After the initial successes of Operation Barbarossa, at the end of September 1941 Hitler turned his focus to Moscow, with the unshakeable belief that capturing the capital would knock the Soviets out of the war. On the face of it, it was an unequal struggle; Field Marshall Fedor von Bock had at his command disposal 1 million men, 1,700 tanks, 19,500 artillery guns and 950 combat aircraft – 50% of all the German men in Russia, 75% of all the tanks and 33% of all the planes. To defend Moscow, the Russians had under 500,000 men, fewer than 900 tanks and just over 300 combat planes. But the picture was in fact a great deal more complex; the Germans had suffered very significant losses since the invasion of Russia had begun, and had issues with logistics and air support. The Soviets, under the command of General Zhukov, were beginning to be better supplied with re-enforcements, and were prepared to defend to the death.Nevertheless Moscow was in a perilous situation. This volume in the Casemate Illustrated series concentrates on the main German assault of October 1941. Guderian’s panzer divisions at first made sweeping gains as they had done so many times before and large parts of the Red Army were encircled at Vyazma and Bryansk. These successes in fact allowed the Soviets time to re-group as the encircled armies did not surrender and had to be dealt with. Then three engagements followed at Mtsensk, Maloyaroslavets and the Mojaisk defense line that proved that the war in the East was not entering its final days as German high command believed.Illustrated with over 150 photographs, plus profile drawings of tanks, vehicles and aircraft, it gives a vivid impression of the situation for both protagonists, and a detailed analysis of the critical days as the fate of Moscow and perhaps the whole war hung in the balance.

For many, the Waffen-SS soldier represents the archetype of the combatant, if not the warrior: well-armed, well-trained, possessing intelligence in combat, imbued with political and ideological fanaticism, he is an elite soldier par excellence, even if a lack of scruples casts a long shadow. However, is this picture true? In the case of the Battle of Normandy, opinions diverged, not only among today's historians, but also amongst the German generals at the time. In all, the Waffen-SS fielded six divisions during the Battle of Normandy, as well as two heavy battalions of Tiger tanks. But they were by no means a single homogenous entity, for with the exception of II. SS-Panzerkorps, the divisions arrived at the front one after another and were immediately thrown into battle. This volume in the Casemate Illustrated series examines the Waffen-SS in Normandy during the fierce fighting of June 1944, when they struggled to hold back the Allied advance on Caen, though the picture was by no means one-sided. Extensively illustrated with photographs, tank profiles, maps, and accompanied by biographies of key personnel and explanatory text boxes, this volume gives a clear and accessible account of events, challenging some popular perceptions along the way.

To the northeast of Brittany, in the marches, three towns still have their old medieval aspect and reveal their exceptional heritage. These three medieval cities are presented together in a magnificent colour 80-page bound book. The reworked texts and the illustrations were published in the Magazine “Moyen Age” (Middles Ages) and are given here in a practical manner and, with this volume, will find their place in any Middles Ages history or architecture amateur’s library.

The Battle of Normandy organised by the Allies depended on a massive, fast landing which would destabilise the German High Commandby its boldness. In a few hours on 6 June 1944, 150 000 Allied soldiers had set foot on Norman soil. Facing them, an equivalent number of German soldiers, but of whom only a third were operational on this front. The German High Command had been expecting the landings to take place in the Pas-de-Calais, the narrowest part of the channel. It took several days for the Germans to admit that the landings in Normandy were not a deceptive lure. The first hours of the landings were to prove decisive. For the Allied coalition, what was most important was to break through the German defences quickly and broaden the front, and finally to resist enemy counter-offensives. The first weeks of June 1944 were marked by terrible confrontations without any real decisive advantage being obtained. Then powerful conquest and encircling movements were made, which ended up with the Falaise Pocket. This dénouement took place on 21 August near Chambois, a place now known as the “Corridor of death”. The Battle of Normandy ended on 12 September 1944, with the liberation of Le Havre, 99 days after the 6 June 1944.

For the very first time, the Battle of Primosole Bridge is brought to life in a well-researched narrative solely dedicated to one of the bloodiest and hardest fought battles for British airborne troops of World War Two.Primosole Bridge in Sicily (13-16 July 1943) provided the stage for the first instance of opposing elite paratroopers parachuting into battle and then fighting each other in a see-saw battle raging under the blazing Mediterranean sky. It’s a story of courage and determination. A story of legendary military units and their commanders. A story that now, on the eve of its 75th Anniversary, finally needs to be told.The British paratroopers of the famed Parachute Regiment’s 1st Parachute Brigade, known as the ‘Red Devils’, fought their equally esteemed German paratrooper opponents, known as the ‘Green Devils’, in a battle of attrition central to the entire success of the Allies’ first invasion of Hitler’s Fortress Europe. These two sets of elite Devils fought each other to a stand-still in Hellish conditions. The paratroopers found themselves cut-off behind enemy lines with dwindling ammunition and ever-growing enemy forces encircling. Their courage and determination in standing up to overwhelming odds allowed the ground forces to arrive and capture the bridge in the nick of time before it was destroyed. The hard-won experience gained by the 1st Parachute Brigade was again tested only a year later at the Battle of Arnhem, the battle christened a bridge too far. It was in fact an almost identical battle, but on a larger scale, to the ferocious fight that the British paratroopers had faced only months previously. The Battle of Arnhem is well documented. The Battle of Primosole Bridge, which provided the foundations for the men and planning for the legendary events at Arnhem, is virtually unheard of and needs to be told at last in order to honour the sacrifice of the Britain’s unsung war heroes.

The path from Moscow to Stalingrad was littered with successes and losses for both the Red Army and the Wehrmacht, with tensions remaining high and culminating in one of the harshest battles of the Second World War. Part of the Casemate Illustrated series, this volume outlines how it was that, less than a year after their defeat at Moscow, the German army had found a way to make the Soviet troops waver in their defence, with their persistence eventually leading to the Battle of Stalingrad. The successful expulsion of the German troops from Moscow in the winter of 1941 came at a cost for the Red Army. Weaknesses in the Soviet camp inspired the Wehrmacht, under Adolf Hitler’s close supervision, to make preparations for offensives along the Eastern Front to push the Russians further and further back into their territory. With a complex set of new tactics and the crucial aid of the Luftwaffe, the German army began to formulate a deadly two-pronged attack on Stalingrad to reduce the city to rubble. Initially only on the periphery of operations, bit by bit German ambitions focused on Stalingrad. In the lead up to this, Timoshenko’s failed attack on Kharkov followed by the Battle of Sebastopol in June 1942 prompted Operation Blue, the German campaign to advance east on their prized objective. This volume includes numerous photographs of the ships, planes, tanks, trucks, and weaponry used by both sides in battle, alongside detailed maps and text outlining the constantly changing strategies of the armies as events unfolded.

September 17, 1862—one of the most consequential days in the history of the United States—was a moment in time when the future of the country could have veered in two starkly different directions. Confederates under General Robert E. Lee had embarked upon an invasion of Maryland, threatening to achieve a victory on Union soil that could potentially end the Civil War in Southern Independence. Lee’s opponent, Major General George McClellan, led the Army of the Potomac to stop Lee’s campaign. In Washington D.C., President Lincoln eagerly awaited news from the field, knowing that the future of freedom for millions was at stake. Lincoln had resolved that, should Union forces win in Maryland, he would issue his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. All this hung in the balance on September 17: the day of the battle of Antietam. The fighting near Sharpsburg, Maryland, would change the course of American history, but in the process, it became the costliest day this nation has ever known, with more than 23,000 men falling as casualties. Join historian Daniel J. Vermilya to learn more about America’s bloodiest day, and how it changed the United States forever in That Field of Blood.

When Germany invaded Belgium in 1914, Britain mobilised its army in addition to its navy, and declared war on Germany. The British Army that disembarked in France in August 1914 was a small but highly efficient force. Led by Sir John French, the army was highly aware of the lessons it had learnt from colonial wars, but couldn't avoid the settlement of the front line leading to the war of positions, more commonly referred to as the war of the trenches. The subject of this short book is a non-exhaustive study of the British soldier's equipment and his commitment within the British Expeditionary Force.

Charles R. Knight's Valley Thunder, now available in paperback, is the first full-length account in more than three decades to examine the combat at New Market on May 15, 1864-the battle that opened the pivotal 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign.Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who set in motion the wide-ranging operation to subjugate the South in 1864, intended to attack the Confederacy on multiple fronts so it could no longer "take advantage of interior lines." One of the keys to success in the Eastern Theater was control of the Shenandoah Valley, a strategically important and agriculturally abundant region that helped feed Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Grant tasked Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel, a German immigrant with a mixed fighting record, and a motley collection of units numbering some 10,000 men to clear the Valley and threaten Lee's left flank. Opposing Sigel was John C. Breckinridge, a former vice president and now Confederate major general who assembled a scratch command to repulse the invading Federals. Included within the ranks of his 4,500-man army were cadets from the Virginia Military Institute under the direction of VMI Commandant of Cadets

The second part of the incredible restoration of the Wheatcroft collection Panther documented in great detail by the Research Squad featuring work to date including the rebuilding of the engine and turret. Full colour large format images also include technical drawings and pre-restoration including historical background of the subject vehicle.

This new photo album, one of first in the MMP/Stratus "Camera On" series, contains 140+ photos of the Sd.Kfz. 10 Leichter Zugkraftwagen 1. t.The Sd.

“I have now nothing to trouble your Lordship with, but an affair that happened on the 19th instant . .

Almost a century has passed since the signing of the armistice on 11 November 1918. Of all the soldiers who went through that hell on earth, photographs, letters, stories and old uniforms kept in attics are all that is left. Thanks to a collection of more than ten thousand documents, the author allows us to follow these young men with previously unseen photographs. All these faces, sometimes smiling, sometimes serious, have a story to tell. Many collectors have also allowed us access to their most precious objects, the fruit of their relentless research that helps save these objects that went through four terrible years of oblivion and destruction. Finally, being in the era of Internet, many links allow you to retrace the history of your ancestors and their regiments. The Canadian Expeditionary Force arrived with its infantry division in France in February 1915. The Canadians underwent the first poison gas attack two months later. In 1918, they had such a reputation that they were used as shock troops and took part in all the battles of the year. The subject of this short book is a non-exhaustive study of the Canadian soldier’s equipment and his commitment within the Canadian Expeditionary Forces in France in 1915-18.

“Character is destiny” wrote Greek Philosopher Heraclitus more than twenty-five centuries ago. Douglas Southall Freeman, the Army of Northern Virginia’s preeminent historian, echoed that view when he wrote, “Further study . .

In the summer of 1914, Britain felt secure that the old order was firmly in place. Britain, through its navy, ruled the waves, and a fair part of the world through its Empire. Yet this security was an illusion; a war of unimaginable scale was just days away. The war would affect every level of British society; first through the urgent need for a massive expansion of the armed forces, drawing in ever-more men from civilian life. This in turn denuded the factories, shops and farms of labour, at a time when industry needed to expand to clothe and supply the armed services, and agriculture needed to fill the shortages of food created by the U-boat assault on our merchant fleet. The armed forces had first call on men, food, and material, so shortages hit the civilian population hardest; replacement labour was found in women, who began to take on work previously the reserve of men; in the factories, transport, commerce, and agriculture. Food remained a problem; shortages led to food queues, leading to increasing Government control and eventually rationing. Civilians were also hit by shortages of petrol and clothing, leading to petrol rationing, gas-cars, and ‘standard’ cloth.There were also more immediate dangers; raids by German ships on coastal towns, and air raids throughout the country by Zeppelins, and later, aeroplanes. In ‘Dear Old Blighty’, Mike Brown looks in depth at the experience of the civilians, men, women and children, of Britain throughout those four momentous years.

More than seventy-five years after wards, “Chariot” is still thought of as the most daring and most spectacular commando operation of the whole of WWII, called on the other side of the Channel “the greatest raid of all time”. Indeed you had to be mad or British to go up the estuary of the River Loire at night, into Saint-Nazaire in order to ram an old destroyer full of explosives on a time fuse against the Joubert docks. And all this was done to make the only dry-dock vast enough to take the super cruiser Tirpitz, the terror of all the Allied navies, totally unusable. This raid had as tremendous an impact in France as it did in Britain, proving to the Allies and to all of occupied Europe that the Third Reich was not invulnerable. To tell the story of this extraordinary coup de main, Jean-Charles Stasi has consulted the German, British and French archives, interviewed former commandoes as well as the inhabitants of Saint-Nazaire who witnessed the raid. His tale is lively and alert and is illustrated with a lot of period photographs, as well as maps, drawings and boat profiles, to plunge the reader into the heart of the action and to allow him relive the preparations for this extraordinary operation. Text in French.