelled artillery, covering a vast range of wheeled, tracked and semi-tracked vehicles. From the world's first tank, "Little Willie", to the contemporary M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tank, the book examines a vast range of tanks and AFVs. This unique volume, with over 1200 wartime and museum photographs, brings together the most significant tanks and AFVs in military history.
The Panzerkampfwagen III, or Panzer III as it is more commonly known, was a fixture in German armor formations during WWII. Initially developed to combat armored vehicles, in time the type evolved into an infantry support tank. Although production of the Panzer III ended in 1943, the type remained in service through the end of the war. Through over 160 photos, this volume chronicles the design, development, and deployment of this ubiquitous German tank. This material is arranged in nine chapters, each focusing on a specific production model, or Ausfrung, of the tank. Comprehensive tables reveal the details of the performance and technical specifications of each variant. A concise, easy-to-read text and detailed captions expose the secrets of this iconic tank.
How did British authorities manage to secure the commitment of large dominion and Indian armies that could plan, fight, shoot, communicate, and sustain themselves, in concert with the British Army and with each other, during the era of the two world wars? What did the British want from the dominion and Indian armies and how did they go about trying to get it? Douglas E Delaney seeks to answer these questions to understand whether the imperial army project was successful. Answering these questions requires a long-term perspective - one that begins with efforts to fix the armies of the British Empire in the aftermath of their desultory performance in South Africa (1899-1903) and follows through to the high point of imperial military cooperation during the Second World War. Based on multi-archival research conducted in six different countries, on four continents, Delaney argues that the military compatibility of the British Empire armies was the product of a deliberate and enduring imperial army project, one that aimed at standardizing and piecing together the armies of the empire, while, at the same time, accommodating the burgeoning autonomy of the dominions and even India. At its core, this book is really about how a military coalition worked.
By the end of the first week of November 1942, the German Sixth Army held about 90 per cent of Stalingrad. Yet the Soviets stubbornly held on to the remaining parts of the city, and German casualties started to reach catastrophic levels. In an attempt to break the deadlock, Hitler decided to send additional German pioneer battalions to act as an urban warfare spearhead. These combat engineers were skilled in all aspects of city fighting, especially in the use of demolitions and small arms to overcome defended positions and in the destruction of armoured vehicles. Facing them were hardened Soviet troops who had perfected the use of urban camouflage, concealed and interlocking firing positions, close quarters battle, and sniper support. This fully illustrated book explores the tactics and effectiveness of these opposing troops during this period, focusing particularly on the brutal close-quarters fight over the Krasnaya Barrikady (Red Barricades) ordnance factory.
David Herrmann's work is the most complete study to date of how land-based military power influenced international affairs during the series of diplomatic crises that led up to the First World War. Instead of emphasizing the naval arms race, which has been extensively studied before, Herrmann draws on documentary research in military and state archives in Germany, France, Austria, England, and Italy to show the previously unexplored effects of changes in the strength of the European armies during this period. Herrmann's work provides not only a contribution to debates about the causes of the war but also an account of how the European armies adopted the new weaponry of the twentieth century in the decade before 1914, including quick-firing artillery, machine guns, motor transport, and aircraft. In a narrative account that runs from the beginning of a series of international crises in 1904 until the outbreak of the war, Herrmann points to changes in the balance of military power to explain why the war began in 1914, instead of at some other time. Russia was incapable of waging a European war in the aftermath of its defeat at the hands of Japan in 1904-5, but in 1912, when Russia appeared to be regaining its capacity to fight, an unprecedented land-armaments race began. Consequently, when the July crisis of 1914 developed, the atmosphere of military competition made war a far more likely outcome than it would have been a decade earlier.
The M18 was developed in an era when the United States fought tanks not with other tanks, but with specialized tank destroyers. With a powerful aircraft-style radial engine pushing it at up to 50 miles per hour, and mounting a potent 76 mm cannon, the Buick-built M18 Hellcat, or "Hell-Cat" as Buick's publicists named it, provided US troops with a powerful shoot-and-scoot answer to heavily armored German tanks. Further experiments were conducted to increase its armament or adapt it to other uses, such as the M39 armored utility vehicle. Through dozens of archival images, many never before published, as well as detailed photographs of some of the finest existent examples of these vehicles, this iconic tank hunter is explored, and its history is explained. Part of the Legends of Warfare series.
Allan Wildman presents the first detailed study of the Army's collapse under the strains of war and of the front soldiers' efforts to participate in the Revolution. Originally published in 1980. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
"The most important work on Alexander the Great to appear in a long time. Neither scholarship nor semi-fictional biography will ever be the same again. . . .Engels at last uses all the archaeological work done in Asia in the past generation and makes it accessible. . . . Careful analyses of terrain, climate, and supply requirements are throughout combined in a masterly fashion to help account for Alexander's strategic decision in the light of the options open to him...The chief merit of this splendid book is perhaps the way in which it brings an ancient army to life, as it really was and moved: the hours it took for simple operations of washing and cooking and feeding animals; the train of noncombatants moving with the army. . . . this is a book that will set the reader thinking. There are not many books on Alexander the Great that do."--"New York Review of Books"
This is one of the most significant military books of the twentieth century. By an outstanding soldier of independent mind, it pushed forward the evolution of land warfare and was directly responsible for German armoured supremacy in the early years of the Second World War. Published in 1937, the result of 15 years of careful study since his days on the German General Staff in the First World War, Achtung Panzer! argues how vital the proper use of tanks and supporting armoured vehicles would be in the conduct of a future war. When that war came, just two years later, he proved it, leading his Panzers with distinction in the Polish, French and Russian campaigns. Panzer warfare had come of age, exactly as he had forecast.This first English translation of Heinz Guderian's classic book - used as a textbook by Panzer officers in the war - has an introduction and extensive background notes by the modern English historian Paul Harris.
These two companion volumes on Soldiers and Society give new perspectives on Zimbabwe's liberation struggle. This work is an attempt to look at some of the realities of Zimbabwe's liberation war and at what happened afterwards, rather than at the comfortable myths. Both heroic and terrible deeds are recorded. Zimbabwe: University of Zimbabwe Publications
Dedicated German anti-tank vehicles made their first major appearance in the Second World War as combatants developed effective armoured vehicles and tactics. Some were little more than stopgap solutions, mounting an anti-tank gun on a tracked vehicle to give mobility, while others were more sophisticated designs. The book covers the development and technology throughout the war that led to tank destroyers like the Panzerjger I, Sturmgeschtz, Marders, Nashorn. Hetzer, Jagdpanzer, Elefant, Jagdtiger IV and Jagdpanther vehicles being developed. As the war progressed the tank destroyers fire power became more lethal to meet the ever increasing threat against Soviet armour. Larger and more powerful variants entered the battlefield, but due the overwhelming enemy opposition they were compelled not only to attack armour, but to support ground troops too. This comprehensive account covers all the Nazis mobile anti-tank vehicles in words and images.
The final years of World War II saw the legendary Panzerwaffe face its most difficult challenges, with Allied troops landing at Normandy and storming across the continent and the Russians gaining the upper hand on the Eastern Front. As Germany fought fiercely to hold on to the advantages gained in the early years, they relied heavily on the Panzer IV, the Panzer V Panther and the StuG III - the backbone of their infamous armoured divisions - to hold back their advancing opponents. This second volume on the Panzerwaffe offers a comprehensive guide to the final years of Germany's most famous fighting force, covering the further use of the Panzer IV, the role played by the StuG III assault gun and the battlefield debut of the formidable Panther. Explosive combat reports and rare archive photographs help uncover the final years of the Panzers, from their defence against the D-Day landings and the role they played in the Ardennes Offensive to their valiant last stand in Berlin.
Civil wars are among the most difficult problems in world politics. While mediation, intervention, and peacekeeping have produced some positive results in helping to end civil wars, they fall short in preventing them in the first place. In Incentivizing Peace, Jaroslav Tir and Johannes Karreth show that considering civil wars from a developmental perspective presents opportunities to prevent the escalation of nascent armed conflicts into full-scale civil wars. The authors demonstrate that highly-structured intergovernmental organizations (IGOs such as the World Bank, IMF, or regional development banks) are particularly well-positioned to engage in civil war prevention. When such IGOs have been actively engaged in nations on the edge, their potent economic tools have helped to steer rebel-government interactions away from escalation and toward peaceful settlement. Incentivizing Peace provides enlightening case evidence that IGO participation is a key to better predicting, and thus preventing, the outbreak of civil war.
The First World War in the Middle East swept away five hundred years of Ottoman domination. It ushered in new ideologies and radicalised old ones - from Arab nationalism and revolutionary socialism to impassioned forms of atavistic Islamism. It created heroic icons, like the enigmatic Lawrence of Arabia or the modernizing Ataturk, and destroyed others. And it completely re-drew the map of the region, forging a host of new nation states, including Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia - all of them (with the exception of Turkey) under the 'protection' of the victor powers, Britain and France. For many, the self-serving intervention of these powers in the region between 1914 and 1919 is the major reason for the conflicts that have raged there on and off ever since. Yet many of the most commonly accepted assertions about the First World War in the Middle East are more often stated than they are truly tested. Rob Johnson, military historian and former soldier, now seeks to put this right by examining in detail the strategic and operational course of the war in the Middle East. Johnson argues that, far from being a sideshow to the war in Europe, the Middle Eastern conflict was in fact the centre of gravity in a war for imperial domination and prestige. Moreover, contrary to another persistent myth of the First World War in the Middle East, local leaders and their forces were not simply the puppets of the Great Powers in any straightforward sense. The way in which these local forces embraced, resisted, succumbed to, disrupted, or on occasion overturned the plans of the imperialist powers for their own interests in fact played an important role in shaping the immediate aftermath of the conflict - and in laying the foundations for the troubled Middle East that we know today.
The greatest conquest in historyGenghis Khan left an empire more than twice the size of Alexander's: his successors went on to conquer and govern an area stretching from Korea to the River Danube. How did a band of nomadic herdsmen achieve so much, so fast? Despite these stunning achievements, many writers dismiss the Mongols as just ferocious barbarians. This bestselling book sets the record straight. The epic starts in 1206 - when Genghis became master of 'all the people with felt tents' and an unknown tribe took the first steps towards world domination - and ends with the empire's decline and fall, after Khubilai Khan's triumphant unification with China. Robert Marshall describes their devastating invasions, including that of feudal Europe and Christendom's clumsy attempts to understand and fend off these legendary warriors. Full of extraordinary events, painted on a vast and colourful canvas, Storm from the East brings to life a time when East and West finally came face to face and the contours of modern Asia were set. 'Storm from the East does not seek to excuse Mongol excesses - yet Robert Marshall appears to speak for the Mongols... A fascinating voyage through time and space' Thomas Nivison Haining in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
Reissued for the 40th anniversary of the Falklands conflict The most in-depth and powerful account yet published of the first crucial clash of the Falklands war - told from both sides. 'Thorough and exhaustive' Daily Telegraph 'An excellent and fast paced narrative' Michael McCarthy, historical battlefield guide Goose Green was the first land battle of the Falklands War. It was also the longest, the hardest-fought, the most controversial and the most important to win. What began as a raid became a vicious, 14-hour infantry struggle, in which 2 Para - outnumbered, exhausted, forced to attack across open ground in full daylight, and with inadequate fire support - lost their commanding officer, and almost lost the action. This is the only full-length, detailed account of this crucial battle. Drawing on the eye-witness accounts of both British and Argentinian soldiers who fought at Goose Green, and their commanders' narratives, it has become the definitive account of most important and controversial land battle of the Falklands War. A compelling story of men engaged in a battle that hung in the balance for hours, in which Colonel 'H' Jones' solo charge against an entrenched enemy won him a posthumous V.C., and which for both sides was a gruelling and often terrifying encounter.
As the war began to swing in favour of the Allies, it became clear that no final defeat of the Third Reich would be possible until the armoured monsters of the Panzerwaffe were defeated. But who would, or even could, take on the mighty Tigers and Panthers, just a handful of which could stop entire formations in their tracks? The answer lay with the formation of a new type of unit, the Tank Destroyer Battalion. This is the story of the men and machines that made up the very first Tank Destroyer Battalion, the 601st, from their unique training and formation, to the final, desperate battles in the heart of Nazi Germany. Packed with rare material, letters, diaries and previously unpublished photographs, and now available in paperback, this is an intense and intimate chronicle of the men who fought the Panzers in an astonishing 10 campaigns and 546 days of lethal combat.
By 1944, the evolution of armoured doctrine had produced very different outcomes in Britain and Germany. Offering a good balance of speed, protection and firepower, the British Cromwell tank was much faster than its German opponent, but the Jagdpanzer IV tank destroyer had a high-velocity main gun and a lower profile that made it formidable on the defensive, especially in ambush situations. The two types would fight in a series of bloody encounters, from the initial days of the struggle for Normandy through to its climax as the Allies sought to trap their opponents in the Falaise Pocket. Using archive photographs, specially commissioned artwork and battle reports, this fascinating study expertly assesses the realities of tactical armoured combat during the desperate battles after D-Day.
Selected for the 2019 Commandant's Professional Reading List J. Glenn Gray entered the army as a private in May 1941, having been drafted on the same day he was informed of his doctorate in philosophy from Columbia University. He was discharged as a second lieutenant in October 1945, having been awarded a battlefield commission during fighting in France. Gray saw service in North Africa, Italy, France, and Germany in a counter-espionage unit. Fourteen years after his discharge, Gray began to reread his war journals and letters in an attempt to find some meaning in his wartime experiences. The result is The Warriors, a philosophical meditation on what warfare does to us and an examination of the reasons soldiers act as they do. Gray explains the attractions of battle—the adrenaline rush, the esprit de corps—and analyzes the many rationalizations made by combat troops to justify their actions. In the end, Gray notes, “War reveals dimensions of human nature both above and below the acceptable standards for humanity.”
The battle of Verdun lasted ten months. It was a battle in which at least 700,000 men fell, along a front of fifteen miles; the battle whose aim was less to defeat the enemy than bleed him to death; the battleground whose once fertile terrain even now resembles a haunted wilderness, battered and crumbling. This book is more than a chronicle of the facts of battle. It is a profoundly moving, sympathetic study of the men who fought there, and show that Verdun is a key to understanding the First World War - a key to the minds of those who waged it, to the traditions that bound them, and to the world that gave them the opportunity. Continuously in print for over thirty years, this unabridged edition contains a new preface and additional photographs. |
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