With Hitler's army rampaging across Europe, Winston Churchill ordered the creation of a special fighting force-- the Commandos. These valiant men were volunteers drawn from the ranks of the British Army, formed into a Special Service Brigade, and put through a rigorous but highly effective training program. Over the course of World War II they would see action in every major theater of operation, and are credited with numerous feats of gallantry during the D-Day landings. Although many units were disbanded after the war, the Royal Marine Commandos have maintained the standards of this elite fighting formation to the present day.
Angus Konstam explores the history of the Commandos during their formative years, providing detailed descriptions of their training, weapons, and equipment. Battle reports are accompanied by specially commissioned Osprey artwork and historical photographs, offering readers an in-depth analysis of some of the most famous fighting units in the British Army's history.
The Imperial Japanese Navy's Special Landing Force units enjoyed a reputation out of proportion to their small size.
Often wrongly termed “Imperial Marines”, they were in fact sailors led by Naval officers, and traced their origins directly to landing parties from warships. This book charts their history, from their true combat debut was at Shanghai in 1932; thereafter the SNLF expanded and fought in the assaults that followed Pearl Harbor in 1941, and were dispersed as island garrisons during the Pacific campaigns.
With an unprecedented, detailed look at uniforms and equipment, Gary Nila and Robert A Rolfe's text is accompanied by color photos of original items from private collections.
Featuring full-color artwork, this book describes and illustrates the Chinese and North Korean troops who fought US and UN forces in Korea during 1950–53.
In June 1950, North Korean forces armed and equipped by the Soviet Union invaded South Korea, forcing back the US and South Korean troops facing them and threatening them with complete defeat. After the US and UN forces mounted a series of counter-offensives, the Chinese People's Volunteer Army crossed into the Korean Peninsula and entered the fray; the conflict would continue for three years until the armistice of July 1953, and tensions remain high today.
The exploits of the North Korean and Chinese forces in the Korean War are renowned, but many misconceptions have grown up about these armies. In this study, carefully chosen photographs and specially commissioned artwork combine with authoritative text to reveal the evolving organization, tactics, uniforms, insignia and equipment of these formidable Communist troops during three years of warfare in the Korean Peninsula. Benjamin Lai and Zhao Guoxing reveal the real story of the North Korean and Chinese troops engaged in the Korean War, setting the record straight and deepening our understanding of the conflict.
This illustrated study lifts the veil on the gladiators of ancient Rome, who provided a bloody spectacle for the people of the Eternal City and its vast empire.
By the start of the Principate in 27 BC, the gladiator games were a long-standing part of the social and political life of Rome and its sprawling empire. In the wake of reforms enacted by Augustus, the games continued to be at the heart of Roman culture and politics during the 1st and 2nd centuries AD.
While prominent citizens harnessed the opportunities offered by the gladiator games to enhance their own reputations and reward their clients, the emperors soon assumed a near-monopoly on the provision of games; several even entered the arena themselves, most notoriously Commodus. In the quest for novelty, prisoners, criminals and women came to participate in this grisly 'sport'. Only after the adoption of Christianity as the state religion in AD 380 did armed combat between gladiators enter a decline, and even then beast hunts persisted into the 6th century.
Although much evidence remains, both literary and archaeological, the gladiators and their world continue to be misunderstood. Featuring full-colour reconstructions of these legendary arena fighters, this book draws upon the latest research and the author's own findings to cast new light on these formidable arena fighters and their legacy.
The Numidian light cavalry were among the best-known horsemen in the ancient world: riding without saddles or bridle, carrying only hide shields for defense and clutching a handful of light javelins, they were renowned for their darting attacks, swift retreats, and skirmishing prowess. Yet, as much as they were respected by their allies and enemies, they were unfairly derided for their indiscipline, their perceived lack of culture, and their fecklessness, and dismissed as uncivilized, nomadic barbarians from beyond the fringes of the cultured, settled Mediterranean world. The famous portrayal of Numidian horsemen on Trajan's Column, of barefoot riders in simple tunics, astride tiny ponies, reinforces this view, and is the image that is almost universally reproduced.
Recent scholarship, however, has shown that there is far more evidence for the armour and equipment of the Numidians than hitherto assumed. The carved stone shields and cuirasses that punctuate the decorative friezes of the stone 'altars' at Kbor Klib and Chimtou in North Africa are confident representations of Numidian panoplies, not captured Carthaginian armour as has previously been argued. In this book, this research is presented alongside a close examination of various ancient texts which reveals that the Numidians also fielded infantry, slingers, archers, and even war elephants in conflicts across the Mediterranean, including Spain, Greece, northern Italy, and Thrace. All of these troops are brought to life in original colour artwork, complemented by chapters on their weapons and equipment, history, tactics, and organization.
The 13th century was a time of change for knights in England. They were faced with rising costs and increasing demands on their time for local government because of their very status in society, until knighthood itself was sometimes avoided. This period saw as well the development of the tournament from the wild team events of the early years of the century to the single jousts with blunt lance. Campaign life in the 13th century also embraced several theatres of war including the baronial revolt against King John, the Barons' Wars of Simon de Montfort, and the Welsh and Scottish wars of Edward I. This title also covers the use and development of arms, armour, costume and other equipment.
Featuring evocative artwork plates and carefully selected photographs, this book assesses the US Marines and Japanese troops who contested the islands of Tarawa, Roi-Namur, and Eniwetok during 1943–44.
On November 20, 1943, amphibious vehicles carrying Marines of the 2d Marine Division reached the shores of Betio Island in the Tarawa Atoll, defended by a determined Japanese garrison that would fight to the last man. This began a test by combat of over two decades of US studies, analyses, and planning for capturing and defending naval bases in Micronesia. The Tarawa assault was followed in February 1944 by the rapid capture of the Kwajalein and Eniwetok atolls in the Marshall Islands.
In these battles US Marines fought a mix of Imperial Japanese Navy and Imperial Japanese Army ground units. All but a handful of the defenders, whether they were organized ground combat troops or infantry improvised from aviators and service troops, were determined to die for the Emperor while killing as many of the enemy as possible. In this study, Gregg Adams shows how the US Marine Corps and US Navy drew upon these pivotal actions to improve their tactics, organization, and equipment for the next round of amphibious operations. He also explains how their Japanese opponents – realizing that isolated island garrisons were doomed to destruction or isolation if the Imperial Japanese Navy could not defeat the US Navy at sea – moved from seeking to repel an invasion to one inflicting maximum American casualties through prolonged defensive fighting.
This book examines the role of the Grumman F4F Wildcat, the US Navy's standard carrier fighter at the start of the Pacific War, and its clashes against the Imperial Japanese Naval Air Force's Mitsubishi A6M Zero-sen.
The US Navy went to war in December 1941 with the tubby Wildcat, the first of Grumman's famed 'cats', as its principal carrier fighter. Ruggedly built and well armed, the F4F's performance was inferior to the Japanese Zero-sen, yet in the carrier battles of 1942 between the US Navy and the IJN the Wildcat pilots more than held their own against some of the finest naval aviators in the world. Many of the Wildcat pilots that saw action in the South Pacific comprised what respected naval historian John Lundstrom has called the 'First Team' – the small group of highly trained prewar pilots who manned the bulk of the US Navy's carrier fighter squadrons.
Illustrated with specially commissioned artwork, including armament views and ribbon diagrams, the book examines the carrier battles that took place in August and October in the South Pacific around the first American offensive of the war – the amphibious assault on the island of Guadalcanal, and the actions of the Wildcat in combat with IJN carrier aircraft. The key combat actions are described and accompanied with rare and original photographs and diagrams, as are the training and tactics that contributed to the Wildcat's success.
This vivid narrative history tells the full story of the US Air Force's involvement in the wars in the air over Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
The involvement of the US Air Force in the Southeast Asian Wars began in 1962 with crews sent to train Vietnamese pilots, and with conflict in Laos, and finally ended in 1972 with the B-52 bombing of Hanoi, though there were Air Force pilots unofficially flying combat in Laos up to the end in 1975. The missions flown by USAF aircrews during those years in Southeast Asia differed widely, from attacking the Ho Chi Minh Trail at night with modified T-28 trainers, to missions “Downtown,” the name aircrew gave Hanoi, the central target of the war.
This aerial war was dominated by the major air operations against the north: Rolling Thunder from 1965 to 1968, and then Linebacker I and II in 1972, with the latter seeing the deployment of America's fearsome B-52 bombers against the North Vietnamese capital Hanoi. These operations were carried out in the face of a formidable Soviet-inspired air defence system bristling with anti-aircraft guns and SAM missile sites. Beyond this, the US Air Force was intimately involved in secret air wars against Laos and Cambodia – one cannot speak of a war only in Vietnam regarding US Air Force operations. The war the Air Force fought was a war in Southeast Asia.
Following on from the same author's The Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club, which told the story of the US Navy's involvement in the Vietnam War, Downtown completes the picture. Featuring a wide range of personal accounts and previously untold stories, this fascinating history brings together the full story of the US Air Force's struggle in the skies over Southeast Asia.
Robert Forczyk covers the development of armoured warfare in North Africa from Rommel's Gazala offensive in 1942 through to the end of war in the desert in Tunisia in 1943.
The war in the North African desert was pure mechanized warfare, and in many respects the most technologically advanced theatre of World War II. It was also the only theatre where for three years British and Commonwealth, and later US, troops were in constant contact with Axis forces.
World War II best-selling author Robert Forczyk explores the second half of the history of the campaign, from the Gazala offensive in May 1942 that drove the British forces all the way back to the Egyptian frontier and led to the fall of Tobruk, through the pivotal battles of El Alamein, and the final Allied victory in Tunisia. He examines the armoured forces, equipment, doctrine, training, logistics and operations employed by both Allied and Axis forces throughout the period, focusing especially on the brigade and regimental level of operations.
Fully illustrated throughout with photographs, profile artwork and maps, and featuring tactical-level vignettes and appendices analysing tank data, tank deliveries in-theatre and orders of battle, this book goes back to the sources to provide a new study of armoured warfare in the desert.
The dramatic eruption of the Arab peoples from Arabia after their adoption of the Muslim faith in the 7th century remains one of the most extraordinary events in world history. By the end of that century they ruled a state that stretched from the Atlantic to India, from southern Arabia to Central Asia, covering an area far greater than that of the Roman Empire. Therefore warfare, at least among the nomadic bedouin, was a normal aspect of life. Complemented by numerous illustrations, including eight full page colour plates by Angus McBride, this detailed text by David Nicolle tells the real story of the armies of the Muslim conquest.
Henry V became King of England in 1413. He was one of the great warrior kings of the country, cast in the same mould as Edward I and Edward III. He was just, pious, athletic, chivalrous, acquisitive, ruthless and eager to gain honour on the field of battle. Henry hoped that a successful campaign against the nation's traditional enemy would draw the people together and establish the popularity of the Lancastrian dynasty. This splendid addition to Osprey's Men-at-Arms series explores the background, organisation and equipment of the armies which fought in one of the most famous conflicts in England's history – the Battle of Agincourt.
In the early crusades men of all ranks from all over Europe took the cross and went to fight Islam as volunteers. Some went out of religious fervour, others to escape the plagues and famine which were rife at the time, still others in search of land or a fortune in loot. Fighting alongside all of these were the armies raised in Outremer, the Holy Land itself. Together they waged a bloody religious war, the participants of which included such forces as the Knights Templar, the Teutonic Knights, and the Byzantine Army.
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