What are you currently reading ?

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

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sultanbev

Quote from: fsn on 04 August 2022, 09:57:25 PMThe 3rd volume is about Norwegians ... so I may give that a miss.

The Norwegian army is quite fascinating - it had ski troops!
There was an excellent series in First Empire magazine on the Danish OOB, very detailed.

fsn

Quote from: sultanbev on 06 August 2022, 01:48:16 PMThe Norwegian army is quite fascinating - it had ski troops!
There was an excellent series in First Empire magazine on the Danish OOB, very detailed.
Hmmm. I'm not quite ready for that.

Swedes now, that's a different matter!
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kipt

Finished "The Ghost Army of Worlds War II: How One TOP-SECRET Unit Deceived the Enemy with Inflatable Tanks, Sound Effects, and Other Audacious Fakery" by Rick Beyer and Elizabeth Sayles.

The unit, the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, got to Europe a couple of weeks after D-Day. The unit was made up of HQ, the 603rd Camouflage Engineer Battalion ( for scenery, props, shoulder patches, road signs, costumes, insignias), 244th Signal Company (radio scripts, scenarios, dialogue), the 406th Engineer Company (spear carriers, stagehands, guards) and the 3132 Signal Company (sound effects, orchestra, off-stage noises).

They traveled all over the French and German ETO, setting up rubber tanks, vehicles, artillery pieces, spotter planes, broadcasting sound movements of tanks, convoys, bridge building and troop chatter, wearing fake divisional shoulder patches and visiting French towns and being vocal about the unit they were simulating, all to convince the enemy that they, and not the actual unit, were here, not there.

Lots of pictures, drawings (many were artists in civilian life) and anecdotes about the unit.  Kept secret (probably because of the Cold War) until the 1980's when Smithsonian magazine did an article about the unit.  As the final pages of the book say, "The Twenty-Third Headquarters Special Troops remains the only example of a mobile, multimedia, tactical deception unit in the history of the United States Army...".

Very entertaining read.

kipt

Finished 2 Ospreys, "The Confederate Army 1861-65 (1): South Carolina & Mississippi" and (2) of the same title except Florida, Alabama & Georgia.  Both by Ron Field and illustrated by Richard Hook.

Typical Osprey's, narrative, pictures and colored drawings.  Here the different militia uniforms from prior to the ACW are discussed and illustrated for each of the states, as well as uniforms prescribed upon secession from the US.  Interesting and colorful, but not much seen in combat.

hammurabi70

12 August 2022, 12:22:17 AM #3964 Last Edit: 12 August 2022, 12:27:18 AM by hammurabi70 Reason: Incomplete post
Recently completed:
OSPREY – The Falklands Naval Campaign
OSPREY – The Panjshir Valley 1980-1986
Next on the table:
OSPREY – Two Volumes on the Balkans Campaign

The real gem:
The Bloody Triangle  by Victor Kamenir
ISBN 978-0-7603-3434-8

Dealing with the first days of the German invasion of the South-West in Operation Barbarossa this is a detailed and very helpful description of events, including subsequent inquiry results.  It also poses some serious issues such as why did the German forces complain about continual aerial attacks.  Was the not the Soviet Air Force wiped out by the initial strikes.  An excellent read.

kipt

Finished "Sherman's March to the Sea 1864", an Osprey Campaign by David Smith, illustrated by Richard Hook.Typical Osprey.

Also covers Franklin and Nashville as well as Sherman's march to Savannah.

toxicpixie

Quote from: kipt on 01 August 2022, 01:57:25 PMFinished "Napoleon's Paper Kingdom: The Life And Death Of Westphalia, 1807-1813" by Sam Mustafa (I did not know he was a history professor).

This book is a definitive dive into the history of Westphalia.  A kingdom set up by Napoleon, not so much for his brother, but to supply men, material and money to France.  It really shows how much Napoleon gutted the kingdom economically.

This is a very good book on the history of the times.

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kipt

Finished "Japan's War: The Great Pacific Conflict" by Edwin P. Hoyt.  this is discussed from the Japanese side and is very informative.  It gives a look into the Japanese psyche from the earliest times interacting with the Europeans and Americans.

In order to not be "colonized" the Japanese became colonizers in islands near them, Korea and China.  And, they felt, as other countries did at times, that their race was superior and meant to rule in Asia, and by some, the world.

The conflict in China is well covered from a high level, as is the war in the Pacific, all from the Japanese viewpoint.  The militarists, like other dictatorships (which essentially Japan became), did not keep the population informed of setbacks, only victories, and those embellished.

Interestingly, the author says the military command was accepting of the atom bomb as it was just another weapon and did not do as much damage as the fire bombing of the cities late in the war.  The bomb did not end the war, but the Emperor did,  His direct discussions with the high command became something they could not avoid, as they did to his ministers.  There was some dissension in the middle ranks of the military and navy, but was finally subdued.

A very interesting, easy to read book.

kipt

Finished a little booklet by the National Park Service "Fredericksburg Battlefields".  It covers with text, pictures and maps the battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, the Wilderness and Spotsylvania. Good overviews of each.

Westmarcher

QuoteFinished a little booklet by the National Park Service "Fredericksburg Battlefields".  It covers with text, pictures and maps the battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, the Wilderness and Spotsylvania. Good overviews of each.

Are you talking about the 'leaflets' you can pick up at the National Parks (they unfold into a larger sheet containing maps, photos, narrative, etc.)? If so, I totally agree. I've picked up a stash of these over the years as mementos of my various battlefield visits.  :-bd
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.

kipt

Not a leaflet but a small booklet, about 5 x 8 and 90 pages.

kipt

Finished 2 more Ospreys, "The Confederate Army 1861-65 (3), Louisiana & Texas", and "(4) Virginia & Arkansas", both by Ron Feld and illustrated by Richard Hook.  Very colorful militia uniforms which for the most part did not make it to combat.  More utilitarian browns and greys, but still some blues.

T13A

Hi

Just finished 'Lee and Longstreet at Gettysburg' by Glenn Tucker. Not a narrative of the battle, rather it deals with the controversies that arose afterwards about why the Confederates lost the battle. In particular he deals with a lot of the criticism of Longstreet put about by other Confederate officers after the battle (and in fact after Lee's death) in trying to deflect from their own shortcomings. Unfortunately a lot of the criticism (unjustified IMHO) still persists in more modern works.

I do like Glenn Tucker as an author (although very much an historian of his time, the book was published in 1968) and have both his 'Hide Tide and Gettysburg' and his 'Chickamauger' books on my shelves which are both a couple of my favourite single volume books on the respective battles.

Cheers Paul 
T13A Out!

Ithoriel

Having previously been most interested in the Early Imperial and Later Roman Empire history, my recent fascination with Strength and Honour made me realise that my knowledge of the later Roman Republic was pretty much restricted to having read chunks of Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico while doing "O" level Latin.

So, off to Amazon to see what Osprey had published on the subject. Several titles, as it turns out.

Already read these three:
Roman Legionary vs Gallic Warrior: 58-52 BC (Combat) by David Campbell
Armies of Julius Caesar 58-44 BC (Elite) by Raffaele D'Amato
Roman Legionary 109-58 BC: The Age of Marius, Sulla and Pompey the Great: 182 (Warrior)  by Ross Cowan

All gave a useful grounding in the period, though I would have liked more about the non-legion units in the second. For my purposes the first was most useful.

Currently reading Caesar's Conquest of Gaul (Military History from Original Sources): The Illustrated Edition (Military History from Primary Sources) by Bob Carruthers.

The one page intro by Bob  Carruthers is fine, the panegyric on Caesar by Thomas de Quincey is a waste of seventeen pages, IMNSHO!

The actual translation is fine, barring some obvious typos.

Still to go are the following two.

Republican Roman Warships 509-27 BC: 225 (New Vanguard) by Raffaele D'Amato
The Numidians 300 BC-AD 300 (Men-at-Arms) by William Horsted
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Steve J

The Army of Maria Theresa (1st edition) by Duffy. An excellent read and a lot of useful stuff regarding the polyglot nature of the army, the language issues and their impact on C&C as well as losses incured whilst on campaign. So far plenty to take away for use on the wargames table or to explain those blunders etc.