Will be waiting in hospital tomorrow, while my father in law gets eye surgery, will be taking this one:

I'm not sure he'll appreciate that 

😀

Peter, will you show it to him before or after the surgery?

Quote from: d_Guy on 15 December 2016, 05:11:31 PM
😀

Peter, will you show it to him before or after the surgery?

Before of course, otherwise he may never see it.


Now seriously, i am really taking that one, weird coincidence, but that's the one i'm reading at the moment 

Has everything to do with me buying 'the great war' last month at crisis. Really like that game, and want to read a bit more into the period. I think i will also bring this one:



It's in dutch, but the cover reads: the first world war in pictures.

Hi

Just finished Anthony Beevor's, 'Ardennes 1944'. I thought it was a very good account of 'the Battle of the Bulge' and enjoyed reading it. A minor quibble would be the number of pages spent on battles just prior to the main event e.g. the battle for Aachen and the battle of the Hurtgen Forest, when I would have preferred more pages on the detail of the Battle of the Bulge itself.

He does raise the question (and not for the first time) about the possibility of Montgomery having some form of Asperger Syndrome.

It also got me thinking about books published on WWII before Enigma/Ultra came into general public knowledge and to their usefulness now. I have had Peter Elstob's, 'Hitler's Last Offensive', for many years and read it (and enjoyed it a lot) several times but it was first published in 1971 (I'm pretty sure before Enigma/Ultra came to light) so the book has to be read in that light. (Hope that makes some kind of sense).

Cheers Paul

Emir got me a copy of Paddy Griffiths "Battle in the Civil War" (the version that came with the old computer game. So I am slowly going through it, and enjoying it.

The major read is Pieter Judson "The Habsburg Empire". It is very much like Clarke's "Iron Kingdom". Very interesting themes. The part on feudalism in Galicia is one of the best summaries of all the wrong things with feudalism.

KT

Finished an interesting book by Liddell Hart, "The Current of War".  He had written many articles for the Times based on what was happening about 1936 up to 1941 (Most likely more but this book was published in 1941).  Because this is a collection of what had been written before certain events occurred, he has put together a paragraph introducing each article and discussing what actually happened.

He was pretty much spot on with his comments, as Britain was getting into the war.  He pushed the idea of mechanization and said it was borne out by the Naziz.  He talked about his expanding torrent idea, and how the Germans proved it correct.  All in all, very enjoyable.

I just finished "Tom Horn vs The Warlords of Krupp" by Jackson Paul (a pseudonym) and can't claim it a great work by any stretch. The proof of the text is poor and seems to have been a single hit of spell-check there are so many wrong words, but you can figure out the right ones easy enough - still annoying. The plot is good, but the bottom line that detracts from it for me is that Tom Horn is a greater superman than even Superman!

As an example, here's Tom Horn, a cowboy from a ranch who has only, and just recently, flown in a Zeppelin, but with just a couple of minutes verbal instruction from one of the Wright brothers, and given while the bad guys are knocking at the door, he goes and flies a glide. And not only flies it, but without mishap and lands it safely on top of a moving Zeppelin! I won't even begin to describe all the bodily damage he takes and keeps right on beating vast numbers of bad guys!

All of that aside, it does provide a really good scenario for VSF gaming, and I am mulling over some HotT army possibilities for it.

Terry

For the first time in a couple of months I have started reading a military history book. In this case it is 'Chingis Khan Rides West' all about the Mongol Invasion of Khwarezmia in 1215-1221. Only on p. 23 so far but have already found out some background information that I wasn't aware of.

MickS

Finished "A Greater than Napoleon; Scipio Africanus" by B.H. Liddell Hart.

The author does a great job showing off Scipio's talents and the comparison to different Famous leaders including Napoleon is very interesting.

Another of Liddell Hart's books that I am enjoying.

Warband

Got a game in a couple of weeeks, just refamiliarising myself and trying to decide which army to use (Barbarians at the moment)!

Reading the big book of "Cold War Military Aircraft", which is a Xmas present, and "Cold War Jet Combat" by Martin Bowman on the Kindle (99p).

The former is what used to be termed a coffee table book, lots of big colourful plates and not many writings.

The other is a scoot through jet aircraft fights 1950-1982. Just reading about the "Indo-Pak" wars (not sure you'd get away with that in the UK), and am properly delighted to see the Gnat described as the "Sabre Slayer". Written with a very American viewpoint, it's what I tend to think of an overview which will lead to better things. For 99p, I'm not going to complain. 

I'm about half way through a great book, which I understand is to be the first of a trilogy called "Hell Divers". It's a post-apoc story, but one that really captures you and has just the right amount of actin and tension. The main characters do not seem imbued with Bruce-Willis-Die-Hard Super abilities which I enjoy as it makes the story so much more believable. Also it gives good food for thought.

And one that can esily be adapted to gaming.

https://www.amazon.com/Hell-Divers-Trilogy-Book/dp/1455115983/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1483898739&sr=1-1&keywords=hell+divers

Terry

I've just finished Jane Casey's Reckoning. Awesome!
Last night I started E.J. Ericksonn's Defeat in Detail- Ottoman Army during Balkan Wars 1912-13 (in Turkish). I was waiting so long the get hold of this book.

Finished "Elusive Victory: The Arab-Israeli Wars: 1947-1974" bu Trevor Dupuy.

Another good book with much that is tactical.  Dupuy did interviews with both sides so it seems well balanced.  He gives the Arabs some high marks for their planning and stamina.  Also for the Israelis who changed defeat into victory.