What are you currently reading ?

Started by goat major, 03 November 2012, 06:40:05 PM

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kipt

Finished "Great Military Disasters" by Geoffrey Regan.

Part One has 3 chapters; The Commanders, The Planners and the Politicians.  Enough blame to go around.

Part Two has 11 chapters; from The Expedition to Cadiz (1625) to The Suez Operation (1956).  I hadn't realizes what a mess that was.

Interesting and a quick read.

Leman

Currently just read Et Sans Resultat Napoleonic rules. Probably a set I could use as, unlike a lot of Napoleonic rules, it focuses on command and control rather than various troop formations, type of weapon etc. The mechanisms remind me of a number of other rules I have played and enjoyed, most specifically Altar of Freedom and Bloody Big Battles. It is a very weighty tome in the version I bought, but this is because each phase of the move is thoroughly explained and then followed up by a number of examples of play, most of which are accompanied by clear diagrams. From the publisher's home page (The Wargaming Company) there are numerous free downloads including 5 different playsheets in different scales, ranging from 50 yards to the inch to 200 yards to the inch, which means different sized battles can be represented on, in most cases, a 6x4. The sheets are also available in black background, as per the rulebook, white background and also metric. If anyone is interested I am happy to discuss this further in the rules thread.
The artist formerly known as Dour Puritan!

Chad

I looked at ESR as well, but as the ground scale varies so do the base sizes. I was looking at a campaign where engagements and ground scale varied and the author of the rules suggested this could only be handled by using sabots, which was'nt to my taste.

Leman

Or, as I intend, you can just completely ignore that. It is not the sort of thing I get my knickers in a twist about.
The artist formerly known as Dour Puritan!

Steve J

Blitzkreig by Len Deighton. Picked up by chance from my bookshelf and enjoying re-reading this superb book :).

Terry37

My copy of HDIV arrived today, so I'll set Watership Down for a few days and read it, and then return to hazel and company and their adventures.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAz1N8YmHa0

Terry
"My heart has joined the thousand for a friend stopped running today." Mr. Richard Adams

paulr

Lord Lensman of Wellington
2018 Painting Competition - Runner-Up!
2022 Painting Competition - Runner-Up!
2023 Painting Competition - Runner-Up!

Terry37

Paul, if you are referring to my switching form WD to HDIV, yes it is. However. Nick Smith's Hell Diver series is so awesome I could not wait to read the new installment. And having read WD so many times I nearly know it by heart I'll have no trouble picking it back up.

Terry
"My heart has joined the thousand for a friend stopped running today." Mr. Richard Adams

kipt

Finished "The Army of the Future" by General Charles DeGaulle.  this edition translated by Walter Millis, 1941.

DeGaulle was a very forward looking young officer and did a good job predicting the war of the future.  I am impressed by his forethought.

Good, quick book to read - only 178 pages.

kipt

Finished "Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II" by Liza Mundy.  This is a very good book, full of personal stories and what they did to break the Japanese codes - naval, army, diplomatic, merchant marine and all the variations of these.  These women had a big hand in the decoding and shooting down of Yamamoto.

10,000 for the army, 15,000 for the navy, mainly housed around Washington DC.  Many teachers, which was primarily the job women could take at this time.  Super sexist and to a certain extent degrading by the men.  No sex per se in the book, not that it didn't happen, but it is not what the book is about.

Recommended for a different look at the war.

Chris Pringle

Quote from: kipt on 11 November 2018, 02:45:58 AM
DeGaulle was a very forward looking young officer and did a good job predicting the war of the future.  I am impressed by his forethought.

I fondly remember visiting Les Invalides (the French military museum in Paris) and seeing the 1940 exhibit proudly claiming de Gaulle had invented Blitzkrieg.

Chris

Bloody Big BATTLES!
https://uk.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/BBB_wargames/info
http://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/

kipt

Finished "Warriors of the Steppe: A Military History of Central Asia, 500 B.C. to 1700 A.D" by Erik Hildinger.  The title says it all - a good history of all the various tribes that fought mounted with a bow.

Some facts I did not know; a yurt is not the individual nomad tent, but a group of them.  The tent is actually called a ger.

While The nomads were strong, it seems no one could stop them.  This came about by cities, as they could not breach the walls until the Mongols brought Chinese engineers with siege engines, and by opponents using the same mounted tactics.  This is a bit of a simplification as there was the usual in fighting when a strong leader died and the horde needed to return to their lands to select a new leader.  This saved a couple of cities and the people in them at various times over this time period.

Good book.

Steve J

Stopping the Panzers by Marc Milner. It covers the build to the Canadian involvement in D-day and the landings through to D-Day +4. So far an excellent read.

Malbork

A double End of the Reich bill - Panzers in Posen and Panzers on the Vistula, both from Pen & Sword (or Helion?).

Both very good for information if you're interested in the last months of WWII, but both spolit by typos and poor translation. In the Vistula book, the Germans are initially equipped with Hunting-Tank IVs and a Jagdpather and the names of certain towns and villages do not correspond to the names on the maps. Looks like there was no (or very poor) proofreading.  If i'd picked them up second hand for a fiver, that would be one thing, but as I got them "nail new" as the translator would probably have it, it's starting to irritate somewhat.  :'(

kipt

Finished "Churchill's Generals",edited by John Keegan.

Chapters on Ironside, Gort, Dill, Wavell, Alanbrooke, Alexander, Auchinleck, Montgomery, Wilson, O'Connor, Cunningham, Ritchie and Leese, Horrocks, Hobart, Percival, Wingate, Slim, Carton de Wiart and Spears.  Each chapter was by a different author.

All in all, sympathetic to all and a good read.