A detailed, illustrated study of Germany's Panzer forces that invaded the Soviet Union, explaining how and why they performed as they did.
Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany's huge and fateful invasion of the Soviet Union, was the culmination of nearly two years of European conquests. By the time of Barbarossa, Germany's Panzer forces had honed their Blitzkrieg methods of fast-moving warfare, but fighting across the wide expanses of eastern Europe would present them with their greatest challenge yet. While the Germans overran the Red Army at the start of the campaign, Barbarossa would end in failure.
Written by one of the world's experts on armoured warfare, and presenting newly uncovered data on the forces involved, this book explains the doctrine, organization, and technical capabilities of the Panzer forces, with a short overview on the armour of other Axis forces including Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Finland, and Italy.
The speed and shock value of the Panzer divisions was essential for the Wehrmacht to prevail over the Red Army in a brief campaign of annihilation. Packed with archive photos and superb original tank illustrations, this book explains how problems with the Panzers were a significant reason for the eventual failure of Barbarossa.
Michael Napier describes the naval air power deployed by NATO, Warsaw Pact and neutral countries throughout the Cold War.
In 1949, an Iron Curtain was drawn across Europe, and the Cold War that ensued between the Western North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries and the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact lasted through to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. NATO and Warsaw Pact naval forces spread over the world's oceans, and the powerful forces of the US Navy's Second Fleet patrolled the North Atlantic, while the Sixth Fleet was positioned in the Mediterranean. The age of the nuclear-powered supercarrier arrived in 1957 with the USS Forrestal, while the Soviet Union's first aircraft carrier, the Kiev, was commissioned in 1975.
In Over Cold War Seas, respected aviation author Michael Napier examines the naval air power of the major combatant forces as it developed from 1949 through to 1989. All the major naval aircraft types are covered, both fixed wing and helicopters, which entered service in the 1950s for light transport or rescue duties and evolved into multi-purpose machines capable of performing anti-submarine and airborne early warning missions. This detailed text is supported by a wide range of first-hand accounts of operational flying during the Cold War, as well as over 220 high-quality, contemporary images.
As World War I ended, the victors were developing a powerful new generation of 'hyper-dreadnoughts' and battlecruisers. Fully illustrated, this studies the big-gun warships that never were.
1918 was a moment of great naval change. Britain still had the largest fleet in the world, but its ships were ageing, and many of them were markedly inferior to the latest American and Japanese battleships. An arms race loomed between the war's victors.
In this book naval expert Angus Konstam studies and compares the battleships being designed between 1918 and 1922, which drew on the lessons of World War I. Britain was designing four G3-class 15in-gun battlecruisers, plus four N3 'hyper-dreadnoughts' mounting colossal 18in guns. The US Navy was planning six new South Dakota battleships, carrying an incredible 12 16in guns, plus six Lexington-class battlecruisers. Japan was working on a similar project, and in 1920 the first of four Amagi-class battlecruisers were laid down.
However, in 1922 this costly arms race was averted by the Washington Naval Treaty, which halted new battleship construction, and limited the major fleets. These battleships and battlecruisers were mostly cancelled and scrapped, with a few, such as Lexington and Akagi, converted into aircraft carriers. With new colour reconstructions of the G3, H3, South Dakota, Lexington and Amagi classes, this is the first book to study these never-built monster warships.
The fascinating story of Republican Rome's gruelling six-year campaign against the insurgent Numidian warlord, Jugurtha.
Jugurtha, the adoptive son of Micipsa, king of the Numidians, was initially a much-respected ally of Rome, fighting gallantly alongside the Romans during the Numantine War in Iberia. Over the course of the campaign, however, the ambitious and hot-headed Jugurtha fell in with more unsavoury company, who urged him to stage a coup d'etat and wrest control of Numidia from the legitimate heirs to the throne. Although he was warned not to consort with some of Rome's more crooked governing elites, this advice fell on deaf ears, beginning a civil war. Rome's response was to decide on war to punish Jugurtha for his acts of aggression. Among the commanders proving their worth against this formidable opponent would be Quintus Metellus and Caius Marius.
Here, classical historian Dr Nic Fields narrates the events of a bruising six-year campaign against the wily, elusive Jugurtha. He explores how Roman military performance was hampered by petty rivalries, knee-jerk partisanship, and grubby jostling between commanders. With photographs and artwork bringing the clashes in North Africa to life, the maps and diagrams provide context for this lengthy campaign. The war constituted an important stage in the Roman subjugation of North Africa, and the rise of the empire.
Germany's legendary Atlantic surface war was fought by Naval Group West. Superbly illustrated, this unpacks the details of how it operated and fought.
Having spent the 1930s on an ambitious but confused bid to build a new battle fleet, Germany began World War II woefully unprepared. Under Marinegruppenkommando West, its heavy ships and raiders were tasked with challenging Allied dominance of the Atlantic.
In this book, Kriegsmarine specialist Lawrence Paterson explores how Naval Group West took on the challenge. He reassesses the qualities of the fleet, and how the confusion over their original role meant that ships like the Bismarck were less than ideal for raiding. Operating as far afield as the Indian Ocean also relied on an elaborate tanker and supply network, as well as Germany's superb signals intelligence. He also explains the complex Kriegsmarine command structure during the 1930s and early war, how responsibility for the ships veered between Naval Group West, the Naval Staff, and type commanders, and how the conquest of France transformed the command. He also explains how the Luftwaffe failed the surface fleet, both in scouting at sea and defending them in port.
With superb artwork, 3D diagrams, maps and archive photos, this book explores and assesses Germany's commerce war, from the Graf Spee's cruise to the ill-fated exploits of Bismarck, and the final high-risk retreat from Brest, the Channel Dash.
The 2025 edition of Warship, the celebrated annual publication featuring original research on the history, development, and service of the world's warships.
For over 45 years, Warship has been the leading annual resource on the design, development, and deployment of the world's combat ships. Featuring a broad range of articles from a select panel of distinguished international contributors, Warship combines original research, new book reviews, warship notes, an image gallery, and much more, maintaining the impressive standards of scholarship and research with which the annual has become synonymous. Detailed and accurate information is the hallmark of all the articles, which are fully supported by plans, data tables, and stunning photographs.
This year's Warship includes features on France's first destroyers, the turn-of-the-century 300-tonne type; Denmark's H-class submarines of World War II; Italy's proposed battlecruiser designs; the Imperial Japanese Navy's Chikuma-class protected cruisers; Soviet S-class submarines; and the first of a series on Imperial Germany's torpedo boats and destroyers.
An illustrated account of the development and action-packed service history of the Jaguar attack jet, featuring first-hand accounts from the pilots that flew it into combat.
Developed as a joint venture between Britain and France, the SEPECAT Jaguar was originally intended to be a jet trainer aircraft, but quickly evolved to fulfil a need for a supersonic attack jet with close air support, reconnaissance and tactical nuclear strike capabilities. After first entering service in the 1970s, it flew operational missions for the RAF almost continuously between 1990 and 2003, including numerous combat missions during the first Gulf War and Bosnian War, and reconnaissance missions over northern Iraq and the Balkans.
In this eventful volume, former RAF pilot Michael Napier expertly chronicles the storied career of the Jaguar, as well as the remarkable experiences of those that flew it into combat. Complemented by 24 aircraft profiles that demonstrate the variety of colours worn and ordnance employed by the Jaguar, a combination of detailed research, first-hand accounts and both official and personal photographs bring to life the actions of an aircraft that was a mainstay of the RAF's attack force for more than a decade.
This fully illustrated study examines the German, Italian and Bulgarian occupation forces in Greece during 1941–44 as well as those of the two Greek Resistance organizations.
Italy's failed invasion of Greece in 1940–41 led to the German invasion of Yugoslavia in spring 1941 being extended into Greece, and, after the fall of Athens and Crete in April and May, the division of the country under German, Italian and Bulgarian occupation. The royal government and Army survivors withdrew to British-ruled Egypt, but at home resistance organizations of differing political character soon sprang up, forming guerrilla forces that exploited Greece's rugged terrain and limited communications.
The strongest resistance force was the Communist-dominated National Liberation Front (EAM) with its partisan Greek Popular Army (ELAS). Agents of the Western Allied powers had only brief success in mediating cooperation between the mutually hostile EAM/ELAS, and the National Republican Greek League (EDES) with its EOEA. Foreshadowing the Greek Civil War that would follow liberation, ELAS and EOEA clashed, in the background to their separate operations against the Axis occupiers.
Drawing upon a wide range of sources, Phoebus Athanassiou charts the development of the fighting in occupied Greece: a struggle as ferocious as that fought in neighbouring Yugoslavia, which cost both the resistance and the Axis forces some 15,000 men killed.
An illustrated study of Rome's key enemies from the Late Principate and Dominate: the western Visigoths and the eastern Ostrogoths.
The Goths were a Germanic people who, under pressure from the Huns, migrated during the 2nd century AD to the Balkans, where they split into the Visigoths to the west, and the Ostrogoths to the east. After first raiding and looting Roman territory, some eventually came to serve as allies to the Empire, but this allegiance would collapse following a Hun advancement that saw the Goths forced south against the Danube. Failure to negotiate settlement in this new, Roman-held territory led to wars, during which the Ostrogoths won a decisive victory over a Roman army at Adrianople (AD 378), and the Visigoths finally sacked Rome itself (AD 410).
In this fascinating study, Roman military historians Raffaele D'Amato and Andrea Salimbetiand Andrea Salimbeti examine Rome's fierce clashes with the Gothic peoples, exploring their role in the fall of the Western Empire and eventual transition from Roman to early medieval Europe. Newly commissioned artwork, artefact photos and expert research combine to bring to life key events in the Goths' history, including the Ostrogoths' defeat by Emperor Justinian in the 6th century, the establishment of Gothic kingdoms in Italy and the Iberian Peninsula, and their service as subjects and soldiers in Byzantine Crimea.
A gripping account of the most famous convoy operation of the war, which marked a high-water mark for the German naval campaign in the Arctic.
The Arctic was a vital conduit for transporting supplies directly from Great Britain to Russia. The British Home Fleet was tasked with protecting these convoys, which passed within range of the German bases in Norway. By 1942, the Germans had reinforced their air and naval forces, stationing a powerful naval surface group there centred around the battleship Tirpitz.
Convoy PQ-17 was set to be the last convoy to sail until the autumn of 1942, and was a particularly large one, involving 35 merchant ships, over half of which were American. When it departed Reykjavik on 27 June, bound for Archangel, the Germans were ready and waiting. The convoy was the first large joint Anglo-American naval operation under British command.
Here, expert naval historian Angus Konstam documents the withdrawal of the Allied close escort to intercept the German raiders, and the devastating attacks on the scattered merchant ships by German aircraft and U-boats. Maps and diagrams plot the passage and fate of the convoy elements, and stunning artworks bring to life key moments of their efforts to escape. In the end, 24 Allied ships were sunk, and only ten merchant ships and four auxiliaries reached the port of Archangel. PQ-17 would prove to be the worst convoy loss of World War II, and the most controversial.
The US cavalry has distinguished itself in battle since the American Revolution of the 1770s. Since then, the cavalry has seen action in the American Civil War and in frequent battles with Native American tribes on the western frontier, and more recently in World War II and the Korean War. This book details the history of the cavalry from its formation to the late 1960s, while profiling some of its most memorable leaders. The text is backed by numerous illustrations, including contemporary photographs, sketches, maps and eight colour plates.
The definitive technical guide to the incredible Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird and its intelligence-gathering systems.
The SR-71 represents the very pinnacle of Cold War aircraft design and it has become an aviation icon. Together with its predecessor, the A-12, the Blackbird was a giant leap into the technical unknown and the design employed many forms of new technology made necessary by the excesses of speed, altitude and temperature to which the aircraft was subjected.
Paul F. Crickmore charts its 34-year Air Force career, in which the SR-71 proved itself to be the world's fastest and highest flying operational manned aircraft. It set a number of world records for altitude and speed, including an absolute altitude record of 85,069ft on 28 July 1974, and an absolute speed record of 2,193.2mph the same day.
This truly was a unique and ground-breaking aircraft, whose fascinating design history is explored here in full and illuminated with photographs and detailed technical illustrations.
Originally designed as a carrier-born, long-range interceptor armed with radar-guided missiles and tasked with defense against missile-launching bombers, the Phantom II went on to establish itself as one of the most important multirole fighter, attack and reconnaissance aircraft of the twentieth century. Going on to play an important role in the war in Vietnam as a workhorse, in addition to the MiG interceptor, the Phantom was a mainstay of Atlantic Fleet operations, intercepting Soviet bomber and reconnaissance aircraft and turning them away from the carrier groups at the height of the Cold War.
This book reveals the design and development history of the Phantom, its variants and the exported designs adopted by other NATO countries. Packed with illustrations, photographs, and firsthand accounts, it provides the technical history of one of the most famous aircraft ever built.
From the creation of the first volunteer paratroop unit shortly after the birth of Israel and of the Israeli Defense Force, this arm of service has been recognized as elite. They have also been the first choice for daring special missions, and it is mainly from their ranks that Israel's Special Forces units have been recruited. A unique aspect of the Israeli military is the cross-posting of officers from the airborne, armoured and other units, to ensure that all unit commanders share their aggressive qualities and thorough understanding of the capabilities of all arms. In this way the influence of the paratroop arm has been out of proportion to its size.
This fully illustrated study is a complete history of Israeli paratroopers from its creation to the present day, including relevant developments in their role and organization, as well as their achievements and setbacks in conflicts such as the Six Days War and Yom Kippur War.
Ever present in the Pacific from Pearl Harbor to VJ-Day during World War II (1939-1945), the B-24 Liberator proved to be the staple heavy bomber of the campaign. From its ignominious beginnings in the Allied rout in the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies, the bomber weathered the Japanese storm with a handful of bomb groups, which played a crucial role in checking the enemy's progress firstly in New Guinea, and then actively participating in the 'island hopping' campaign through the south-west Pacific.
Reveals the tactics, technologies, and specially raised units at the heart of the Union's conduct of combined operations in the American Civil War.
During the Civil War, as well as confronting the Confederates on land, the Union forces mounted several ambitious amphibious operations, both on the coast and along the banks of the great rivers. In this book, renowned historian Ron Field explains how the growing effectiveness of the Union Navy, the willingness of the Union Army to countenance combined operations, and the efforts of officers such as Ambrose Burnside, David Farragut, and John Dahlgren, ensured that amphibious warfare played a key part in the defeat of the South.
In May 1862, foreshadowed by the capture of Roanoke Island and New Bern in North Carolina and Island Number Ten on the Mississippi River, the Union forces' use of combined operations to seize New Orleans dealt a major blow to the Confederacy. The potential of amphibious warfare was revealed by the Union efforts to capture Fort Fisher in North Carolina. While the initial attempt failed in December 1864, a renewed effort in January 1865 resulted in a Union victory. Fully illustrated, this study investigates the amphibious tactics and technologies adopted by the Union forces during the Civil War, and the units raised and equipped to conduct combined operations.
Depicts the forces involved in uprisings and border conflicts after the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire during World War I had included peoples of German, Hungarian, Polish, Czech, Slovakian, Serbian, Bosnian and other origins, whose ambitions for independent nationhood were complicated by mutual religious and ethnic hostilities. In this fully illustrated study, Philip Jowett examines the organization and appearance of the forces involved in the internal risings, border disputes and full-scale wars that followed the break-up of the Empire, as the composition and frontiers of new national states emerged from the immediate chaos.
Principally, Poland restored and defended the nationhood it had lost in the 18th century, while the new republic of Czechoslovakia was established after hostilities against both the Poles and Hungarian communists. Austria became a republic, and its paramilitary Freikorps fought Slovenians in Carinthia and various Serbo-Croat forces. The Hungarian republic defeated a Hungarian Soviet Republic led by Bela Kun, and suffered temporary Romanian occupation of territory including Budapest, while Hungarian nationalists fought Austrian gendarmes. The colourful and diverse armies of these nascent countries are described and illustrated in this lively account of their foundational years.
Despite being relatively unknown compared to famous ships like Graf Spee or Bismarke, or the more famous U-boats, the Auxiliary Cruisers were immensely successful, not only in the number of enemy ships they sank, but in the resources which were tied up trying to track them down. The Royal Navy's auxiliary cruisers tended to be merchant vessels used to protect convoys from attack. The German Auxiliary Cruisers, however, heavily armed and usually carried torpedo tubes as well as guns and even sometimes their own aircraft. These ships were aggressive predators, searching the sea lanes for unsuspecting enemy merchants, and were not only capable of destroying enemy merchant ships, but also of defending themselves against well-armed enemy warships. This book looks at the specifications and designs of the 11 Auxiliary Cruisers, as well as their combat histories, their eventual fates, and the careers of some of the most famous commanders.
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