What are you currently reading ?

[kipt]

Finished a small booklet, "Shenandoah Valley Campaign, 1861-1862: A Study of the Strategy and Tactics" by A. Kearsey (who was a LTC of the General staff) and is a reprint by Naval and Military Press.  Probably written after WWI.

Interesting discussion about Jackson's Valley Campaign, but also about First Bull Run.  Didn't learn anything new however.

[kipt]

Finished the July issue, #63, of the "Gettysburg" Magazine.

Articles include:

Battery G, 1st Rhode Island Light Artillery in the Gettysburg Campaign

"Gen. Meade Showed No Disposition to Attack Us': Lee's Uncontested Escape Across the Potomac, July 14, 1863

The Army of the Potomac Artillery Reserve

and several others.  Always a good magazine.

[Raider4]

Finished the July issue, #63, of the "Gettysburg" Magazine.

63 issues of a magazine. All about 1 battle?

[kipt]

Actually yes, but is does go into the before and after.  Probably an article about every brigade in both armies within some issue.

Many human interest stories as well.

[T13A]

Hi

Just did a quick count on my bookshelves, I have nineteen books specifically about the battle of Gettysburg or just about certain aspects of the battle (that is not counting other histories of the war which cover Gettysburg). 

Cheers Paul

[mollinary]

Hi

Just did a quick count on my bookshelves, I have nineteen books specifically about the battle of Gettysburg or just about certain aspects of the battle (that is not counting other histories of the war which cover Gettysburg). 

Cheers Paul

You just prompted  me to have a look at my own shelves.  Twenty nine, if you don't  count "The Killer Angels''.

[T13A]

Hi Mollinary

You now have me worried about what I am missing out on? 

Cheers Paul

PS I have been lucky enough to go there twice though. 

[Steve J]

Volume 11 of Airifx Magazine.

[Techno]

Listening to "Hadrian", by Antony Everitt.

Have to admit that the first time I tried to listen to it, (ages ago) I was a bit disappointed, because I was expecting an historical novel, and I gave up after a couple of discs.
A much more academic 'book' than is my 'norm'......But I've stuck with it, and (to me) it's really very good......Though there's an awful lot of it that really is about what was happening during Hadrian's 'formative years'.

(And there's me going....."Hurry up, and go and build that wall."...all the time)

Think I'm on disc 8, now.....and he's only just reached being 'in charge'.

Cheers - Phil

[Chris Pringle]

"Ernest Hemingway: The collected stories", by James Fenton. Never read any Hemingway before, and was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoy his writing style, as well as the content. Quite a few war stories of interest to us wargamers (Hemingway had plenty of personal experience of various wars). It's a grim business, apparently.

Chris

Bloody Big BATTLES!
https://groups.io/g/bloodybigbattles
http://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1412549408869331/

[Chad]

Just started re-reading Phipps' 5 volumes of "Armies of the First French Republic". Then on to finalising my rules for the French Revolution

[mmcv]

Find I'm doing a lot less reading these days compared to audiobooks, lecture series and podcasts. Been enjoying an audiobook production of the Iliad. History of China podcast. Started Anthony Beevor's Second World War. Finished a lecture series on the rise and fall of the British Empire.

Fiction wise finished Christian Cameron's Salamis in his Long War series. Found this one a bit more of a drag than the previous ones and ended up skimming the last few chapters. Not sure if I'm just loosing my appetite for fiction or the novel was slower than normal due to being more geographically confined.

Started Empire of Bronze series by Gordon Douherty, was initially hopeful after reading the historical notes but a few chapters in and it's clearly suffered from 300ification, with dual wielding generals leaping off bridges into hordes of double-headed axe swinging barbarians.... May give it another few chapters to see if the story picks up enough to see past it but unsure.

[Ithoriel]

"Gladiators 100 BC–AD 200" now finished. A good summary that told me some things I didn't know and reminded me of things I had all but forgotten.

On now to "Dawn of the Horse Warriors: Chariot and Cavalry warfare 3000BC - 600BC" by Duncan Noble - a rather thicker tome.

[Raider4]

"Gladiators 100 BC–AD 200" now finished. A good summary that told me some things I didn't know and reminded me of things I had all but forgotten.

Include any Roman ex-generals who desperately want to kill the Emperor?

"Are you not entertained?"

"ARE!     YOU!     NOT!     ENTERTAINED?"

[Ithoriel]

Include any Roman ex-generals who desperately want to kill the Emperor?

"Are you not entertained?"

"ARE!     YOU!     NOT!     ENTERTAINED?"

Alas, it's a historical treatise not a work of fantasy.

If only they'd made Maximus Decimus Meridius a wrestling coach not a gladiator he could have strangled Commodus in the bath.

[FierceKitty]

Alas, it's a historical treatise not a work of fantasy.

If only they'd made Maximus Decimus Meridius a wrestling coach not a gladiator he could have strangled Commodus in the bath.

Since the advent of the Internet (NSFW filter: disabled), the market for that kind of "Roman" movie has fallen to bits.

[Orcs]

Panzer Killers: Anti-tank Warfare on the Eastern Front by artem Drabkin

This is an interesting book. The intro give organisation details, and then each chapter is a first hand account of a Russian veteran.

If the veterans are correct in their memories.

1 The 45m A/T gun had APDS ammunition available in more than adequate amounts. With this it was able to take on even Panthers if side on.
2 They often used Fragmentation or Canister shells against infantry
3 Part of the standard armament of the crew was a DP Machine gun
4 They were still actively using A/T rifles in 1943 in the antitank role although they knew they were fairly ineffective. They aimed at Tracks, vision slits and where the turret joint the hull

Due to 1-3 perhaps stats should be increased to 3/50 A/T and 2/50 AP, certainly for the later 1942 upgrade of the 45mm

[hammurabi70]

Panzer Killers: Anti-tank Warfare on the Eastern Front by artem Drabkin

This is an interesting book. The intro give organisation details, and then each chapter is a first hand account of a Russian veteran.

If the veterans are correct in their memories.

Looks as if it is an interesting book but I note that a few reviewers doubt the veracity of it; what was your impression of it?

[Steve J]

The following site is full of a wealth of info on the Eastern Front, with plenty on AT capabilities of various guns, shells etc. One thing I learnt was the drop in the quality of German armour as the war progressed, thus allowing for say the 45mm aT gun being able to penetrate the larget tanks. Well worth visiting.

http://www.tankarchives.ca/

[kipt]

Finished "Ordeal By Fire: An Informal History of the Civil War" by Fletcher Pratt (very prolific writer, doing military and naval history and fiction with L. Sprague de Camp.  Also did the Fletcher Pratt Naval War Game rules.  Our king of writer).

Very entertaining history of the ACW.  His style is lively and he throws in words and phrases evidently from his time and that of the ACW that gives a good setting.  Words like "antimacassar"  used in "a room of red plush and antimacassars" and this in the first paragraph of chapter one.  An antimacassar is the little piece of cloth or embroidery that goes over the back of a chair to protect it - who knew?

Phrases like "poor as Job's turkey"  which is a phrase I found in Google.

The book reads like action itself and I recommend getting a copy.  I like it enough to get a paperback copy for a friend's birthday present.  Unfortunately the paperback does not include the maps (so I made copies for him).  Not super accurate maps however.