What are you currently reading ?

[steve_holmes_11]

Valour and Fortitude 3.1.

I have a game tomorrow and my sieve like memory can't remember the rules from one fortnight to the next.

[fred.]

This sounds strangely interesting. I also feel it would be well served with a database of the info so you could search and filter. An index that is 50% of the length of the text suggests paper is perhaps the wrong format!

[kipt]

Perhaps.  Under each different unit is a listing such as 450622 for the 13th Fighter Group.  This translates to June 22, 1945, so relatively easy to go to that date in the book and see what happened. In this case the entry is "FEAF B-24's and XIII Fighter Command P-38 dive-bombers attack gun emplacements and defenses in the Balikpapan area;..."

13th Fighter Group is the same as XIII Fighter Command.

[paulr]

Finished "From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow" The Royal Navy in the Fisher Era, 1904-1919, Volume I The Road to War, 1904-1914 by Arthur J. Marder

Very detailed and interesting look at the internal workings of the Admiralty and British and German politics and the various decisions and misunderstanding that lead to the naval war of WWI

I've started on Volume II

[kipt]

Finished "Season Of Fire: The Confederate Strike on Washington" by Joseph Judge.

The book starts with Union General Sigel going south up the Shenandoah Valley in May 1864.  He got beat so Union General Hunter replaced him.  Rebel General Early then came from Richmond with his corps and advanced to the NW of Washington, where he knew that he could not take the city.  general grant, afte3r some hesitation, had sent the Union VI Corps to Washington.  The book does not go intop great detail about Union General Sheridan's strike at Early.

Several characters and their exploits are in the book.  Rebel cavalry leaders, Mosby and Harry Gilmore (a Maryland native) are a couple.  Good descriptions of the actions with good maps.

[kipt]

Finished (again from long ago) "Perryville: Battle for Kentucky" by Kenneth A. Hafendorfer.  My wife and I visited friends in Tennessee and visited this battlefield in Kentucky, so I read up on it. Battle fought October 8, 1862.

Buell for the Union and Bragg for the Confederacy, neither of whom did a great job.  The Union I Corps essentially fought alone for the majority of the battle, there being "acoustic shadow" (look it up) that keep the noise of the almost overwhelmed I Corps from Buell.  Two other Union Corps were withing a mile or two but did most of nothing.

Bragg thought he was fighting just a part of Buell's army (which the way it turned out, he did) but was unaware, due to bad reporting by his cavalry, that he had 2 Union corps on his left flank.

Hot, very little water (and that was fought over) with terrain that was excessively rolling.  Looking at the field I was amazed how much difference in elevation there was between the gullies and hills.

The Confederates were so beat up, Bragg retreated, even though his army defeated the Union troops.  He moved back to join up with a reluctant Kirby smith.  Buell did a perfunctory follow up so the armies drifted apart.

At the visitor's center I bought a couple more books on the battle.  Will see how different they will be.  Recommend this one.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

He means this:
http://www.nellaware.com/blog/acoustic-shadow-in-the-civil-war.html

[kipt]

Also finished (again) while on our trip to Tennessee "Stones River - Bloody Winter In Tennessee" by James Lee McDonough.

Both Rosecrans (who replaced Buell) and Bragg planned an attack on the enemies right flank.  Bragg started first and chased two divisions out and bent back the Union line 90 degrees.  Battle started December 31, 1862.  The Union held as the attacking Confederate troops were totally exhausted.

To Bragg's surprise, since he sent a victory telegram to Richmond, the Union did not retreat.  On January 2nd, Bragg attacked on his right and pushed the Union troops that were on the east side of Stones River to the west side.  However the Union unlimbered 57 guns which stopped the Confederates.  Bragg ultimately retreated so it became the Union victory in the west after the Union "victory" at Antietam, which helped the release of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Good maps and OB's and I will compare it to the new books I bought at the Stones River visitor center.

[kipt]

Finished "Fall Of The Double Eagle: The Battle for Galicia and the Demise of Austria-Hungary" by John R. Schindler.  The story o0f Austria Hungary in WWI.

The empire, made up of several nationalities, was held together by the emperor Franz Joseph I.  The Dual Monarchy, Austria and Hungary (plus others), was way behind the abilities and armaments of the other major European powers.  Hungary was very reluctant to increase the money available to the army unless they received major concessions.  Also, the General Staff (isolated from day to day interaction with "lower" officers and men was not only out of touch but had suspicions about the ethnic reliability of the Slavs, Magyars, Italians and Czechs.  As it turned out these groups were very reliable until the reverses in the war and terrible casualties and poor leadership caused difficulties.

Franz Conrad von Hotzendorf was the head of the military who had predicted many of the problems encountered once the war started. He was also unrealistic as to what his army could do.  Defeated by the Serbs at the beginning, surprised by the Russian artillery and speed of mobilization,  He squandered a million soldiers.

The war caused the demise of the Dual Monarchy and brought into being several new countries.  A very interesting book on this part of WWI.

[fsn]

Re-(re-)reading "The Steel Bonnets" by George MacDonald Fraser of "Flashman" fame.

It's the story of the Border Reivers in the C16.   

[howayman]

A Great read.
I have had three copies so far.
 I keep lending them to people who do not return them and I forget who I have loaned them to.
I have done that to soooo many books. 

[kipt]

Finished "Perryville: This grand Havoc of Battle" by Kenneth W. Noe.  This is the book referenced above that I bought at the Perryville visitor's center.  There are some minor differences between the two authors, but nothing that affects the telling.

The other book has better maps but this has a very good OB, detailing colonels, strengths, killed, wounded, mortally wounded and missing and then a percentage of loss.

Good book.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Blood on the Nile
Written in a jocular Pub Landlord style,
 https://youtu.be/2nvhLr-R_5w?si=f4En2N-Eq-bsJ-Ad
 but actually quite a good, detailed book, obviously with many primary sources read, a large pile of behind the scenes research and pretty well thought out.

[kipt]

Finished "Air War Pacific: America's Air War against Japan In East Asia And The Pacific 1941-1945" Part 2, by Eric Hammel.

Same as part 1 but goes from January 1944 to the end of the war.  Many Aces happened, particularly when the Japanese went Kamikaze and essentially untrained pilots as well as not so good planes.

[kipt]

Finished "Kamikazes, Corsairs, and Picket Ships: Okinawa, 1945" by Robin L. Rielly.

The trials and tribulations of the small ships (DD's, DE's, DM's, LSM(R)'s, LCS(L)'s and PGM's) on the picket line to warn of Japanese airstrikes and kamikazes. Typically one of the DD's would have an air controller who gave directions to the CAP as to direction and height.  Other planes were also assigned but more roving patrols.

As the conflict went on, more and more ships were assigned to each Radar Picket site (RP's), due to the Japanese recognizing how these ships and planes were protecting the anchorages of the invasion force. Ultimately, 206 ships, both destroyer and support ships, served in this capacity. Fifteen ships and support craft were sunk, 50 damaged with 1,348 men killed and 1,586 wounded.  Japanese losses in planes and aircrew were enormous.

Good pictures of ship and plane types, details of damage, aircraft recognition appendix and a good chapter on "The Final View..." detailing how this protection could have been better established.  The Navy view was "The losses seemed quite reasonable.." when looked at the overall scheme of protecting the transports and carriers.

Very interesting and detailed.