What are you currently reading ?

[Chris Pringle]

Finally reading "Kennesaw Mountain" by Earl J. Hess. This was a generous gift from my good friend Konstantinos Travlos when we met up at the said ACW battlefield a couple of years ago:
https://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/2024/12/acw-battlefields-between-nashville-and.html

At last I am getting round to writing a scenario for this major battle, which means doing the reading for it. Hess's book is very detailed and very helpful.

[kipt]

Finished Vol. 90, No. 1 of "The Journal of Military History".
Articles include:

Ferdinand Foch and the Operational Level of War, Part 1: "Scientific" Battle and Operational Effectiveness on the Industrialized Battlefield,
Lieutenant Colonel Faraman's War: attache Intelligence and the Polish-Soviet Conflict, 1919-1921,
Bottleneck: The Supply of Liquid Oxygen for the German V-2 Rocket,
Revisiting the Nazi-Fascist Military Alliance: Italo-German Rivalry and Cooperation during the Mediterranean War, 1940-1943,

plus others as well as 90 pages of book reviews and lists of magazine articles.

[fsn]

I've dug out my stack of the "Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society" - the Traveller magazine.



Really odd to read magazines citing the Soviet Union as a going concern.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Really odd to read magazines citing the Soviet Union as a going concern.

So does Blade Runner!

[fsn]

I think you wittingly or unwittingly misunderstand. I was reading the JTAS number 20, from 1984. I bought that volume 42 years ago - probably when I was at uni in Sheffield studying Applied Statistics, or maybe when I had moved to my first real job in London working as a programmer for a MoD contractor. . I was unmarried - somewhere between fiancees 1 and 2.

This little book and its companions have travelled with me through a marriage, a divorce, the birth of a child and her marriage, a career guided by happenstance to be the training manager for a reasonably large charity. I have moved house 5 or 6 times, and been in intensive care twice.

My brother died some 15 years after I bought the book; both my parents have died since I bought it. I have had very good times and very poor times.

I sold my rather large collection of RPGs, sold my rather large collection of comics, thrown out all my wargaming figures and started again. Throughout, this little book has waited patiently for me to pick it up so it could transport me back 42 years and restore a little bit of wonder.

I haven't looked at the JTAS for many, many years. I didn't realise how long until the phrase "the particle accelerator is being developed by both the Soviet Union and the United States" struck an chord.

[pierre the shy]

That's an interesting story fsn. If your JTAS collection has been with you for 42 years then it deserves another look. Who knows what pearls of wisdom and inspiration they may contain, even if they are Traveller RPG related ones rather than about life, the universe and everything 

My mother had first edition bound copies of both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. I first read them in the early 1970's, well before they became popular. I really loved the tales, and asked if I could have them eventually and she was happy to see them go to me when she no longer had need of them. Then Tolkien fever struck NZ in the early 2000's and she decided to sell them for a fairly hefty sum.

I have copies of Tolkien's works which I still read, but they are not quite the same as having the originals.

Don't think I could afford to get another first edition set         

[Steve J]

The Crusdades by Thomas Asbridge. Just started, but very well written and good that it looks at the period from the Muslim point of view too.

[fsn]

That's an interesting story fsn. If your JTAS collection has been with you for 42 years then it deserves another look. Who knows what pearls of wisdom and inspiration they may contain, even if they are Traveller RPG related ones rather than about life, the universe and everything 

They've been a little gateway to my past.

My mother had first edition bound copies of both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. I first read them in the early 1970's, well before they became popular. I really loved the tales, and asked if I could have them eventually and she was happy to see them go to me when she no longer had need of them. Then Tolkien fever struck NZ in the early 2000's and she decided to sell them for a fairly hefty sum.

Ouch!

[kipt]

Finished "Full Duty: Vermont in the Civil War" by Howard Coffin.  A small state Vermont responded immediately in the call for soldiers.  Ultimately Vermont provided 1 cavalry regiment, a heavy artillery regiment, which became the 11th Vermont Infantry, 3 artillery batteries, two sharpshooter companies and 11 other infantry regiments. Vermont's population at the start of the civil war was 315,098 and furnished 34,238 men of which 5224 died; per capita Vermont was only second to Michigan.

The First Vermont Brigade was known for excellence in battle, gathering praise from Sheridan in his Valley campaign.  The second Brigade was instrumental at Gettysburg as they marched forward on the right flank of Picket's charge and flanked the Confederates.

The book is full of first person accounts and good descriptions of army life throughout the war.

Recommended.

[kipt]

Finished volume 2 of Michael Broers' "Napoleon: The Spirit Of The Age". This covers the campaign of 1805 up to and including Tilsit and the marriage to Marie-Louise.

This biography is really amazing, well done and full of information.  Typically I read about Napoleon's military campaigns,  this book adds a well understood dimension over and above the campaign periods.

[kipt]

And now finished volume 3 of "Napoleon: The decline And Fall Of An Empire: 1811-1821" by Michael Broers.

Extremely well done.  I heartily recommend this set to anyone interested in Napoleon the man.  Not only does Broers neatly summarize the military side, he does an outstanding job delving into what makes Napoleon tick.

Great set of books!

[Dragoon]

Maida
15 minutes of glory
By Richard Hopton.

[kipt]

Finished vol 2 (haven't read vol 1 yet) of John H. Gill's "Broken eagles: Napoleon's German Allies And The Campaigns of 1813:Wurttemberg, Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, Westphalia, and the Smaller States.

Great histories, in detail to each unit, for the campaigns and actions during 1813.  Also garrisons of the cities under siege as part of each countries unit history.

[fsn]

I read vol 2 first as well. I think I was more interested in the vol 2 nations.

[kipt]

Finished "War Underground: A History Of Military Mining In Siege Warfare" by Earl J. Hess. A history from earliest times when undermining used props and fire to bring down a tower to new explosives and electric detonators to make huge craters.

Vauban made sieges professional. Schweidnitz in 1762 had Prussian miners pushed short mines and explosions to get closer to one bastion.  French and Russian miners at Sebastopol 1854-1856 mined and countermined to present a more successful rate of explosions for the first time.

Japanese miners at Port Arthur used high explosives for the first time.  By far WWI had the largest rate of mining and contermining in history.  Over 5000 explosions, some as big as near 1,000,000 pounds of explosive.  Depths of mining went as deep as 196 feet.  Tunnels averaged 125 feet in Europe before 1914.  The American mine at Petersburg (the crater) was 158 feet long, but on the Western Front the average was 555 feet.  Fresh air and how to get it to the end of a gallery was a limiting factor in the early periods.  British miners were the most active and advanced of all the participants of WWI.

Some mining has occurred in later periods, but not so much to destroy a position.  Japanese in WWII to build defensive positions, North Koreans after that was to infiltrate into South Korea, and the tunnels in Vietnam.

Earl Hess is a prolific writer and this is a good addition to his body of work.

[Chris Pringle]

"Army Society" by John Strange Winter.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Army-Society-Garrison-Discursive-Story/dp/134715504X

I'm reading the original 1887 edition from the library of a late relative, who I think used it to help her navigate the sergeants' mess. It's a light comic novel in arch late-Victorian style. "John Strange Winter" was the nom de plume of a prolific lady, Henrietta Stannard, who evidently wrote a lot of stories in military settings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Strange_Winter

Important background reading before we do the Battle of Dorking again, I reckon.

[kipt]

Finished vol 1, finally, of John H. Gill's "Broken eagles: Napoleon's German Allies And The Campaigns of 1813:The Contingents of Saxony and Bavaria".

Same format as vol 2 with good maps, Ob's and details of the units' battles and actions.

[kipt]

Finished "Late To The Fight: Union Combat Performance From The Wilderness To The Fall Of Petersburg" by Alexandre F. Gaillot.

The author relates the mustering in, the training, the marches and the battles of two Union Regiments, the 17th Vermont and the 31st Maine, both in the IX Corps under Burnside at first. The book is a refutation of many participants and subsequently historians, that the later raised Union regiments were made of bounty hunters, draftees, bounty jumpers and the less patriotic versus the early volunteers.

His measuring stick tracks three items: cohesion ("obedience to commands and the ability to engage the enemy as a unified force), combat power ("that which achieves battlefield objectives") and casualty rates.

These two "Later Arrivals" (the author uses this term throughout the book which I find a bit annoying) measured up in all aspects.  Staring with the Wilderness and ending at Petersburg they both showed a remarkable combat history, essentially no different than veteran troops who enlisted in the beginning of the war.  I believe the author proves his point.