Military and Naval
Stephen, count of Blois
On the death of a king, law was lost. When the king died, the peace died with him. Only on the accession of a new sovereign did law return. Knights fled back to their castles in fear of losing them. It was a question of saving what you could at a time when order was suspended. On receiving the news…
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Airpower Ardennes 1944
Luftwaffe Situation The situation for the Luftwaffe was not encouraging. Fuel was the main concern within the Luftwaffe with aircraft availability a close second. The general policy was one of a concerted effort to conserve fuel and assets. This resulted in a stockage of reserve fuel and ammunition as well…
Mongol Conquest of Korea
The Jin made one last attempt to retrieve their situation in 1217, failed, and definitively abandoned the province. But Yelu Liuke’s pro-Mongol grip on the country was always shaky, with a majority of Khitans yearning for independence, and in the very same year a powerful anti-Mongol alliance under Han-she…
Montgomery and Market Garden
The three leading figures, left to right: Lieutenant-General Horrocks, Field marshal Montgomery, and Major-General ‘Tiny’ Barber, 15th Scottish Division. Operation Market Garden – Allied Plan As the north-west Europe campaign progressed, Monty’s TAC HQ moved first from Creullet to Blay, then he shifted his TAC in early August to the…
Battle of the Power Stations II
In March 1943 an important new American medium bomber, the Martin B-26 Marauder, arrived in the European theatre of operations. One of the most controversial Allied medium bombers of the Second World War, at least in the early stages of its career, the Glenn L. Martin 179 was entered in…
Novik – Russian Destroyer Class
Imperial Russian destroyer Novik at anchor in one of the Baltic Fleet ports during peacetime. The four sub-classes and some variants of these 52 Novik class destroyers are depicted on the following chart. The Russo-Japanese War taught the Russians some very hard lessons which they took to heart. The first…
The Tornado Bomb
Zippermeyer Wirbelwind Kanone. Dr. Mario Zippermayr, an eccentric Austrian inventor working at an experimental establishment at Lofer in the Tyrol, designed and built a series of highly unorthodox anti-aircraft weapons that were observed very closely by the Reichsluftfahrtamt (Office of Aeronautics) in Berlin. Due to the overwhelming numerical air superiority…