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During the late twenties and early thirties, experimental exercises were carried out in Germany to study the requirements of a modern mechanised army. Because of the non-availability of armoured fighting vehiCles, a series of Panzernachbildung (simulated armoured fighting vehicles) was produced-representing both tanks and armoured cars-on commercial-vehicle chassis. These helped to determine the requirements of the Wehrmacht. Several such dummy…
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Fighting against the Red Army had taught German veterans of the eastern front almost every trick imaginable. If there were…
The Imperial Japanese Navy’s fleet of battleships had proven highly successful in 1905—the last year of the Russo-Japanese War—culminating in…
Léon Gambetta underway. The ‘Gambetta’ class were excellent steamers, able to make over 17 kts on half boilers and to…
When the Civil War began, leaders in both the North and the South thought that it would be a short war, but the two sides had very different military strategies regarding how to bring about…
Following the attack on Fort Sumter and the secession by the Confederacy the Union devised a strategy to limit the length of the war. Lincoln had no desire for further bloodshed and thus wanted a…
The entire goal of the American Revolution including the penning of the Declaration of Independence was to gain the colonists and the newly formed American nation legitimacy internationally. The Declaration of Independence was written to…
Pursuing their pre-war policies of attempting to subjugate an enemy through bombing, the British and Americans were by 1942 in…
Designed to provide better performance than the Lancaster in the long-range bomber role, the Vickers Windsor had many interesting features,…
In the late afternoon of December 26, Colonel Reuben H. Tucker’s troopers of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment experienced a…
Rommel and Meindl in Normandy 1944. Eugen Meindl was born on 16 July 1892 at Donauschingen in Saxony. He joined…
Henry Morgan and his buccaneers used nuns and monks as human shields in their attack on Porto Bello, Panama during July of 1668. The English Civil War brought the Parliamentarians to power under the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. The Anglo-Spanish War (1654 to 1660) broke out when the Spanish captured…
While Patton’s Third Army was racing through Brittany and towards the south the U.S. First Army under Hodges continued its offensive in an easterly and south-easterly direction in order to widen the corridor of Avranches. General Hodges’s VII Corps took Mortain with its commanding high ground. A pivot had been…
Matilda of Tuscany (1046-1115) ruled over a vast territory in northern Italy and played a major role in the Investiture Controversy, supporting Pope Gregory VII and his reform party in their struggle against the German Emperor Henry IV. She was the sole surviving child of Boniface of Canossa and Beatrix,…
“Damn those exploders…damn them all to hell!” exclaimed the skipper of submarine Jack, Lieutenant Commander Thomas Michael Dykers, on June 20, 1943, as he watched through the periscope and saw a torpedo, fired from an excellent position and at the optimal range of 1,000 yards, “premature” (explode before reaching its…
DEBITS AND CREDITS Mr Churchill, in accordance with his nature, expressed a view rather more generous than that of the Admiral. On the day after the Stringbags, less two, had returned to the nest he stood up in Parliament and spoke with feeling. The Prime Minister deserved his opportunity after…
On 18 October, as Napoleon was setting out from Moscow, Marshal Gouvion St Cyr, who had taken over command of the 2nd Corps from the wounded Oudinot, was attacked outside Polotsk by overwhelming Russian forces under General Peter von Wittgenstein. In a fierce battle lasting two days his emaciated force…
The 2./schwere Panzer-Abteilung 502 did not join its parent battalion in the Heeresgruppe Nord area of operations. Instead, it was sent south to the Proletarskaja Sector and allocated to Heeresgruppe Don. This company would later be integrated into schwere Panzer-Abteilung 503. The 2./schwere Panzer-Abteilung 502 is established in Paderborn, using…
San Martín was a fine example of Portuguese shipbuilding skills. Note the bonaventure mast, set well in-board and not requiring the precarious stern-boom fitted on Henry Grace à Dieu. This painting by Charles Dixon (1872–1934) of the action between San Martín and Ark Royal in the Channel is indicative of…
British coastal assault on St Cast in Brittany in September 1758. A German map, published…
Schnellboot S-80 torpedo boat Camo Operations with the Kriegsmarine S-boats were often used to patrol…
American Lend-Lease supplies to the USSR 1941–45. Soviet historiography is mocked in the West, where…
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