When Hitler unleashed Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union in June 1941, the 23-tonne Panzer III was in the vanguard of the German assault. It saw widespread use during the Second World War in campaigns that included Poland, France, the Soviet Union, the Balkans, North Africa and Normandy. Centrepiece of the Haynes Panzer III Tank Manual is the Bovington Tank Museum's PzKpfw III Ausf L, which has been restored to running condition. Full coverage is given of the tank's design, construction, war service and the restoration of the Tank Museum's Ausf L version.

There has been a shift in the way that we understand the forces behind imperialism. In this book, Andrew Thomson re-evaluates the history of US imperialism, from the Cold War to today, by looking at the influence of paramilitary actors. Thomson reveals how these agents are central to US imperialism - from the Guatemalan coup to the Bay of Pigs, from Syrian rebel factions to the Soviet-Afghan War, bringing these narratives together to reveal the evolution of paramilitary insurgencies across the globe. Militias, mercenaries, and private companies (PMCs) have formed a central part of the strategies designed to influence political and economic conditions abroad, oriented towards the US's Empire. Drawing on declassified documents including US training manuals, CIA communiques and the National Security Archive, Outsourced Empire reveals new evidence that helps us understand these institutions and their collective role in maintaining global order.

Readers have come to expect a level of detail and critical rigour from the established military historian and author Bryan Perrett. They will not be disappointed at all here by this new publication. Focussing predominantly on the British armoured car units of World War One, it also untangles many fascinating strands forming the history of modern warfare. Full of detail, it acquaints the reader with the complete history of the armoured car, from invention onwards, setting the history of its Great War service career firmly in context. Well written in an accessible style, this publication serves as an impressive tribute to the armoured car, one of the most effective weapons utilised by the allies during the course of the Great War.

This book is the first comprehensive manual on the law of armed conflict prepared by a team of expert scholars and practitioners working for and with the UK Ministry of Defence. It covers all aspects of the law of armed conflict as applied today, including means and methods of warfare, the treatment of civilians and other non-combatants - including prisoners of war - and the conduct of operations in all three environments: land, sea and air. It also includes discussion of some of the key elements of relevance in the modern strategic environment, not least the legal aspects of internal armed conflict and the application of the law during peace support operations. This is a significant publication providing sound evidence of the legal views of one of the five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council. As such it will become an essential reference and source for legal scholars working in this field, for officials working in foreign and defence ministries around the globe, and for military officers and lawyers requiring a sound grasp of the legal framework of military operations

The SU-76 assault gun was the second most widely manufactured Soviet armoured fighting vehicle of World War II, out-numbered only by the legendary T-34. Inspired in part by the German Marder series of tank destroyers, Soviet designers realized that the chassis of the obsolete T-70 light tank could be adapted to a much more substantial gun if it was placed in a fixed casemate rather than in a turret. This led to the design of the SU-76, which saw its combat debut at Kursk in the summer of 1943. The SU-76 was deployed primarily as an infantry direct support weapon, becoming the infantry tank of the Red Infantry, much as the StuG III became the infantry tank of the German infantry.

Featuring full colour artwork and written by an expert on tank warfare during World War II, this fascinating study describes one of the Soviet Union's most important armoured vehicles during its struggle with Nazi Germany.

Was the outcome of the First World War on a knife edge? In this major new account of German wartime politics and strategy Holger Afflerbach argues that the outcome of the war was actually in the balance until relatively late in the war. Using new evidence from diaries, letters and memoirs, he fundamentally revises our understanding of German strategy from the decision to go to war and the failure of the western offensive to the radicalisation of Germany's war effort under Hindenburg and Ludendorff and the ultimate collapse of the Central Powers. He uncovers the struggles in wartime Germany between supporters of peace and hardliners who wanted to fight to the finish. He suggests that Germany was not nearly as committed to all-out conquest as previous accounts argue. Numerous German peace advances could have offered the opportunity to end the war before it dragged Europe into the abyss.

The fourth volume of PeKo Publishing s photo-monograph series, Sturmgeschutz III on the battlefield 2, has the publisher s usual corporate image displayed. The hardcover, landscape formatted book s brief introduction is followed by more than a hundred mainly unpublished photographs, published in the highest possible quality. Both the introduction and the captions are bilingual (English / Hungarian).

Few tank designs have been as effective, versatile and long-lived as that of the British Centurion. Conceived during the Second World War as the answer to the superior German Tiger and Panther tanks and to the lethal 88mm gun, this 52-ton main battle tank incorporated the lessons British designers had learned about armoured fighting vehicles during the conflict, and it was free of the major faults that had impaired the other British tank designs of the time. The Centurion was so successful that it served in the British Army and in numerous other armies across the world from 1945 until the 1990s. Pat Ware's highly illustrated history of this remarkable tank covers its design and development, its technical specifications and the many variants that were produced. He tells the story from the design brief of 1943, through testing and trials to the tank's entry into service. And he traces the course of the Centurion's subsequent career as it was up-dated, up-gunned and adapted to operate in varied conditions and conflicts all over the world including Korea, the Indo-Pakistan wars, Vietnam and the Arab-Israeli wars. His expert account of this remarkable fighting vehicle is accompanied by a series of colour plates showing the main variants of the design and the common ancillary equipment and unit markings. His book is an essential work of reference for enthusiasts.

This book is dedicated to the command and observation tanks of the German Army in World War Two. It deals with their history, operational use, organisation, special markings, technical description, serial numbers (when available), and data on the radio equipment. The book is completed by some 105 colour profiles, produced by Jean Restayn, and by about 65 black and white historic photographs. A must for any enthusiast of the German military and of the Second World War, and a unique reference for all the serious modellers.

Mine-protected and mine-resistant, ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicles are today standard in the US, most major western armed forces and many other armies as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The South African Army was already routinely using mine-protected armoured personnel carriers and patrol vehicles forty years ago even if they looked primitive and ungainly. A few years later, the South African Army had reached the stage where it could deploy entire combat groups into battle zones equipped with only mine-protected vehicles, including their ambulances and supply trucks. By then the mine-protected vehicles had also become effective for use in combat, rather than just protected transport, the Casspir being the chief example. More to the point, they saved countless soldiers and policemen from death or serious injury, and the basic concepts now live on in the various MRAP types in service today. The valuable lessons learned by the South Africans with their early designs of these combat-proven vehicles has led the country to become one of the global leaders in the design of MRAPs which are locally manufactured and exported around the world. Surviving the Ride is a fascinating pictorial account featuring more than 120 of these unique South African-developed vehicles, spanning a forty-year period, with over 280 photographs, many of which are previously unpublished.

Naval and Military Operations of Great Britain is the single most important contemporary account of the Royal Navy in the 18th century. Its six volumes present a new approach to naval strategy. Defeat in the American Revolutionary War called into question the assumptions of superiority upon which so much earlier commentary on naval affairs had been based. By addressing the specific causes of the disaster, the author, Robert Beatson (1742-1818), hoped to render both the navy and the nation wiser for the future. Lauded by key figures in the development of naval strategy, including John Laughton, Alfred T. Mahan, and Julian Corbett, this work remains fundamental to modern scholarship on the nature of British naval power and is an especially rich source of information on the British army's campaign in North America. This edition contains a substantial new introduction by leading naval scholar, Andrew Lambert (King's College London).

In 1941-44, Nazi Germany's Gebirgsjager - elite mountain troops - clashed repeatedly with land-based units of the Soviet Navy during the mighty struggle on World War II's Eastern Front. Formed into naval infantry and naval rifle brigades, some 350,000 of Stalin's sailors would serve the Motherland on land, playing a key role in the defence of Moscow, Leningrad, and Sevastopol. The Gebirgsjager, many among them veterans of victories in Norway and then Crete, would find their specialist skills to be at a premium in the harsh terrain and bitter weather encountered at the northern end of the front line. Operating many hundreds of miles north of Moscow, the two sides endured savage conditions as they fought one another inside the Arctic Circle. Featuring archive photographs, specially commissioned artwork and expert analysis, this is the absorbing story of the men who fought and died in the struggle for the Soviet Union's northern flank at the height of World War II.

America's war on terror is widely defined by the Afghanistan and Iraq fronts. Yet, as this book demonstrates, both the international campaign and the new ways of fighting that grew out of it played out across multiple fronts beyond the Middle East. Maria Ryan explores how secondary fronts in the Philippines, sub-Saharan Africa, Georgia, and the Caspian Sea Basin became key test sites for developing what the Department of Defense called "full spectrum dominance": mastery across the entire range of possible conflict, from conventional through irregular warfare. Full Spectrum Dominance is the first sustained historical examination of the secondary fronts in the war on terror. It explores whether irregular warfare has been effective in creating global stability or if new terrorist groups have emerged in response to the intervention. As the U.S. military, Department of Defense, White House, and State Department have increasingly turned to irregular capabilities and objectives, understanding the underlying causes as well as the effects of the quest for full spectrum dominance become ever more important. The development of irregular strategies has left a deeply ambiguous and concerning global legacy.

We've seen the stories of the more `glamorous' Selous Scouts, the SAS and the Rhodesian Air Force, but very little about the RLI, often underrated, but arguably one of the most effective counter-insurgency units of all time. This was the unit that brought the `Fireforce' concept to the world's attention-the devastatingly ruthless airborne envelopment and annihilation of a guerrilla enemy. Dubbed "The Killing Machine" by Charles D. Melson, chief historian of the US Marine Corps, the RLI was a veritable `foreign legion' with over 20 diverse nationalities serving in her ranks. The RLI, a truly international airborne battalion, fought the bitter Zimbabwean `bush war' for 15 years, against the overwhelming tide of communist-trained guerrillas. Kill rates don't win wars, but during its brief 19-year history, it is estimated that the RLI accounted for between 12,000 and 15,000 enemy guerrillas, for the loss of 135 men. RLI soldiers were recipients of four Silver Crosses and 42 Bronze Crosses of Rhodesia. An RLI trooper holds the world record for operational parachute descents -a staggering 73 op jumps-most under 400 feet. The Saints is not intended as a definitive history but, with more of a classic `scrapbook' feel, the presentation attempts to capture the essence of this fine unit-what it was like to be a troopie, one of the `ouens'.

In 1979 the Soviet Union moved from military `help' to active intervention in Afghanistan. Four-fifths of the Afghan National Army deserted in the first year of the war, which, compounded with the spread and intensification of the rebellion led by the formidable guerrilla fighters of the Mujahideen, forced the Soviets to intensify their involvement. The Soviet army was in generally poor condition when the war started, but the troops of the airborne and air assault units were better trained and equipped. As a result they developed aggressive, sometimes effective tactics against an enemy that refused to behave the way most Soviet commanders wished him to. Featuring specially commissioned artwork, this absorbing study examines the origins, combat role and battlefield performance of the Soviet Union's paratroopers and their Mujahideen adversaries during the long and bloody Soviet involvement in Afghanistan during the 1980s.

As bad as they are, why aren't terrorists worse? With biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons at hand, they easily could be. And, as this chilling book suggests, they soon may well be. A former member of the National Security Council staff, Jessica Stern guides us expertly through a post-Cold War world in which the threat of all-out nuclear war, devastating but highly unlikely, is being replaced by the less costly but much more imminent threat of terrorist attacks with weapons of mass destruction.

According to Stern

Written from an insider's perspective, "The Ultimate Terrorists" depicts a not-very-distant future in which both independent and state-sponsored terrorism using weapons of mass destruction could actually occur. But Stern also holds out hope for new technologies that might combat this trend, and for legal and political remedies that would improve public safety without compromising basic constitutional rights.

Whether any advantage or benefit will be drawn from the suspension or effective abolition of the rank of Field Marshal is debatable. What is certain, however, is that Dr. Tony Heathcote s idea of compiling a definitive biographical dictionary of holders of this illustrious rank since its introduction by George II in 1736, is opportune and inspired.Those readers who anticipate a dry recitation of bare facts and statistics are in for a disappointment. A reference work this may be but the author, by dint of his depth of knowledge, has created a shrewd and highly readable commentary as well.As General Sir Charles Guthrie (the first soldier to be denied promotion to Field Marshal on appointment to Chief of Defense Staff) observes in his Foreword, this book embraces the history of the British Army over the last 250-300 years. It covers not only the careers of key individuals but provides an understanding of their contribution to the successes and failures of our military past. The diversity of personalities, who have only the honor of wearing the coveted crossed batons in common, is fascinating. Alongside the household names of the great strategists and distinguished leaders lie little known and forgotten figures, who gained their exalted rank by either luck, accident of birth or diplomatic gesture.The British Field Marshals merits a place on the bookshelf of any military historian but is likely to be found on his or her bedside table. Whether or not the rank is ever resurrected, as it has been in the past and as many will hope it will be again, this delightful and useful book will remain the authoritative guide to all those who have held the highest military rank in the British Army.REVIEWS '...proven one of the most useful, ready references to the senior most officers in the British Army...a valuable reference for anyone doing British military history."NYMAS"

This work analyses the vulnerability of America's land-based missile force to a pre-emptive Soviet strike as an issue in US strategic and political debate. It examines why the issue rose to prominence in the way it did in the 1970s and then fell away as a concern in the 1980s without being solved in the way it had been presented. It details the way in which the issue was exploited for political and strategic purposes which were often at odds with a concern for this vulnerability.

The cavalry of most classical Greek states was drawn from the cream of society. Their youth, wealth, and aristocratic background was more obvious to their fellow citizens than their military prowess. Using a wide range of written, artistic, and archaeological evidence, this book provides an in-depth account of the position of cavalry in classical warfare and society.

Designed to counter the threat of a massed Soviet armored assault, the M50 Ontos showed its merit in the jungles and streets of Vietnam. Ontos grew out of Project Vista, the secret study of possible improvements to NATO defenses. Project Vista identified the need for an inexpensive, heavily armed "something" to thwart waves of Soviet armor. Armed with six powerful recoilless rifles, the diminutive M50 was given the name "Ontos," an Army mistranslation of Greek for "the Thing." Initially, the Army felt that the Allis-Chalmers T165E1 (later standardized as the M50) was the thing to fill the recommendation of Project Vista. Ultimately, and after some controversy, the Army lost interest in the vehicle, but the United States Marine Corps believed in the vehicle, and in 1955 the M50 entered production. While the Corps first used the Ontos in Santo Domingo in 1965, it would rise to fame in Vietnam, where the M50, as well as the modernized M50A1, saw considerable use as antipersonnel weapons and in perimeter defense. On the streets of Hue, Marines made considerable use of the Ontos, blasting open walls and using antipersonnel rounds to create faux smoke screens. Over 270 photos, many in color, chronicle the development, production, combat use, and details of this famed vehicle and the men who used them.

Ferdinand Porsche was an Austrian engineer born in 1875. In the interwar period, Ferdinand founded an automotive consultation firm, which gradually grew into today's Porsche AG automotive company. Porsche's firm was responsible for the design of the "Volkswagen," a simple model known today as the Beetle. During the Second World War, Porsche's firm played an important role in designing military vehicles for the Wehrmacht. This work follows up on author Michael Froehlich's book on Porsche's massive "Maus" tank and describes the firm's other armored-vehicle designs, with special emphasis on the VK 4501 (P) Tiger prototype and the "Ferdinand" tank destroyer. VK 4501 was the designation for the prototypes competing to be what would become the Panzer VI "Tiger." Porsche's concept used a novel gasoline/electric hybrid power plant, but the Tiger contract eventually went to Henschel. Through details on the Tiger trials at the Verskraft proving ground, readers will gain insight into the armament procurement process in the Third Reich. The hull/chassis design from VK 4501 (P) was later repurposed for a large tank destroyer named for the designer, "Ferdinand." These imposing vehicles saw combat on multiple fronts and were later renamed "Elefant." Froehlich's study, available in English for the first time, is grounded in original reports, manuals, and technical drawings.

DeVries has focused on an intriguing problem, and his detailed analysis of battles provides an important reassessment of the way in which infantry and dismounted cavalry achieved such striking successes. HISTORY His detailed analysis of battles provides an important reassessment of the way in which infantry and dismounted cavalry achieved such striking successes. HISTORY This remarkable study confirms [DeVries's] emergence as one of themajor scholars of his generation. JOURNAL OF MILITARY HISTORY This study departs from the conventional view of the dominance of cavalry in medieval warfare: its objective is to establish the often decisive importance of infantry. Kelly DeVries employs evidence from first-hand accounts - a major feature of this study - to examine the role of the infantry, and the nature of infantry tactics, in nineteen battles fought in England and Europe between 1302 and 1347, in most of which it was the infantry which secured victory. The battles analysed in detail are: Courtrai Arques Mons-en-Pevele Loudon Hill Kephissos Bannockburn Boroughbridge Cassel Dupplin Moor Halidon Hill Laupen Morlaix Staveren Vottem Crecy Neville's Cross, and the infantry ambushes: Morgarten Auberoche La Roche-Derrien.