Military History Book Shop

The Silver Bayonet – A Wargame of Napoleonic Gothic Horror, Joseph A. McCullough. An entertaining skirmish scale game that combines the Napoleonic period with gothic horror, seeing teams of competing specialists from different European powers attempting to investigate and defeat monsters from European folklore, so we see musketeers, riflemen etc taking on vampires, goblins or werewolves, in quick moving scenarios. A nice simple D10 based system with a wide range of attributes shared between the heroes, monsters and weapons, a potentially rather brutal combat system (but with mitigation), and a nice experience system that will reward success without letting the winning team pull too far ahead (Read Full Review)

War Story – Occupied France, Dave Neale & David Thompson. A cooperative adventure game that is a combination of a pick your own adventure game and a board game, with the players taking on the role of a team of four SOE agents infiltrating occupied France. Each agent has different stats, some have special abilities, so the choice of agents affects your game. Early choices will have a long term impact, with the game keeping track of the results of earlier encounters and sending you on different paths later on depending on earlier results, so each game will play differently. Plays well, and with linked scenarios has plenty of scope for replaying. Works well as a solo game, but will feel very different with a team arguing about every choice! (Read Full Review)

The Athenian Army 507-322 BC, Nicholas Sekunda. Looks at the Athenian army from its famous peak during the Persian Wars, through the costly wars against Sparta and on to the final breaking of Athenian military power by the Macedonians. Demonstrates that the Athenian army was always more complex than just a hoplite only force, with cavalry, mounted archers and light infantry all playing a part. Also shows how the nature of the Athenian army changed during these two centuries of near constant warfare, and how robust the system was, able to bounce back quite quickly after defeats to the city’s local rivals. (Read Full Review)

Soviet Tanks at Kursk 1943, William E. Hiestand. Looks at the role of Soviet armour in the battle of Kursk, the last major German offensive on the Eastern Front. Covers the way Soviet armoured forces were organised, their tactical doctrine (and why they were generally less effective than the Germans), looks at the Soviet tanks and self propelled guns and lend-lease vehicles that were used and then moves onto the battle itself, where the Soviets lost more tanks (many during counter-attacks), but the outnumbered Germans were unable to make a breakthrough before their focus had to move elsewhere. A good examination of the Soviet use of armour at this battle (Read Full Review)

Allied Tanks at El Alamein 1942, William E. Hiestand. Looks at the second battle of El Alamein, which emerges as a clear turning point in British armoured warfare, with the tanks that would serve for the rest of the war (Sherman and Churchill) fighting alongside the older tanks used in the desert, and a clear improvement in British armoured tactics (if not quite getting things right), which combined with the long range of the Sherman’s 75mm gun to effectively destroy Rommel’s armoured forces and start an Axis retreat that didn’t end until Tunisia (Read Full Review)

Beutepanzers of World War II – Captured Tanks and AFVs in German service, Steven J. Zaloga. Looks at the fate of the very large number of armoured fighting vehicles captured by the Germans during the Second World War, revealing that little use was made of most of them, but with sizable sections on the use of French and Italian vehicles, which were captured in much larger numbers and with their industrial base intact, allowing them to be maintained and used for police and security work as well as being converted into self propelled guns (Read Full Review)

Operation Steinbock 1944 – The Luftwaffe’s disastrous last Blitz over England, Chris Goss. Looks at the Luftwaffe’s last attempt to carry out a major bombing campaign over Britain, in the first half of 1944, carried out in response to a direct order from Hitler, and which had little impact in Britain, but did critically weaken the German bomber force in the months before the D-Day landings (Read Full Review)

Japanese Combined Fleet – 1942-43, Guadalcanal to the Solomons Campaign, Mark Stille. Looks at perhaps the most intensive period of surface naval warfare of the Second World War, the prolonged series of battles around Guadalcanal and in the Solomon Islands, which saw the Japanese win many of the night battles, taking advantage of their excellent torpedoes, but suffer heavy losses that eventually forced them to withdraw from Guadalcanal and degraded their abilities for the rest of the war (Read Full Review)

Defectors from the Reich: The Double Agent and the Adventurer, David Tremain. Looks at two men who defected from Nazi Germany to Britain, focusing on how their cases were handled by the British intelligence services, using a vast array of contemporary documents to build up a picture of the rather complex world of the defector. First looks at a Swiss adventurer who sailed solo to West Africa where he defected, then a German SS officer who defected in 1944 for dubious reasons. Very heavy on sources, so shows how these men were dealt with by the British, but could do with more supporting text (Read Full Review)

Birdman of Auschwitz: The Life of Günther Niethammer, Nicholas Milton. Looks at the career of one of the more unusual men to serve as a guard at Auschwitz, a famous ornithologist and author of the authoratitive guide to German birds of his period, completed during his time in the SS. Focuses on how an apparently decent man could appear cope with the horrors of what was going on around him, in this case by apparently ignoring them and focusing instead as much as possible on his study of birds (although also putting in requests to leave Auschwitz) (Read Full Review)

‘Rosy’ Wemyss Admiral of the Fleet, John Johnson-Allen. Looks at the life of one of the less familiar senior British Admirals of the First World War, responsible for many of the successes at Gallipoli, working with the Arab Revolt and who ended the war as First Sea Lord and helped to negotiate the armistice that ended the First World War, after a peacetime career that included leisurely state visits and time setting up the naval college at Osborne on the Isle of Wight (Read Full Review)

US Army Ford M8 and M20 Armored Cars, Didier Andres. Looks in detail at the development and structure of these two closely related light armored cars, which entered service in 1943. Covers the development in great detail, as well as individual components, from the radios to the guns, and includes photographic surveys of early, mid and late production vehicles, showing how they changed over time. Finishes with a good selection of photographs from the front, showing how the M8 and M20 were actually used (Read Full Review)

RMS Queen Mary – 101 Questions & Answers about the Great Transatlantic Liner, David Ellery. An interesting approach to the history of the great liner, organised mainly into 101 questions with fairly short answers, covering her construction, peacetime and wartime careers and her time in retirement at Long Beach. Includes her wartime service as a troopship, where she carried nearly one million soldiers around the world, relying on her great speed to avoid the enemy. (Read Full Review)

Mediterranean Sweep, Thomas McKelvey Cleaver. Looks at the long and costly air campaign in Italy, which lasted for almost two years, and ended with one of the most succesful air interdiction campaigns, dramatically cutting the amount of supplies the Axis armies in northern Italy were receiving. Shows how this campaign, taking advantage of lessons learnt in North Africa and Sicily, was able to help the Allies avoid defeats at Salerno and Anzio, and eventually helped win a total victory(Read Full Review)

Hitler Strikes North – The Nazi Invasion of Norway and Denmark, 9 April 1940, Jack Greene and Alessandro Massignani. Looks at the Nazi invasions of Norway and Denmark with an emphasis on the German plans and the Norwegian defenses, including detailed information on what defenses were available at each location that was attacked, how they were manned and how effective they were. Shows how the Norwegian government and military were caught short when the Germans attacked, what damage they could have done if all of their coastal defences were fully manned, and the impact of the loss of all major Norwegian cities on the very first day of the invasion. An excellent single volume history of this campaign (Read Full Review)

Mukden 1905 – Russia and Japan’s Battle for Manchuria, John Valitutto. Looks at the key campaign that saw Japan inflict a series of defeats on Imperial Russia, increasing their own military reputation and establishing a foothold in Manchuria, and winning what was the largest modern land battle to that time. Shows how difficult it was to win a decisive victory with two modern armies, a precursor to the bloodshed on the Western Front. (Read Full Review)

After Jutland - The Naval War in Northern European Waters, June 1916-November 1918, James Goldrick. Looks at the problems faced by the rival navies in the second half of the First World War, as they learnt the lessons of Jutland and adapted to a world in which the U-boat, mine and increasing the aircraft were starting to pose a bigger threat. We see the Grand Fleet learning its lessons and becoming a more potent weapon, while never really getting the chance to prove it, the High Seas Fleet show more activity than often believed before decaying in 1918, and small ship operations in the Channel causing problems for the British much of the time. Also looks at the war in the Baltic, where ice posed a major problem, trapping the Russian fleet in port over the winter. An excellent work that demonstrates how active the naval war was after Jutland, and how much effort went into solving the problems posed by new technology that was changing the nature of naval warfare (Read Full Review)

Borneo 1945 – The Last Major Allied Campaign in the South-West Pacific, Angus Konstam. Looks at the last major land battles in the South-West Pacific, where fighting was still going on when the Japanese surrendered. Covers the reasons for the campaign, the commanders, their armies and plans, and the three main battles of the campaign, at Tarakan, Brunei and Balikpapan(Read Full Review)

Crescent Dawn – The Rise of the Ottoman Empire and the Making of the Modern Age, Si Sheppard. A detailed account of the great expansion of the Ottoman Empire in its first three centuries, from its origins as one of many small powers in Anatolia to almost its peak, ruling much of the Balkans, the Middle East, Egypt and North Africa, and threatening to break out into the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Covers Ottoman expansion into the Balkans, Egypt, the Middle East and North Africa, the defeat of the Mamluks and the long wars with the revived Persians, as well as the rise of Ottoman naval power. Ends with a look at the Portuguese entry into the Indian Ocean, and the European search for Prestor John, a mythical Christian ruler eventually merged in the western mind with the rulers of Ethiopia, part of a wider attempt to find allies against the Ottoman power (Read Full Review)

The Nazi and Japanese Human Experimention Programmes – Biological War Crimes during WW2, Tim Heath. Looks at some of the most horrifying war crimes committed by the Germans and Japanese during the Second World War, a mix of genuine if horrific medical experiments, mass murder and what appears to be appalling sadism with little other purpose. Supported by an extensive use of eyewitness accounts, from people ranging from junior German medical staff to survivors of the atrocities, collected by the author over many years. A harrowing read, but also a valuable examination of a very dark corner of the Second World War (Read Full Review)

A6M2/3 Zero-sen – New Guinea and the Solomons 1942, Michael John Claringbould. Looks at the Zero’s use as a land based fighter in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, two campaigns in which they were able to more than hold their own against Allied fighters but at a high cost in experienced fighter pilots which saw the picture begin to change in 1942. Covers the design of the Zero, the training of the pilots and the organisation of their units as well as the actual fighting. This includes bomber escort, interception and ground attack missions, showing how flexible the Zero was (Read Full Review)

Wartime Industry, Neil R. Storey. Looks at several key aspects of the British war industry of the Second World War, starting with the first mass produced item, gas masks, and moving on to the major shadow factory scheme, shipyards, minitions, tanks, vehicles, uniforms and boots, before finishing with a look at the workforce who filled all of these factories (Read Full Review)

Wartime Entertainment – How Britain Kept Smiling Through the Second World War, Anton Rippon and Nicola Rippon. A wide ranging look at the forms of entertainment available in Britain during the Second World War, covering sport, music, theatre, cinema, dances, radio etc. Goes beyond being a simple look at the popular music, films and starts of the era to cover the debates about what sort of entertainment was suitable for wartime, how to provide it, exactly what the famous stars of the period should do, as well as the risks of gathering large crowds in entertainment venues, with several being hit by German bombs causing some large scale tragedies (Read Full Review)

Abandon Ship – The Real Story of the Sinkings in the Falklands War, Paul Brown. Looks at all of the major warships sunk during the Falklands War, starting with the Belgrano and moving onto the seven British ships lost during the conflict. This book looks at those losses, giving each its own chapter, and looking at the events leading up to the attack, the damage that was inflicted, and how the crews reacted in the aftermath of the attack. Shows failings on both sides, along with many examples of individual bravery in the aftermath of the attacks (Read Full Review)

The Hundred Years War 1337-1453, Anne Curry. A splendid shorter account of the Hundred Years War written by one of the most highly respected experts on the period, and with excellent sections on the situation before the war, the less familiar periods of the conflict, the impact it had on civilians and trade, as well as the famous battles of the war. An excellent study of this long war that cast a shadow over Anglo-French relations for centuries afterwards (Read Full Review)

The Gladius - The Roman Short Sword, M.C. Bishop. Covers an impressive range of topics, including how the gladius entered Roman service after being encountered in Spain, why its combination of a strong stabbing point and two strong cutting edges made it so flexible, the many different ways in which it was constructed, and the contemporary Roman debates about how it should be used in battle, and the impact that would have on Roman formations. An excellent look at one of the key weapons behind the success of the Roman army over such a long period (Read Full Review)

Chrome Dome 1960-68 – The B-52s’ high-stakes Cold War nuclear operation, Peter E. Davies. Looks at the 1960s programme to always have a number of US nuclear armed bombers in the air, to provide a rapid response force that couldn’t easily be destroyed by a Soviet first strike, a scheme that may have helped deter Soviet aggression, but also saw several ‘Broken Arrow’ incidents where nuclear armed aircraft crashed with potentially devasting results. Paints a picture of a technically very impressive operation, but one of uncertain benefit, and very great cost (Read Full Review)

US Marine versus Japanese Soldier – Saipan, Guam and Peleliu, 1944, Gregg Adams. Looks at three island battles of 1944 in which the Japanese learnt from their mistakes on Saipan and Guam, where attempts to defend the beaches followed by immediate counterattacks had simply resulted in heavy losses and shortened the battle, and moved onto a defense in the interior of Peleliu, aimed at inflicting as many casualties on the Americans as possible rather than actually stopping the invasion (Read Full Review)

Stalingrad Airlift 1942-43 – The Luftwaffe’s broken promise to Sixth Army, William E. Hiestand. Looks at the failure of the German attempt to supply the besieged Sixth Army at Stalingrad by air, an airlift that only achieved its stated objectives on one day, and more often failed to get anything into the bridgehead, even in the early days when the Germans had access to the better airfields inside the bridgehead, only becoming worse as the Soviets squeezed the pocket, while also threatening the key airfields outside it. Looks at why the decision to attempt an airlift was made, and the effort that went into make the doomed attempt work, as well as the many reasons for its failure (Read Full Review)

The SAS 1983-2014, Leigh Neville. Looks at the S.A.S. during its more visible post-war period, after the Iranian Embassy Siege had brought it back into the public eye. Covers the last years of the Ulster Troubles, the Balkans and the post 2000 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the smaller operations carried out by the unit. Thus looks at a period where the conflicts often played into the Regiment’s strengths, with plenty of high value targets best dealt with by Special Forces (Read Full Review)

USS Princeton, The Life and Loss of ‘Sweet P’, David R. Leick. Looks at the career of the light carrier USS Princeton, one of a class built on cruiser hulls in an attempt to get new carriers into service quickly, and which made a valuable contribution to the war in the Pacific before suffering fatal damage during the battle of Leyte Gulf. Looks at the reason for her construction, the effectiveness of these smaller carriers and the Princeton’s own impressive combat record, before ending with the prolonged efforts to save her after she was hit by Japanese bombs, and the cost of its eventual failure, tragically felt heavily on the cruiser USS Birmingham as she attempted to aid the carrier. (Read Full Review)

The Winter Campaign in Italy 1943 – Orsogna, San Pietro and Ortona, Pier Paolo Battistelli. Looks at the battles that saw the Allies advance to the Gustav Line, where they would end up stuck for several months, covering battles on both ends of the coast, and involving the US and British led wings of the Allied army. Includes battles on the mountain heights in the west, and the impressive German defence of the cosstal town of Ortona in the east, where the German commander turned the town into a trap, ensuring that even after it fell the Allies were too exhausted to continue their offensive (Read Full Review)

Medieval Indian Armies (2), Indo-Islamic Forces, 7th-Early 16th Centuries, David Nicolle. Covers a vast topic, a millennium of Indian history, with at least twenty eight Islamic dynasties claiming some part of the sub-continent. Starts with useful overviews of the involvement of Islamic powers in the area, before moving on to look at the military history and armies, split into five chapters, each of which discusses the main military activities of the period with an overview of what we know about the armies involved (Read Full Review)

Sniping Rifles in the War Against Japan 1941-45, John Walter. Looks at the weapons, training and combat use of Japanese, British and Commonwealth and American snipers in the Pacific and Burma theatres, where the Japanese began with an advantage which they lost as the war progressed. Good sections on the main sniper rifles, as well as how they were used, the counter-measures used against them and what impact they had (Read Full Review)

Operation Ro-Go 1943 – Japanese air power tackles the Bougainville landings, Michael John Claringbould. A detailed examination of the Japanese air campaign that attempted to stop the American invasion of Bougainville, a campaign marked by overclaiming on both sides, and by the failure of a sizable Japanese air campaign to achieve its objectives, or indeed to have any significant impact on the fighting on Bougainville, or indeed to sink any American warships (despite claiming at least two aircraft carriers). (Read Full Review)

Steel Lobsters - Crown, Commonwealth and the last Knights in England, Myke Cole. Looks at the fate of the last regiment of cavalry known to have fought in full plate armour in Britain, the regiment of heavy cavalry raised by Sir Arthur Heselrige for service in the Parliamentary army in 1643, and which had a brief life in full armour, ending with a costly defeat at Roundway Down. Starts with twin biographies of Sir Arthur and his direct rival Richard Atykns, and a look at the way cavalry tactics were changing in the first half of the sixteenth century, before moving onto the Civil War, and Sir Arthur’s experience of battle from Edgehill to Roundway Down. A very atmospheric look at an interesting side-story of the Civil War (Read Full Review)

Fw 190 Sturmjager Defence of the Reich 1943-45, Robert Forsyth. Looks at the heavily armed Sturmjagers, heavy attack fighters intended to make heavy assaults on US bomber formations, ideally to break them up and leave them vulnerable to other fighters. Traces the development of the US threat, the training of Sturmjager pilots, the dedicated Fw 190 variants involved, with almost half the book looking at the combat, showing that the Luftwaffe could still be dangerous late in the war, but at heavy cost to themselves (Read Full Review)

British Lend-Lease Warships 1940-45 – The Royal Navy’s American-built destroyers and frigates, Angus Konstam. Looks at the elderly Town class destroyers and modern Captain class frigates that went to Britain under lend-lease, looking at their development, technical characteristics, life on the ships and giving two examples of combat involved them. Shows how much superior the newer but smaller frigates were to the two decade old ‘flushdeck’ destroyers, but also how both were useful escort vessels, playing a significant role in the defeat of the U-boats (Read Full Review)

Czechoslovak Armies 1939-45, Nigel Thomas. Looks at the varied wartime experiences of members of the Czechoslovakian Army that was denied the chance to defend its country in 1938, and ended up fighting for the Soviets, French, British and with the Resistance, eventually playing a part in the final battle of Prague in May 1945. A useful guide to a widely scattered army that might have made a big difference if its allies had been willing to support it in 1938 (Read Full Review)