Organisation
Red Army Shermans of WWII Part I
The story of the Sherman tank in Soviet service during World War II has received little attention outside Russia – or as it was, the Soviet Union. Although from 1941 to 1945, the USSR and the United States were allies, the Cold War commenced almost immediately after the defeat of Germany and any help that the western Allies may have…
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Evaluating Armoured Warfare on The Eastern Front I
Popular Mythology The Russo-German War in general, and armoured combat on the Eastern Front in particular, have remained popular subjects in English-language historiography of the Second World War for the past six decades. However, much of what Anglo-American readers know or think they know about armoured warfare on the Eastern…
Evaluating Armoured Warfare on The Eastern Front II
Terrain and Weather Factors Between September 1939 and May 1941, German panzer divisions had encountered no serious difficulties in their campaigns due to either adverse terrain or weather conditions (other than the English Channel, which was conveniently ignored). In particular, Panzergruppe Kleist had been able to quickly pass through the…
Early Military Organisation of Norman England
In other words, although we seem after 1086 to find a classic system of landholding in which tenants hold land from barons and barons hold from the King, all owing military service rather than money and all bound together in a feudal ‘pyramid’ with the King at its top and…
French Infantry 17th Century
A company of French infantry arrayed for parade, as depicted in Allain M. Mallett’s Les travaux de Mars (1672) The essential point about the French infantry company was that it was too small to operate as an autonomous military unit. The simplest tactical formations of the period required substantially more…
Hapsburg Military 17th-18th Century
The Habsburgs tried to fight the Thirty Years War using these structures by claiming that the Bohemian Revolt was a breach of the public peace, while presenting Swedish intervention as a foreign invasion. Throughout, they legitimated their operations by issuing mandates summoning their opponents to lay down their arms and…
1 Group RAF Bomber Command Conversion to “Heavies”
A rare picture of a Halifax II of 460 Squadron’s Conversion Flight at Breighton in late 1942. Earlier in the year a decision had been taken at Bomber Command HQ at High Wycombe to convert the all-Wellington 1 Group to heavy aircraft. By this stage of the war the first…