Military

Allied success in invading Fortress Europe (the area of Continental Europe occupied by Nazi Germany) depended on getting armor onto the beaches as fast as possible. This book explains how the Allies developed the specialist tanks it needed, their qualities, deployment and numbers, and how they performed on the two crucial days when France was invaded, firstly in Normandy and then in Provence. The focus of this volume will be on the specialized tanks developed for the Operation Neptune amphibious...

The Ardennes 1944-1945: Hitler’s Winter Offensive in 2014, it hit the World War II community with the impact of an earthquake. Based upon tremendous research into primary sources and interviews with very many of the veterans, this book turned the previous image of the Battle of the Bulge completely upside-down. Although tearing apart many myths that surrounded this battle it has hardly received any negative criticism – with such scrutiny has the author treated the sources and source references. ...

Developed to provide the US military with a fast-moving reconnaissance vehicle sufficiently armed to knock out WWII-era armoured vehicles. The M8 Armoured Car and its sibling, the M20 Armoured Utility Vehicles, were the most widely used armoured vehicles built by Ford. These vehicles saw use with the US Army as well as Allied nations during WWII and well into the 1960s.

During the 1930s in the Soviet Union a remarkable range of auxiliary armoured vehicles were produced for the Red Army which have rarely had the attention they deserve, and Alexey Tarasov's photographic history is the ideal guide to them. These innovative designs demonstrate the diversity and innovation of the Soviet arms industry. Among them were armoured flails, ambulances, bridge-layers, flame-throwers and amphibious cars which prefigure similar designs made by western engineers during the Sec...

In the autumn of 1976, the US Army conducted REFORGER 76. Exceptional during this exercise was the participation of the 101st (US) Airborne Division in two corps-level field training exercises in Germany, with the airmobile forces providing valuable support to the armoured formations. FTX Gordian Shield was conducted in Hesse during the period 6-11 September, whereas FTX Lares Team took place in the Franconian region of Bavaria from 11-17 September. In total, Gordian Shield involved 36,000 troop...

The Panzerhaubitze (armoured self-propelled howitzer) is the backbone of the modern German Army’s Corps of Artillery from its creation in 1956 up till today. In the 1950s and 1960s the German Artillery was dominated by Panzerhaubitzen of U.S. origin: The M 7, M 44, M 52, M 55 and finally, from 1964, by the M 109. From 1998 the German-made Panzerhaubitze 2000 was fielded. This publication shows the armoured self-propelled howitzers from the M 7 to the Panzerhaubitze 2000 with many hitherto unpubl...

Battlefield Germany - The three corps of the German Army had a key role in NATO’s defence plan for West Germany during the time of the Cold War. Missions of the different corps focused on possible main points of entry that might be used by well-equipped tank armies of the Warsaw Pact: I. (GE) Corps was responsible for the north German plain, III. (GE) Corps for the Fulda Gap and II. (GE) Corps for the low and high mountain ranges of southern Germany. In the 1970s, in turn each of the German corp...

More than 4000 examples of the M4A2 Sherman tank were sent to the Soviet Union during WWII. This book looks at the origins of the M4A2 in service and a detailed assessment of how they fared.

This fascinating history, recounted from both the American and Japanese perspectives, follows the course of the Empire of the Sun's ultimately unequal struggle against the great allied powers. Drawing on archive material, this new history provides the reader with piercing strategic and political insights which debunk many of the enduring myths which encompass Japan's apocalyptic drive for hegemony in Southeast Asia. Why did Japan invade China? Was war with America and the British Empire inevitab...

Hitler's shock decision to launch the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 was arguably the turning point of the Second World War. Spectacular early victories saw the Nazis close in on Moscow but the Soviet 1941/42 winter counter offensive changed the odds entirely. Without doubt Russian winter conditions were a major factor compounded by the Germans' woeful lack of preparedness.

The period after the Great War marked significant geopolitical perturbances in Europe. The collapse of empires, colonialism and the rise of communism and other extremist movements, opposed the liberal understandings of free market, democracy and national self-determination. In South Eastern Europe, the idea of shared South Slavic state brought together nations previously engaged on opposite sides in the War. Battles for political and national dominance, hegemony, clashes of different ideas and c...

A long-awaited book of the Panzer Normandy 44 series! After more than 15 years of intensive research, and thanks to numerous veterans of the schwere Panzer-Abteilung 503, author Max Stein gathered the definitive documentation on this Tiger tank unit in Normandy during the summer of 1944. Among others, the testimonies of Walter Scherf (interim battalion commander and Kompaniechef of the 3. Kompanie), Richard von Rosen and Gotthold Wunderlich, the last veteran of this unit (99 years old!), bring n...