If your looking for quick details on almost any battle of history, then this is the book for you. The Date, location, war or campaign, opposing sides, number of troops engaged, and casualties of each conflict is given. On a good portion of the battles the author does give a short one or two paragraph summary of the battle. I found the book to be an excellent source for finding out information on specific battles of history.

This book (and two others like it - Glorious Defiance and At All Costs) is a good book for indroductions to several somewhat obscure battles with a similar theme. Sieze and Hold covers battles where a small, elite force has to secure a specific objective (hill, bridge, etc.) and defend it against counter attack. This book covers the following battles:

The Romanian Campaign of 1916 Rommel's the battle of Caporetto, Italy 1917 Polish capture of Zytomierz, Russia, 1919 German assault on Belgium and Holland, 1940 Beda Fomm, North Africa 1941 Jitra and Slim River, Malaya 1941-1942 Hill 309 and the bridge at 637437, Normandy 1944 Meiktila, Burma 1944 Ludendorff bridge at Remagan, Germany 1945 Inchon, Korea 1950 Ia Drang, Vietnam 1965

Each battle is covered in what amounts to an essay on the topic and therefore does not cover them in too much detail, hence only three stars. I use them when I want to read about a battle in one sitting because they average about 20 pages each. But they usually spark an interest to find more books on the battles covered so as to absorb more details about that particular battle.

Overall, this is a nice little book for those interested in learning about dramatic battles but don't want to get bogged down in minute details.

The formula is pretty simple - insert a fictional soldier into a factual battle in one of 5 major conflicts of the twentieth century. Make the soldier have a family and friends and live, breathe, and get scared, in most cases without any understanding of the strategic implications of what he is doing or of the big picture he is a part of. The book reads well and a great effort is made to describe the social context and conditions prevailing at the time of each of the wars described. The wars covered are as follow: 4 x WWI, 4 x WWII, 1 x Malaya, 1 x Vietnam and 1 x Desert Storm. Each story is followed by a brief description of the outcome of the engagement and of the sources relied on to create the story, which was important to me in giving the stories credibility, particularly the one in which an armored car sneaks up behind a Tiger I and destroys it using a 37mm cannon!!

If the author reads this I for one would love to see more - the possibilities seem endless - an Australian in New Guinea, a Soviet soldier fighting for the tractor factory, a German defending the Reichstag during the final soviet assault, the assault on Omaha Beach, either side in the battles for the Huertgen Forest or the Siegfried line. How about a Russian soldier in WWI, a little-known theatre to most of us.

This is a good read and I'd recommend it.

Brian Perrett combines a keen mind and 20 years of military experience in the British Army to give the reader an historical and analytical tour of how battle has changed in the last two millennia. With a summary introduction of warfare in antiquity, Perrett then begins the happy task of taking the reader from Teutoburger Wald (AD 9) to the ground battles to liberate Kuwait, February 24-28, 1991. In all, he covers 11 periods of military history and critically examines over 30 battles.

"The Changing Face of Battle" is well organized, the discussion of battles supported by excellent maps, graphics and pictures. Perrett provides a good index and detailed bibliography.

Perrett has a crisp style of writing and has a quantitative bent that lends solid credibility to his analysis. But his discussions of different battles have the qualitative feel of someone who has been there, or somewhere like it.

Most of the battles Perrett examines are ground combat actions, although there are a number of naval actions included (e.g., Spanish Armada, Trafalgar, Jutland, Midway). And, many of the battles explained are ones in which Britons fought.

This is a work that is worth adding to the military historian's reference shelf, and which is also a good read. It is a view of Western warfare (Asian battles and wars are not included) and how battle has changed in terms of the many factors that influence it.

I enjoyed "The Changing Face of Battle," and recommend it to others.

This book successfully opened the horizon for those in search of Ottoman's late history, especially on its militaristic blunders exercised during the contest for Levantine.

Inside you'll find concrete facts and thoroughly researched materials focusing on the Battle of Megiddo. The outcome of this fight had eliminate any hope for the Ottoman's 'Army' to hold its already precarious ground, for the navy and air-force were mere paper-statistic then. The choice of giving the overall command to Liman von Sanders was Ottoman's biggest mistake. Although he was successful at Gallipoli, his defensive action was out of the question when facing the mobile cavalry (motorized and mounted) led by Allenby in an open ground. Who would guess that Sanders was a 'Jew,' a race who had sworn to annihilate Islam and any state proclaiming Islam as its foundation forever.

It also shed some light on the role of so-called T.E. 'Lawrence of Arabia.' His treacherous motive had sent the 'blinded' Arabs to attack its own brother-in-faith Ottomans who were accused of maintaining secular state. Look where he led them into now ?

The list goes a long way and it's full of surprises at every turn of the page, a must buy for any Muslim humble enough to look into his past and judge justfully his own faith.

It's simply continuing the excellent tradition of military writings done by Osprey Publishing. We should expect more to come from them.

This title is typical of the New Vanguard series. It packs good value for the money, and it includes: colour profiles of uncommon subjects (incl. early model in Normandy and a Syrian tank), detailed cutaway, a brief development history with all the variants being described, and operational history inclusive the post-war use by Syria. Very good reference for modellers, specially if used in conjunction with the Squadron in action book. The only information I really miss in this book are scale plans.

If any theatre needed the legendary winged tanks, this was the one. If one looks at the map of Burma, the mountain ranges all run north and south and the steep slopes and jungly river bottoms all run cross wise to the main line of advance from India. Dividing Burma from India is the Arakan rgeion, with a mountainous ridge running out into the ocean forming a peninsula. The Japanese and the British 14th Army contested this area for 3 years before the British finally broke through in 1945.
If anyone could think up a set of topographic conditions worse for armored forces than the route from the Arakan to Rangoon they would have a large task. The British also invaded further north along the route of the Burma Road and dropped airborne as well but the main thrust had to come from the south because the northern infrastructure was at capacity, sending supplies to China, and could not support the main effort while in the south one flank was on the sea and supposedly could be reinforced that way.
This book covers the advance into Burma and the crossing of innumerable streams, bogs, ridges, and major rivers. Once out into the lowland plains the pursuit could be eased somewhat but necessity to keep supplies up often slowed the advance.
Good narrative history.

This was a moderately interesting real-life account of a British sea captain contemporaneous with the Hornblower books. As such, it makes for an interesting comparison between fact and fiction, and, as the author says, sometimes the former is even more extraordinary than the latter.

The author doesn't fully prove his case that Hornblower was based on Gordon, though there are some striking parallels. The most notable one is that Gordon came up the Chesapeake as a commodore with a small fleet very similar to the one that Hornblower led into the Baltic. (What the author finds suspicious is that Forester wrote a naval history of this period that glosses over this incident, perhaps due to the similarities with Hornblower.) The author uses footnotes and an introduction to point out other points of commonality.

As I said, moderately interesting, particularly to a Hornblower reader, but not particularly a page-turner.

"The Real Hornblower" is a surprisingly in-depth book following and examining the life of Admiral Sir James Gordon. Perrett has obviously researched Gordon under a microscope, as there is very few sections of his life that are not covered. The book begins with a short examination of C. S. Forester, and his creation of Horatio Hornblower, and then delves into Gordon's life, through newpaper articals, personal letters, ship logs, and Gordon's own unpublished auto-biography. In addition to following Gordon, Perrett gives a very acurate historical account of the wars and politics (which revolve around the European and American naval fleets) during the time that Gordon was alive, make this an excellent naval history or reference book as well. For anyone who has read C. S. Forester's series on Horatio Hornblower, this book is an excellent supplement, allowing you to see a different side of 'Hornblower' in Admiral Sir James Gordon.

When I decided to buy this title, frankly I worried that how well Osprey would jam so broad story into tiny volume in their well known chronicle fashion. Then alas, I had to ease my mind with a small charge with this book. In summary, if you are a novice then you can think that would be enough for that price. If you're hobbist, some nice illustration of the internal scenes of Sturmg 3 and other case for various vehicles will be referable. If you're bit knowledged, don't give any glimpse at this book. Touched here and there without points and no new photo. Just licking over chewing gum!. sorry for crude my English.

An interesting little book - how it's perceived will depend upon whether you are reading it as somebody new to the New Vanguard series, or if you've read other New Vanguard books.

This is because, unlike so many of the other armor-related New Vanguard titles, it doesn't concentrate on a single vehicle or family of vehicles. It attempts, with varying success, to cover the entire history of WWII German assault guns and tank destroyers in a single 48 page volume.

To do this it skims the surface of the vehicles concerned - if you want to read about the StuG III or the Marder III in technical detail, go check out a title dedicated to the subject. What's covered here is the military doctrine that resulted in the adoption of self-propelled assault guns and tank destroyers, the manner in which they were used, unit structure, and a broad history of the types developed.

The book's major flaws are that you can't really do the subject justice in even a general sense in just 48 pages, and that the book seems to dart around a bit historically - one minute you're reading about Jagdtigers, the next you're back to vehicles based on the Pz.Kpfw. I chassis.

So, not the best title Osprey has ever released, but it's not a complete loss either, since in describing tactics and doctrine it covers some areas that the more technically specific books in the series omit.

The Vanguard series is intended to give a brief introducton to various weapons systems used in the major wars of the 20th century. As such, they include color plates of various paint schemes on campaign, a sectional drawing of a representative vehicle, and plenty of B&W photos in the text. All this is wrapped in an elementary text based on new research in newly opened archives and presented in an attractive format. Useful to war gamers, students, and model makers.

This book (and two others like it - Glorious Defiance and Seize and Hold) is a good book for introductions to several battles (some a bit obscure) with a similar theme. At All Costs covers battles where a desperate force needs to attack or hold an objective which against seemingly impossible odds in a "ours in not to reason why, ours is but to do and die" battle. This book covers the following battles:

Minden, 1759 - Balaclava, 1854 - Delhi, 1857 - Little Round Top, 1863 - Mars-la-Tour/St-Privat, 1870 - Gordon Relief Expedition, 1884-5 - Arras, 1940 - Longstop Hill, Tunisia, 1943 - The Nijmegen Bridges, 1944 - Air Assault on Corregidor, 1945 - Goose Green, 1982

Each battle is covered in what amounts to an essay on the topic and therefore does not cover them in too much detail, hence only three stars. I use them when I want to read about a battle in one sitting because they average about 20 pages each. But they usually spark an interest to find more books on the battles covered so as to absorb more details about that particular battle and for that they are excellent.

Overall, this is a good book for those interested in learning about dramatic battles but don't want to get bogged down in minute details.