What are you currently reading ?

[kipt]

Finished Volume 4 of Samuel Eliot Morison's US Navy set, "Coral Sea, Midway and Submarine Actions".  Really like this set and have been painting Japanese and British ships for the Indian Ocean fights.

[kustenjaeger]

Blood Cries Afar by Sean McGlynn. Subtitled 'The Magna Carta War and the invasion of England 1215-1217'. 

[toxicpixie]

Having been on a Battletech kick recently, I've just finished the Shrapnel "Slack tide" anthology, am nearly through the Jade Falcon trilogy with Aiden Pryde and am working through the Shrapnel magazines courtesy of the Humble Bundle cheap offer (the first dozen for a tenner!).

Great literature they aren't, but great fun they are!

[Ithoriel]

Catching up on the Marcus Didius Falco historical crime series by . Books 11-15 read in six days, mainly due to gout preventing me doing much else.

Also trying to stop myself getting into Gangs of Rome.

Hopefully Joy of Six will lure me back to things I'm already doing!

[flamingpig0]

Vampirella versus Purgatori graphic novel

Which does pass the Bechdel Test.

[fsn]

Catching up on the Marcus Didius Falco historical crime series by . Books 11-15 read in six days,

Excellent reads. 

[Raider4]

Sorry, ignore me.

[kipt]

Finished another Morison, "The Struggle for Guadalcanal: August 1942-February 1943".

Easy reading.

[kipt]

And another Morison, "Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier: 22 July - 1 May 1944", volume 6.  Morison is a great writer; very easy reading which keeps your interest.

[kipt]

Finished the "Guide To The Atlanta Campaign:Rocky Face Ridge to Kennesaw Mountain" edited by Jay Luvass & Harold W. Nelson.  Maps and reports from the generals involved.  The narrative follows Sherman's push to Atlanta against General Johnston.  it does not include the battles around Atlanta.

The guide consists of current day road directions to the different points of the campaigns and then goes into reports from those involved.  There is an Appendix written by Jay Luvass discussing Sherman's Logistics and the use of the railroad that is very interesting.  Also has the OB's for both armies.

[kipt]

finished an interesting book "Seize The Fire: Heroism, Duty, And The Battle Of Trafalgar" by Adam Nicolson.  It can best be described as a psychoanalysis discussion of Nelson, the British officers mindset and "cultural differences" from the French and Spanish.

Once it gets to the battle there are good descriptions of the carnage and destruction in those ships that were engaged.  Overall, it is engaging with a psychology bent.

[kipt]

Finished "Decisions At The Wilderness And Spotsylvania Court House: The Eighteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Battles" by Dave Townsend and maps by Tim Kissel.

The meat of the book is a discussion of the author's take on 18 decisions he says are critical.  These are developed by discussing the situation, listing options the commander(s) could take (with 2 to 3 options), the decision made and then the Results/Impact.  This method gives a good review of what happened.

Appendix I is a battlefield guide to each of the decisions (so very repetitive narration) with driving directions around the battlefields and maps of the stops.  The maps however do not show troop placements so in my mind are of limited value.  The US Army War College guides are much better in this respect.  There are also photographs illustrating the areas fought over.

Appendices II and II are the OB's of the Union and Confederate armies, listing commanders and units (but no strengths).

[Steve J]

Brothers in Arms by James Holland. Focusing on the Sherwood Rangers, it covers similar ground I've read in plenty of other books, but has lots of interesting snippets that I haven't come across before. As with all his books, very readable and the pages flip by, which can't be said of other books on the NWE campaign. Highly recommended.

[kipt]

Finished volume 7 "Aleutians, Gilberts and Marshalls: June 1942-April 1944" of Samuel Eliot Morison's history of the US Navy.

Recommended if you are interested in WWII naval of the US navy.

[kipt]

Finished volume 7, the "Aleutians, Gilberts and Marshalls: June 1942 - April 1944" of Samuel Eliot Morison's history of the US Navy on WWII.  Recommended if you are interested in the US Navy.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Finished 'War Bodies' by Neal Asher
Brilliant hard sci-fi

[petedavies]

The (US) "Field Artillery Journal", August 1946. A few pdfs appeared in a Google search for something else.

Interesting to get a flavour of the end/immediate aftermath of WWII.

One article was a surprise to me - describing the use of radar for ground surveillance & artillery targeting in NW Europe theatre from late 1944(!) directing fire against vehicle concentrations and road movements (including a single, very unlucky horse-drawn cart) and even a guided interception of an enemy foot patrol at night. The radar also picked up the shell bursts for correction (range accurate to 10 yards).

Fancy stuff for 1940's technology...

Cheers,
Pete

[toxicpixie]

That's a good read, cheers!

[kipt]

Sorry about the double entry above.  Didn't think the first one took.

Finished "Guide To The Battle Of Shiloh" edited by Jay Luuvas, Stephen Bowman and Leonard Fullenkamp, and part of the U.S. Army War College Guides To Civil War Battles.

Unlike the previous Guide on the Wilderness and Spotsylvania battles above, this book shows troop positions as part of the stops on the battlefield tour.  Much preferred so one can orient the troops and see what the discussion highlights.  These are very good guides.

[John Cook]

Campagne de Prusse (1806) – Iena.  P Foucart.  Paris, 1887

This is not a conventional narrative history of the campaign.  It sets out to examine how the Gran Army inflicted such a catastrophic and absolute defeat on the Prussians in so short a time, even by the standards of Napoleonic campaigns generally.  It does so principally through the mind of its commander, and other personalties, reflected in their correspondence and despatches.
 
In simple terms it was a combination of staff procedures, army organisation, logistics and, above all, the personality of its commander.  Napoleon also anticipated the Prussian declaration of war and was already ahead of the game by a month.  This is seen clearly in his correspondence, from which a number of other things become apparent. 

The first is Napoleon's micro-management style.  In addition to being the commander of France's principal army, he was also France's head of State, yet we see him giving detailed orders on the minutiae of the composition of individual regiments, even of the companies within them, and in the next moment corresponding with other heads of state. 

The second is that hardly anything happens without an instruction from him and, third, delegation of responsibility is minimal.  It is a style that leaves little room for individual initiative by subordinates.  Corps commanders were not taken into Napoleon's confidence and were generally ignorant of his plans; they were also often unaware of what other Corps commanders had been ordered to do and during the days when the army concentrated for battle, they were told little more than to move from A to B.

Full of wonderful detail concerning the planning of the campaign, its execution and after-action reports of Corps commanders. 

The author was a member of the Historical Section of the General Staff of the French army when he wrote this study in 1887.  The Historical Section published a number of studies of Napoleonic campaigns between 1884 and 1914 its mission being the education of French officers following the debacle of 1870 with a view to re-learning the principles of war through lessons of the past.

A download of the book can be found here:  Campagne de Prusse (1806) d'après les archives de la guerre : Foucart, Paul Jean, 1852-1923 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive