Armoured Warfare in the British Army 1939–1945

Armoured Warfare in the British Army 1939–1945 PDF Author: Dick Taylor
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
ISBN: 1399081063
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
The second volume in Dick Taylor’s three-volume illustrated history of the evolution of armored maneuver warfare in the British army covers the period of the Second World War, in which the tank came of age and developed into the principal land weapon of decision. He describes how, during the first half of the war, the British army came close to disaster from the armored warfare perspective and how the bitter lessons of failure were learned in time to deliver success in 1944 and 1945. As well as providing a fascinating overview of the tactical use of armor during the main campaigns, he considers such much-neglected aspects as the role of training and organization, officer selection and recruitment, and the mechanization of other arms. His wide-ranging book also features extensive, well-laid-out tables giving key information about British armor during this period. This expert account quotes heavily from the vivid recollections of soldiers who served in armor, and is not afraid to criticize as well as praise.

Armoured Warfare in the British Army 1939–1945

Armoured Warfare in the British Army 1939–1945 PDF Author: Dick Taylor
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
ISBN: 1399081063
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
The second volume in Dick Taylor’s three-volume illustrated history of the evolution of armored maneuver warfare in the British army covers the period of the Second World War, in which the tank came of age and developed into the principal land weapon of decision. He describes how, during the first half of the war, the British army came close to disaster from the armored warfare perspective and how the bitter lessons of failure were learned in time to deliver success in 1944 and 1945. As well as providing a fascinating overview of the tactical use of armor during the main campaigns, he considers such much-neglected aspects as the role of training and organization, officer selection and recruitment, and the mechanization of other arms. His wide-ranging book also features extensive, well-laid-out tables giving key information about British armor during this period. This expert account quotes heavily from the vivid recollections of soldiers who served in armor, and is not afraid to criticize as well as praise.

Toward Combined Arms Warfare

Toward Combined Arms Warfare PDF Author: Jonathan Mallory House
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1428915834
Category : Armies
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description


British Army Handbook 1939-1945

British Army Handbook 1939-1945 PDF Author: George Forty
Publisher: Sutton Pub Limited
ISBN: 9780750931908
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
To encapsulate the British Army in one book is no easy task, but here, George Forty presents it as it was during the Second World War. When war was declared in 1939, the British Army was very much the 'Cinderella' of the three armed services with a total strength of around 865,000 men. However, just four years later when the Allies invaded North West Europe, the British Army had grown into a powerful, well-organized and well-equipped fighting force of three million men and women. George Forty here presents a comprehensive overview of the British Army during this important time. It has full details of mobilization and training, higher organization and arms of the service; divisional organizations and non-divisional units; HQs and Staff; the combat arms and the services; the individual soldier, his weapons and equipment based on that used in 1944; tactics; weapons, vehicles and equipment; vehicle markings and camouflage; the ATS and other Women's Corps. Fully illustrated with an unusual collection of photographs and line illustrations, this is an indispensable reference guide for anyone interested in this fascinating period of British history.

Armoured Warfare in the British Army, 1914–1939

Armoured Warfare in the British Army, 1914–1939 PDF Author: Richard Taylor
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
ISBN: 1399001191
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
This is the first volume in a three-volume illustrated history of the evolution of armored manoeuvre warfare in the British army, covering the period from 1914 until 1939. Author Dick Taylor’s tour de force covers the evolution of the tank and armored cars in response to the specific conditions created by trench warfare, the history of the use of tanks during the war, as well as the critical period between the wars in which the tank was both refined and neglected. He also looks in detail at the amalgamations and mechanization of the horsed cavalry which led to the formation of the Royal armored Corps in 1939. His detailed and absorbing narrative covers the social and human aspects of the story as well as the technology, and explains how the nation that invented and first fielded the tank in 1916 struggled to maintain the lead after the Armistice.

British Armoured Divisions and their Commanders, 1939-1945

British Armoured Divisions and their Commanders, 1939-1945 PDF Author: Richard Doherty
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1848848382
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
A total of eleven British armoured divisions were formed during the 1939-1945 war but, as this highly informative book reveals, just eight saw action.??In 1940 only 1st Armoured Division faced the German blitzkrieg and it was in the North African desert that armoured divisions came into their own. The terrain was ideal and six such divisions of Eighth Army fought Rommel's Panzers into submission. Three were disbanded prior to the invasion of Sicily and Italy. The campaign from D-Day onwards saw the Guards Armoured, 7th Armoured (the Desert Rats), 11th and Percy Hobart's 79th Armoured Division in the thick of the action.??Of particular interest are the men who commanded these elite formations and the way their characters contributed to the outcome of operations. While some, such as Dick McCreery, went onto greater heights, others did not make the grade; the stakes were high. A number, such as 'Pip' Roberts, were just perfectly suited in the role.??Written by a leading military historian, this book describes many fascinating aspects of armoured warfare from its uncertain beginnings, through the development of tactics and the evolving tank design. Due to British deficiencies, reliance had to be placed on US Grants and Shermans, with the Comet coming late and the Centurion too late.??The combination of gripping historical narrative and well researched fact make this an invaluable and highly readable work on the contribution of British Armoured Divisions to victory in the Second World War.

Seek, Strike, and Destroy

Seek, Strike, and Destroy PDF Author: Christopher Richard Gabel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 100

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Book Description
In the seventy years that have passed since the tank first appeared, antitank combat has presented one of the greatest challenges in land warfare. Dramatic improvements in tank technology and doctrine over the years have precipitated equally innovative developments in the antitank field. One cycle in this ongoing arms race occurred during the early years of World War II when the U.S. Army sought desperately to find an antidote to the vaunted German blitzkrieg. This Leavenworth Paper analyzes the origins of the tank destroyer concept, evaluates the doctrine and equipment with which tank destroyer units fought, and assesses the effectiveness of the tank destroyer in battle.

Raising Churchill's Army

Raising Churchill's Army PDF Author: David French
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191608262
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
This is the first serious analysis of the combat capability of the British army in the Second World War. It sweeps away the myth that the army suffered from poor morale, and that it only won its battles thorugh the use of 'brute force' and by reverting to the techniques of the First World War. David French analyses the place of the army in British strategy in the interwar period and during the Second World War. He shows that after 1918 the General Staff tried hard to learn the lessons of the First World War, enthusiastically embracing technology as the best way of minimizing future casualties. In the first half of the Second World War the army did suffer from manifold weaknesses, not just in the form of shortages of equipment, but also in the way in which it applied its doctrine. Few soldiers were actively eager to close with the enemy, but the morale of the army never collapsed and its combat capability steadily improved from 1942 onwards. Professor French assesses Montgomery's contributions to the war effort and concludes that most important were his willingness to impose a uniform understanding of doctrine on his subordinates, and to use mechanized firepower in ways quite different from Haig in the First World War.

Tank Warfare, 1939–1945

Tank Warfare, 1939–1945 PDF Author: Simon Forty
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
ISBN: 1526767651
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
On the battlefields of Europe and North Africa during the Second World War tanks played a key role, and the intense pressure of combat drove forward tank design and tactics at an extraordinary rate. In a few years, on all sides, tank warfare was transformed. This is the dramatic process that Simon and Jonathan Forty chronicle in this heavily illustrated history. They describe the fundamentals of pre-war tank design and compare the theories formulated in the 1930s as to how they should be used in battle. Then they show how the harsh experience of the German blitzkrieg campaigns in Poland, France and the Soviet Union compelled the Western Allies to reconsider their equipment, organization and tactics – and how the Germans responded to the Allied challenge. The speed of progress is demonstrated in the selection of over 180 archive photographs which record, as only photographs can, the conditions of war on each battle front. They also give a vivid impression of what armoured warfare was like for the tank crews of 75 years ago.

Victory 1945

Victory 1945 PDF Author: Gordon L. Rottman
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472809483
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 68

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Book Description
Even when Western Allied troops gained a foothold in Normandy, World War II in Europe was far from over. The route to Germany's interior and the Nazis final surrender was long, arduous and blood-stained. The Wehrmacht's stubborn resistance and the shocking losses suffered by US, British, Canadian and 'Free European' troops meant that the Allies had to adapt and refine small-unit tactics, battle-drills, and their use of weapons and munitions. The troops who finally met up with the Red Army in Germany were a very different fighting force to the one that struggled up the beaches of northern France. This book offers a comprehensive guide to the late-war Allied troops, exploring their uniforms, equipment, organization and tactics. Detailed description and accurate colour pictures illustrate the means by which the Allied troops on the ground evolved to the point of winning the war on the Western Front.

Allied Armour, 1939–1945

Allied Armour, 1939–1945 PDF Author: Anthony Tucker-Jones
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
ISBN: 1526777983
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
“An important review of armoured warfare, armoured vehicle design, tactics, and operational issues during World War 2 . . . it comes highly commended.” —Dr Stuart C. Blank, Military Archive Research During the first years of the Second World War, Allied forces endured a series of terrible defeats at the hands of the Germans, Italians and Japanese. Their tanks were outclassed, their armored tactics were flawed. But the advent of new tank designs and variants, especially those from the United States, turned the tables. Although German armor was arguably still superior at the end of the war, the competence of Allied designs and the sheer scale of their production gave them a decisive advantage on the armored battlefield. This is the fascinating story that Anthony Tucker-Jones tells in this book which is part of a three-volume history of armored warfare during the Second World War. Chapters cover each major phase of the conflict, from the early blitzkrieg years when Hitler’s Panzers overran Poland, France and great swathes of the Soviet Union to the Allied fight back in tank battles in North Africa, Italy and northern Europe. He also covers less-well-known aspects of the armored struggle in sections on Allied tanks in Burma, India and during the Pacific campaign. Technical and design armored are a key element in the story, but so are changes in tactics and the role of the tanks in the integrated all-arms forces that overwhelmed the Axis. “The matter of armoured vehicles and their role in the turning of the tide against Germany is covered brilliantly in Anthony Tucker-Jones’s excellent treatise.” —Books Monthly “Very Highly Recommended.” —Firetrench