![]() |
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
|
Your cart is empty |
||
|
Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Land forces & warfare
Extensively illustrated with 52 detailed campaign and battle maps and diagrams, this book, originally published in 1990, surveys the evolution of warfare in Europe from Napoleon to the end of the twentieth century and in Asia from the Middle Ages. It considers the interaction of technology and warfare. With wide-ranging examples, the book includes two in depth case studies, one on the Soviet Operational Manoeuvre Group and its predecessors in the Russian Imperial Army, the other on the history of land warfare, including guerilla warfare, in Asia. In this book the author demonstrates that military history can be of immense practical help to the modern military analyst and professional. Now updated with a new introduction to take into account changes since 1990, this book remains of essential value to students, teachers & professionals in political & social history, international relations, defence, war & peace studies.
The Roman army is remarkable for its detailed organisation and professional structure. It not only extended and protected Rome's territorial empire which was the basis of Western civilisation, but also maintained the politcal power of the emperors. The army was an integral part of the society and life of the empire and illustrated many aspects of Roman government. This sourcebook presents literary and epigraphic material, papyri and coins which illustrate the life of the army from recruitment and in the field, to peacetime and the community. It is designed as a basic tool for students of the Roman army and Roman history in general.
In this powerful and moving memoir, Robert Beecham tells of his Civil War experiences, both as an enlisted man in the fabled Iron Brigade of the Army of the Potomac and as an officer commanding a newly raised African-American unit. Written in 1902, Beecham recounts his war experiences with a keen eye toward the daily life of the soldier, the suffering and brutality of war, and the remarkable acts of valor, by soldiers both black and white, that punctuated the grind of long campaigns. As If It Were Glory is an unforgettable account of the Civil War, unclouded by sentimentality and insistent that the nation remain true to the cause for which it fought. Beecham's war was a long one-he served from May 1861 through the completion of the war in the spring of 1865. With the Iron Brigade he saw action at such momentous battles as Chancellorsville and then at Gettysburg, where he was taken prisoner. Returned to service in a prison exchange, Beecham was promoted to first lieutenant of the 23rd United States Colored Troops whom he lead in fierce fighting at the Battle of the Crater. At the Crater, Beecham was wounded, again captured, and, after eight months in a Confederate prison, escaped to find his way to Annapolis just before the conclusion of the war. In his narrative, Beecham celebrates the ingenuity of the enlisted man at the expense of officers who are often arrogant or incompetent. He also chides the altered recollections of fellow veterans who remember only triumphs and forgot defeats. In one of the most powerful parts of his memoir, Beecham pays tribute to the valor of the African Americans who fought under his command and insists that they were "the bravest and best soldiers that ever lived."
In The Tank Debate, John Stone highlights the equivocal position
that armour has traditionally occupied in Anglo-American thought,
and explains why - despite frequent predictions to the contrary -
the tank has remained an important instrument of war. This book
provides a timely and provocative study of the tank's developmental
history, against the changing background of Anglo-American military
thought.
This volume covers the infantry units of Napoleon's Imperial Army, during the crucial years 1800-1815. When the future Emperor assumed control of France, the infantry of his army was disorganized and poorly equipped; it lacked discipline and was trained in a quite old-fashioned way. Napoleon acted very rapidly to resolve the major problems of his foot troops, by giving them a new structure and by teaching them new tactics. By 1805, the French infantry was without a doubt the best in the world in terms of combat capabilities. The book will cover all the categories of units that were part of Napoleon's infantry: line regiments, light regiments, foreign corps and special corps. It is not always realized that the French infantry of 1800-1815 included large numbers of foreign soldiers and even an Irish Legion; all these little-known corps are taken into consideration, together with several special corps like Corsican light infantry and mountain infantry. Gabriele Esposito provides a complete guide to the French infantry of Napoleon, illustrated with rare contemporary uniform plates that have never been published before.
This book examines the complex practice of counter-insurgency warfare through the prism of British military experiences in the post-war era and endeavours to unpack their performance. During the twentieth century counter-insurgency assumed the status of one of the British military's fortes. A wealth of asymmetric warfare experience was accumulated after the Second World War as the small wars of decolonisation offered the army of a fading imperial power many opportunities to deploy against an irregular enemy. However, this quantity of experience does not translate into quality. This book argues that the British, far from being exemplars of counter-insurgency, have in fact consistently proved to be slow learners in counter-insurgency warfare. This book presents an analysis of the most significant British counter-insurgency campaigns of the past 60 years: Malaya (1948-60), Kenya (1952-60), South Arabia (1962-67), the first decade of the Northern Irish 'Troubles' (1969-79), and the recent British counter-insurgency campaign in southern Iraq (2003-09). Colonial history is used to contextualise the contemporary performance in Iraq and undermine the commonly held confidence in British counter-insurgency. Blending historical research with critical analysis, this book seeks to establish a new paradigm through which to interpret and analyse the British approach to counter-insurgency, as well as considering the mythology of inherent British competence in the realm of irregular warfare. It will be of interest to students of counter-insurgency, military history, strategic studies, security studies, and IR in general.
The M60 was a second-generation American main battle tank, the last in the line of Patton tanks that had first been developed at the end of World War. It entered operational service with the US Army in 1960 and some 15,000 M60s were manufactured by Chrysler at the Detroit Tank Arsenal Plant between then and when production ceased in 1983. It served with both the US Army and the US Marine Corps and was the principal tank deployed in Europe in the sixties, seventies and early eighties, providing NATO's main armoured force at the height of the Cold War. It became one of the most widely used armoured fighting vehicles of the twentieth century, serving in the armies of over 25 countries. It continued to serve alongside the M1 Abrams into the 1990s before this venerable Cold War warrior was finally retired from active service with the US military in 1997. This volume charts the development of the M60 from its origins in World War II to the Cold War. It focuses on its service with the US military and other NATO armies, examining its combat service in the First Gulf War and also with other armies in the Middle East. The book gives a full account of the wide range of kits and accessories available in all the popular scales and a modelling gallery features builds covering a range of M60s in service with various armed forces. Detailed colour profiles provide both reference and inspiration for modellers and military enthusiasts alike.
The Third Armored Division, famously known as the "Spearhead Division", had an illustrious combat career in WW2\. One of only two "heavy armored" divisions of the war, the 3rd Armored joined the battle in the ETO in late June of 1944, was bloodied almost immediately and was at the front of the American advance through the hedgerows of Normandy and the rapid advance through France into Belgium by September 1944\. The 3rd was one of the first units to breach the vaunted Siegfried Line and then fought a series of back and forth battles with the German army in the Autumn of 1944 as the weather conditions and determined tenacity of the German defenders produced an Autumn stalemate. The 3rd was rushed to the Ardennes front in December of 1944 in response to Hitler's winter offensive and they famously fought battles at the defense of Hotton, Grandmenil and then pushed the Germans back to the border after vicious battles in places like Ottre, Lierneux, Cherain and Sterpigny. The early days of the Bulge battles would find the lost unit of Col Samuel Hogan's 400 men who were surrounded for days and fought their way back to friendly lines. After a brief rest and being outfitted with 10 of the T-26 Pershing tanks, the 3rd was at the spearhead of the 1st Army advance into Germany, across the Rhine and into the Harz mountains and the liberation of the Nordhausen concentration camp. This final campaign would see the highpoint of the famous Cologne tank duel between a Pershing and German panther, made famous by the recent book "Spearhead" by Adam Makos. Then, just a few weeks later the beloved commander of the division, Major General Maurice Rose, was tragically shot by a German tank commander when trying to surrender Paderborn, Germany. The 3rd would end the war at the tip of the American advance into Germany before the war ended.
This book is a thorough study of all known guerrilla operations in Civil War Missouri between September 1864-and June 1865. It explores different tactics each side attempted during this time period to gain advantage over each other with regional differences as influenced by the differing personalities of local commanders. The author utilises both well-known and obscure sources (including military and government records, private accounts, county and other local histories, period and later newspapers, and secondary sources published after the war) to identify which Southern partisan leaders and groups operated in which areas of Missouri, and describe how they operated and how their kinds of warfare evolved. This work presents the actions of Southern guerrilla forces and Confederate behind-Union-lines recruiters chronologically by region so that readers may see the relationship of seemingly isolated events to other events over a period of time in a given area. The book also studies the counteractions of an array of different types of Union troops fighting guerrillas in Missouri to show how differences in training, leadership and experience affected behaviours and actions in the field.
This is the story of the men who fought and died in the 72nd New York Volunteer Infantry during the American Civil War. Part of Dan Sickles' famed Excelsior Brigade, the 72nd N.Y. served in all the major actions associated with the III Corps, losing one-fourth or more of the regiment in three different engagements. The 72nd New York Infantry in the Civil War is a ""brogans-up"" view of the war told in the words of the men who were there. Drawing on soldier's letters, diaries, memoirs (many unpublished or obscure) and official reports, this work follows these men from the exciting beginnings of recruitment, the boredom and frustrations of life policing the secessionist countryside of Southern Maryland, through to the eventual disbanding of the regiment in July of 1864 after being bled white at Williamsburg, The Peninsula, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and the Overland Campaign. The final chapter offers a brief account of many of the men's lives following the war. Included in the work are photographs, period illustrations, maps and an organisational chart. Additionally the roster is arranged by company with chronology of officers' service. This work is fully indexed with complete citations and bibliography.
This book is a thorough study of all known guerrilla operations in Civil War Missouri between January and August 1864. It explores different tactics each side attempted during this time period to gain advantage over each other with regional differences as influenced by the differing personalities of local commanders. The author utilises both well-known and obscure sources (including military and government records, private accounts, county and other local histories, period and later newspapers, and secondary sources published after the war) to identify which Southern partisan leaders and groups operated in which areas of Missouri, and describe how they operated and how their kinds of warfare evolved. This work presents the actions of Southern guerrilla forces and Confederate behind-Union-lines recruiters chronologically by region so that readers may see the relationship of seemingly isolated events to other events over a period of time in a given area. The book also studies the counteractions of an array of different types of Union troops fighting guerrillas in Missouri to show how differences in training, leadership and experience affected behaviours and actions in the field.
Tzoref-Ashkenazi presents a detailed study of two German regiments which served in India under the British between 1782 and 1791. He asks if the Germans identified with the goals of the British colonial power, how they felt about local people and whether they adopted the colonial ideologies of their British employers.
This volume explores the nature of civil war in the modern world and in historical perspective. Civil wars represent the principal form of armed conflict since the end of the Second World War, and certainly in the contemporary era. The nature and impact of civil wars suggests that these conflicts reflect and are also a driving force for major societal change. In this sense, "Understanding Civil Wars: Continuity and change in intrastate conflict" argues that the nature of civil war is not fundamentally changing in nature. The book includes a thorough consideration of patterns and types of intrastate conflict and debates relating to the causes, impact, and changing nature of war. A key focus is on the political and social driving forces of such conflict and its societal meanings, significance and consequences. The author also explores methodological and epistemological challenges related to studying and understanding intrastate war. A range of questions and debates are addressed. What is the current knowledge regarding the causes and nature of armed intrastate conflict? Is it possible to produce general, cross-national theories on civil war which have broad explanatory relevance? Is the concept of civil wars empirically meaningful in an era of globalization and transnational war? Has intrastate conflict fundamentally changed in nature? Are there historical patterns in different types of intrastate conflict? What are the most interesting methodological trends and debates in the study of armed intrastate conflict? How are narratives about the causes and nature of civil wars constructed around ideas such as ethnic conflict, separatist conflict and resource conflict? This book will be of much interest to students of civil wars, intrastate conflict, security studies and international relations in general."
The Fifth New York Cavalry was a volunteer regiment organised in response to the Union defeat at the Battle of Bull Run in July 1861. The citizen-cavalrymen who made up the regiment came from across New York State and from every walk of life. In the following four years the unit became, according to contemporary sources, one of the finest cavalry formations in the field. The regiment's history is told chronologically in the overall context of the Civil War and based upon primary sources, including official reports, diaries, letters and newspaper accounts. Wherever possible Fifth New York troopers speak to us directly, describing their experiences in the Shenandoah campaign of 1862, the epic encounter at Gettysburg, life in camp and on picket duty, the Wilderness in the spring of 1864 and again the Shenandoah in the fall of 1864.
This collection of stories of American men and women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan reveals their personal experiences as military combat personnel. Their stories are told through interviews, plus information from questionnaires and official military documents.
Recent scholarship has challenged the assumption that military commanders during the First World War were inflexible, backward-looking and unwilling to exploit new technologies. Instead a very different picture is now emerging of armies desperately looking to a wide range of often untested and immature scientific and technological innovations to help break the deadlock of the Western Front. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the development of tank warfare, which both the British and the French hoped would give them a decisive edge in their offensives of 1917 and 1918. Whilst the British efforts to develop armoured warfare have been well chronicled, there has been no academic study in English on the French tank force - the Artillerie Speciale - during the Great War. As such, this book provides a welcome new perspective on an important but much misunderstood area of the war. Such was the scale of the French tanks' failure in their first engagement in 1917, it was rumoured that the Artillerie Speciale was in danger of being disbanded, yet, by the end of the war it was the world's largest and most technologically advanced tank force. This work examines this important facet of the French army's performance in the First World War, arguing that the AS fought the war in as intelligent and sensible a manner as was possible, given the immature state of the technology available. No amount of sound tank doctrine could compensate for the fragility of the material, for the paucity of battlefield communication equipment and for the lack of tank-infantry training opportunities. Only by 1918 was the French army equipped with enough reliable tanks, as well as aircraft and heavy-artillery, to begin to exercise a mastery of the new form of combined-arms warfare. The successful French armoured effort outlined in this study (including a listing of all the combat engagements of the French tank service in the Great War) highlights a level of military effectiveness within
Horses and mules served during the Civil War in greater numbers and suffered more casualties than the men of the Union and Confederate armies combined. Using firsthand accounts, the many uses of equines during the war, the methods by which they were obtained, their costs, their suffering on the battlefields and roads, their consumption by soldiers, and racing, mounted music and other themes are all addressed. The book is supplemented by accounts of the ""Lightning Mule Brigade,"" the ""Charge of the Mule Brigade,"" five appendices and 37 illustrations. More than 700 Civil War equines are identified and described with incidental information and identification of their masters.
The 115th New York began its military career as part of the largest surrender of U.S. troops to take place before World War II and ended its career as part of the largest successful amphibious landings of U.S. troops before World War II. In between, it travelled a fighting odyssey through the American Civil War that is unique among Union regiments. Not only did it fight mainly in theatres and battles unknown to all but the most serious Civil War student, but it endured mass arrest and banishment by its own army and a cabal of its own officers against its commander. In earning distinction as one of ""Fox's Fighting 300"" Union regiments, the 115th fought in obscure campaigns along the Southern coast, joined briefly in the famous combat between Grant and Lee in Virginia, fought alongside African American units, witnessed the liberation of thousands of slaves and captured Union soldiers, and ended up campaigning with William T. Sherman's western army. The soldiers of the 115th New York were common men from Saratoga County, the Mohawk Valley, and Adirondack Mountain areas of New York State. In telling their story, author Mark Silo utilizes the words and recollections left by sixty-seven of these men, as well as vast amounts of source material regarding the events and battles they experienced. The result, states National Park Service historian John J. Hennessy, is ""Truly exceptional... a woven story that is both excellent history and engaging narrative - an important chronicle of common men on an uncommon quest for survival and triumph.
In a definitive new account of the Soviet Union at war, Alexander Hill charts the development, successes and failures of the Red Army from the industrialisation of the Soviet Union in the late 1920s through to the end of the Great Patriotic War in May 1945. Setting military strategy and operations within a broader context that includes national mobilisation on a staggering scale, the book presents a comprehensive account of the origins and course of the war from the perspective of this key Allied power. Drawing on the latest archival research and a wealth of eyewitness testimony, Hill portrays the Red Army at war from the perspective of senior leaders and men and women at the front line to reveal how the Red Army triumphed over the forces of Nazi Germany and her allies on the Eastern Front, and why it did so at such great cost.
Under Joseph Stalin's iron-fisted rule, the Soviet state tried to forge an army that would be both a shining example of proletarian power and an indomitable deterrent against fascist aggression. In reality, Roger Reese reveals, Stalin's grand military experiment failed miserably on both counts before it was finally rescued within the crucible of war. Reese greatly expands our understanding of the Red Army's evolution during the 1930s and its near decimation at the beginning of World War II. Counter to conventional views, he argues that the Stalinist state largely failed in its attempt to use military service as a means to indoctrinate its citizens, especially the peasantry. After 1928, the regime's recruits became increasingly disenchanted with Stalin's socialist enterprise--primarily due to the disheartening changes brought on by collectivization and dekulakization. In effect, these reluctant soldiers turned their backs on both the army and Communist Party leadership, neither of which regained credibility until after World War II. The soldiers' alienation and hostility, Reese demonstrates, was most clearly manifested in the highly volatile tensions between officers and peasant recruits following the military's chaotic expansion during the 1930s. Those tensions and numerous internal conflicts greatly undermined the regime's effort to create a well-trained, cohesive, and politically indoctrinated army. In place of this ideal, the regime stumbled along with a disunited and ineffective fighting force guided by outdated doctrines and led by an undeveloped officer corps. All of those elements made the Soviet Union particularly vulnerable to the devastating military disasters of 1941. Along the way, Reese persuasively dispels a number of myths. He shows, for example, that the Red Army's humiliating defeats at the start of the war were not, as many still believe, due to Stalin's bloody purges of the officer corps during the 1930s nor to overwhelming German military and economic superiority. Stalin, Reese argues, was only one of many key influences on the Soviet's disorganized effort to field an effective fighting force. And, while the Red Army was actually technologically superior to the Wehrmacht, the Germans made far better strategic and tactical use of their forces to overwhelm the poorly-led Soviets. A fascinating portrait of an army at war with itself, Reese's study illuminates the daily lives of soldiers, officers, and civilians and forever changes the way we look at the relation between political motives and military needs in the early Soviet state.
The book traces the history of the Richardson Light Guard from its origins in 1851, through war and peace, until its end in 1975. What had been an institution of members and local elites, passed to the town, then state, and finally federal governments. During the same period, Wakefield evolved from an agrarian town, to a manufacturing town, and finally into a bedroom suburb, ending the practice of a handful of local elites controlling most town institutions. Though the rise of the National Guard was generally positive, bringing uniformity, professionalism and better equipment, for some militia companies, inclusion into the National Guard weakened vital bonds with their communities. In the 19th century, the Richardson Light Guard thrived under generous patrons, a supportive town, and a relatively wealthy state government. It was the institution through which the town went to war and memorialised war during peacetime. After becoming part of the National Guard in 1916, the deep links with its home community steadily weakened until breaking during World War II. After the war, the National Guard company had few links to the town, and was reorganised out of existence in 1975.
In early 1940, a battle raged to control the ice-free, iron-ore port in northern Norway - with changing fortunes until the very end. This highly detailed book covers both the naval battles and the individual Norwegian, British, Polish, French and German units that fought the land campaign over northern Norway. Highly detailed maps guide you step by step through the events. Few other books on Narvik give you as much detail on the forces of the fighting five. From Gebirgsjagers to Guardsmen, Fallschirmjagers to Foreign Legionnaires, it offers you an impressive level of tactical detail, even down to company command, whilst also helping you understand the strategic confusion surrounding the whole Allied expedition to the north too. Among the naval clashes covered in this action-packed story are the destroyer battles in the fjords, the sinking of the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious and the roles the famous battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau played in the fighting. No less dramatic are the land battles, which include amphibious landings, sabotage, commando raids, daring ski missions and a rare parachute insertion by Gebirgsjager troops.
The end of the beginning... An epic conflictNorth Africa was a turning point for the British in the Second World War: a harsh landscape of sand and enemy tanks, but ultimately a place of victory, that Churchill famously called 'the end of the beginning.' When General Montgomery became commander of the Allied Eighth Army in 1942, he found the troops dispirited after a series of defeats by his nemesis, General Rommel. However, under Monty's inspired leadership the army turned their fortunes around, going on to win seven battles and driving the enemy out of North Africa. However, little credit has been attributed to the Eighth Army for its victories, and even the legendary Battle of El Alamein has been consistently underrated. This highly informed and gripping account brings to light how the troops, and their leaders, won these decisive battles, and helped to win the war. Lucid and accessible, this masterly account is vital reading for all enthusiasts of military history. Perfect for readers of Jonathan Dimbleby and Max Hastings.
"Italian Resistance Writing" is a collection of famous and rare
archive texts about one of the more controversial periods in modern
Italian history. The extracts are from a wide variety of different
genres, including novels, memoirs, short stories, historical works
and songs. Taking into account the significant changes in approach
to, and interpretations of, the resistance movement, that have
emerged since the early 1990s, Italian resistance writing includes
works by, among others, Claudio Pauone, Italo Calvino, Gian Enrico
Rusconi, Renata Vigano and Pietro Scoppola. Cooke places each work
in context and stresses the contemporary significance of the
Italian resistance. This is a vibrant, multifaceted volume which
sheds light on the past while illuminating the present in Italian
history, cultural studies and current affairs.
An illustrated introduction to how British industries, supported by thousands of newly recruited women, strove to meet the nation's wartime need for munitions, armour, shipping, uniforms and aircraft. During the Second World War (1939-45), Britain stretched every sinew of its industrial might to fend off a Nazi invasion. As the nation stood alone against Fortress Europe, it harnessed, coordinated and maximised its resources, firstly to defend itself and then to help liberate Axis-occupied countries. Wartime Industry uses informative text and beautiful illustrations to show how the men and women of Britain met this unprecedented demand for military and home-front materials. It explores the work of Lord Beaverbrook's highly organised Ministry of Aircraft Production; the 'Shadow Factories' that enabled manufacturers such as Vauxhall and Rootes to make tanks and aircraft; the Royal Ordnance Factories that produced firearms and explosives; the 'Bevin Boys' conscripted to work in the coal mines; the Women's Timber Corps; and war workers - who, together, helped the nation to make it. |
You may like...
Avatar 2: The Way Of Water - 4K Ultra HD…
James Cameron
Blu-ray disc
Progress and Challenges in Precision…
Mukesh Verma, Debmalya Barh
Paperback
An Industrial Design Guide Vol. 01…
Neville Songwe, Carmen Andrisani
Hardcover
R1,691
Discovery Miles 16 910
Nonviral Vectors for Gene Therapy, Part…
Leaf Huang, Mien-Chie Hung, …
Hardcover
R3,608
Discovery Miles 36 080
|