Thousands of volumes have been published about World War II but relatively little attention has been given to the sniper. Drawing from memoirs, government documents and interviews, this Casemate Illustrated title incorporates eyewitness accounts to weave a comprehensive narrative of snipers in World War II. While certain common traits were shared among belligerents, each had its unique methodology for selecting and training snipers and, as casualties were high, their replacements. Drawn from hunters, competitive shooters, natural marksmen, outdoorsmen, city dwellers, farmers and veteran soldiers, they fought to assert local battlefield dominance and instill among their enemy a paralyzing fear. Sometimes admired and other times reviled by their own comrades because of the retaliation they drew, they were always too few in number. Their battlefield role, their victories and their defeats are retold here from neglected or forgotten sources. The scope of World War II Snipers is extensive, with three chapters each on the major theatres of the war including Western Europe, Eastern Europe and the Pacific. These are supported by a lengthy chapter on the sniper rifles used by the snipers and their equipment. Finally, the last chapter discusses many overlooked or ignored subjects not raised by other researchers and provides much food for thought. The bibliography is a valuable resource to future researchers and writers. For the long-range rifle shooter and today's snipers, the lessons of the past are as relevant today as they were when learned and practiced in World War II.

With many of the most important new military systems of the past decade produced by small firms that won competitive government contracts, defense-industry consultant James Hasik argues in "Arms and Innovation" that small firms have a number of advantages relative to their bigger competitors. Such firms are marked by an entrepreneurial spirit and fewer bureaucratic obstacles, and thus can both be more responsive to changes in the environment and more strategic in their planning. This is demonstrated, Hasik shows, by such innovation in military technologies as those that protect troops from roadside bombs in Iraq and the Predator drones that fly over active war zones and that are crucial to our new war on terror.
For all their advantages, small firms also face significant challenges in access to capital and customers. To overcome such problems, they can form alliances either with each other or with larger companies. Hasik traces the trade-offs of such alliances and provides crucial insight into their promises and pitfalls.
This ground-breaking study is a significant contribution to understanding both entrepreneurship and alliances, two crucial factors in business generally. It will be of interest to readers in the defense sector as well as the wider business community.

The M1 carbine is a .30-caliber, semiautomatic rifle that first appeared in 1942 as a standard firearm for the US military during World War II. It was later used by US forces in the Korean and Vietnam Wars and continues to see worldwide use to this day. Produced in several variants by many manufacturers, it was and is still widely used not only by military forces, but by paramilitary and police units worldwide. Its design, construction, and variants-including the M1A1, M2, and M3-are shown in superb period photography and clear, up-close color images. Accessories such as magazines, ammunition, belts, pouches, and cleaning kits are featured throughout the book, as well as rarely seen World War II-related uniform and equipment items.

This volume's contributors offer a new critical language through which to explore and assess the historical, juridical, geopolitical, and cultural dimensions of drone technology and warfare. They show how drones generate particular ways of visualizing the spaces and targets of war while acting as tools to exercise state power. Essays include discussions of the legal justifications of extrajudicial killings and how US drone strikes in the Horn of Africa impact life on the ground, as well as a personal narrative of a former drone operator. The contributors also explore drone warfare in relation to sovereignty, governance, and social difference; provide accounts of the relationships between drone technologies and modes of perception and mediation; and theorize drones' relation to biopolitics, robotics, automation, and art. Interdisciplinary and timely, Life in the Age of Drone Warfare extends the critical study of drones while expanding the public discussion of one of our era's most ubiquitous instruments of war. Contributors. Peter Asaro, Brandon Wayne Bryant, Katherine Chandler, Jordan Crandall, Ricardo Dominguez, Derek Gregory, Inderpal Grewal, Lisa Hajjar, Caren Kaplan, Andrea Miller, Anjali Nath, Jeremy Packer, Lisa Parks, Joshua Reeves, Thomas Stubblefield, Madiha Tahir

The Webley .455in service revolver is among the most powerful top-break revolvers ever produced and has a claim to be the first 'tactical fighting pistol'. First adopted in 1887, in various marques it was the standard-issue service pistol for British and Commonwealth armed forces for nearly fifty years; later versions in .38in calibre went on to see further service in World War II and beyond, as well as in a host of law-enforcement roles around the world into the 1970s.
Developed to give British service personnel the ability to incapacitate their opponents in 'small wars' around the globe, the Webley used the formidable - and controversial - .455in cartridge, a variant of which was known as the 'manstopper'. Users found it offered good penetration and excellent stopping power with only mild recoil - indeed, it was rated superior to the US .45 Colt in stopping power.
Featuring specially commissioned full-colour artwork and close-up photographs, this is the compelling story of the Webley revolver, the powerful pistol that saw service across the British Empire and throughout two world wars.

One of the problems pervading the study of medieval Islamic technology is the lack of surviving technical treatises. Tradition tended to be handed down by example and by word of mouth, and apprenticeships could last for decades. Fortunately, however, occasional treatises do exist. The treatise "On swords and their kinds" was written by the 9th century Muslim philosopher Ya'qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi. This work was commissioned by a powerful patron of scholarship, the Abbasid caliph Mu'tasim, and the content of the treatise presumably reflects the ruler's general interest in his army and its equipment, and his specific interest in the technical aspects of sword production. In this work, Kindi discusses the difference between iron and steel, distinguishes different qualities of sword blade, and different centres of swordsmithing. He refers to the Indian Ocean trade in steel ingots and to the distinctive character of European swords of the period. He includes technical terms used by the makers, and distinguishes swords by their physical features - form, measurements, weight, watered pattern, sculptured details, or inlaid ornaments. This publication includes the text and a translation of Kindi's treatise, and a detailed commentary on the work. The volume also includes a translation of Friedrich Schwarzlose's work on swords, which is based on the hundreds of references to swords in early Arabic poetry. Written in German, this extraordinary compendium of information was first published some 120 years ago; this volume makes it available again, and for the first time in English.

The flintlock or firelock musket is one of the most iconic weapons in history: used on the battlefields of the English Civil War, it was then carried by both sides at Blenheim, Bunker Hill, Waterloo and the Alamo, and dominated warfare for more than 150 years, with military service as late as the American Civil War in the 1860s. Featuring specially commissioned full-colour artwork, this engaging study examines the role that the flintlock played in close-order combat on European and other battlefields around the world. Employing first-hand accounts to show how tactical doctrines were successfully developed to overcome the weapon's inherent limitations, Stuart Reid offers a comprehensive analysis of the flintlock's lasting impact as the first truly universal soldier's weapon.

The Renaissance is best known as an age of artists - Michelangelo, da Vinci, Titian and Holbein - but it is also the age of the noble patrons who challenged their painters and sculptors to create great art. These patrons were knights, military leaders and jousters. They played a central role in the story of another great Renaissance story, that of the armourer. Here, Tobias Capwell continues his history of jousting seen through surviving artefacts in the collection of the Royal Armouries. He reveals how the jousts and tournaments of the Renaissance transported knightly combat into a kind of performance art, with demonstrations of aristocratic skill and nerve, of superhuman strength and superlative horsemanship - and of cutting-edge equipment.

This book explores the origins, development, combat use and lasting influence of Nazi Germany's automatic rifles, focusing on the Gew 41(W), Gew 43/Kar 43, FG 42 and MP 43/StG 44. The Blitzkrieg campaigns of 1939-40 convinced many observers that most infantry combat took place at closer ranges than the 750-1,000m. From 1941 Germany's arms designers took note and produced a new series of infantry firearms. This study not only provides a detailed technical description of each weapon, but also explores how the firearms performed on the battlefields of World War II. The combat takes us from the FG 42 in the hands of Fallschirmjager at Monte Cassino through to StG 44s being used by Waffen-SS soldiers on both the Eastern and Western Fronts. Postwar service is also studied, such as the Gew 43's adoption by the Czech Army and the StG 44's use by the Viet Cong in the Vietnam War. Setting each firearm in its tactical and historical context, and employing striking photographs and full-colour artwork, firearms expert Chris McNab sets out the absorbing story of this distinctive and influential series of weapons.

By the Sword is an epic history of sword fighting—a science, an art, and, for many, a religion that began at the dawn of civilization in ancient Egypt and has been an obsession for mankind ever since. With wit and insight, Richard Cohen gives us an engrossing history of the world via the sword.

Beginning with World War II, missiles transformed the art of war. For the first time, cities of warring nations were vulnerable to sudden, unannounced, long-distance attacks. At the same time, rockets made possible one of the great triumphs of the modern age--the exploration of space. Beginning with the origins of rocketry in medieval and early modern Asia, "Rockets and Missiles" traces the history of the technology that led to both the great fear of global warfare and the great excitement of the Space Age.

This volume focuses on rocketry in late-twentieth-century Western Europe, Russia, and the United States, as well as the spread of rocket technology to East Asia and the Middle East. It covers the full history of rocket technology--including how rockets improved in performance, reliability, and versatility and how they affected everyday life.

Perhaps the most easily recognized military helmet of the 20th century is the German Stahlhelm. In the revised and expanded edition of this classic, Floyd R. Tubbs and Robert W. Clawson identify and classify the Stahlhelm and relate its history, designs, features, and uses.

No single nation has produced such a wide variety of helmets as did Germany in the early part of the last century, from civil defense to fire and police forces to airborne forces. Though based on the same concept, each model, design, and variation was constructed with a specific purpose, with the shapes of the helmets differing, the metals occuring in various weights, and the strengths and qualities and the liners being unique to each category.

As the only book on the German combat helmet currently in print, this edition, with its detailed drawings and illustrative photographs, will appeal to the collector as well as the military historian.

Thread of the Silkworm tells the story of one of the most monumental blunders the United States committed during its era of McCarthyism. It is the biography of Dr.Tsien Hsue-shen, a pioneer of the American space age who was mysteriously accused of being a Communist and deported to China, where he became-to America's continuing chagrin-the father of the Chinese missile program.