Failure to exploit the potential of an original idea is a recurring phenomenon in our national history. Few failures, however, can have been so costly in human life as that of our military commanders early in 1916 to appreciate that the tank was a war winning weapon. The slaughter of the Somme, Passchendaele and Ypres salient had to be endured ......
A study of the design, development and eventual fates of the uncompleted super-battleships intended to be built before and during World War II. At the start of World War II the battleship was still king, and all the major powers were designing even mightier battleships to surpass their most modern and powerful classes. But when ......
British Second World War tanks performed so badly that it is difficult to bring to mind any other British weapon of the period that provokes such a strong sense of failure. Unfortunately, many of the accusations appear to be true - British tanks were in many ways a disgrace. But why was Britain, the country that invented them, consistently ......
As the nation that conceived the first tank more than a hundred years ago, Britain has a long and fascinating series of tank designs to its credit. Despite a period of apathy from the relevant authorities about the value of tanks, which led to its grateful reliance on American-made models during the Second World War, Britain bounced back to ......
USS Iowa BB-61, the first of four Iowa-class battleships built for the U.S. Navy, was launched in 1942. Capable of thirty-three knots and armed with nine new fifty-caliber sixteen-inch guns, she was the pinnacle of battleship design for the U.S. Navy during World War II. The Iowa class perfectly merged the heavy armor of battleships ......
Building upon the expertise of the authors and historians of the Naval Institute Press, the Naval History Special Editions are designed to offer studies of the key vessels, battles, and events of armed conflict. Using an image-heavy, magazine-style format, these Special Editions should appeal to scholars, enthusiasts, and general readers ......
USS Texas BB-35, a Dreadnought era battleship launched in May 1912, served the U.S. Navy for thirty-four years, including World War I and World War II.
World War I service included North Sea convoy duty for merchant ships from Scotland to Norway, and North Sea sweeps to counter potential forays by the German Fleet. The ......
An authoritative 100-year overview of the fascinating history of the cargo/troop-carrying trucks, wreckers, tankers, ambulances, communications vehicles and other specialized types that provide technical support to the front-line troops. The author begins by describing the history of the wheeled military vehicle. Key issues are covered in ......
Many thousands of different types of vehicles were used by the armies during the Second World War for various roles, including the fighting vehicles such as armoured cars and tanks. Today these are very popular with enthusiasts who restore these historic vehicles to their pristine state and attend specialist gatherings around the country and ......
Japanese Major General Horii Tomitaro, commanding the South Seas Force, had the Australians on the back foot. Australia was holding the last defendable ridge in the Owen Stanley ranges, Imita Ridge. Horii to his distress was then given orders from Imperial Headquarters in Tokyo that he was to fall back across the mountains to the Japanese ......
The only comparative analysis available of the great navies of World War I, this work studies the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom, the German Kaiserliche Marine, the U.S. Navy, the French Marine Nationale, the Italian Regia Marina, the Austro-Hungarian Kaiserliche und Koenigliche Kriegsmarine, and the Imperial Russian Navy to demonstrate why ......
The Soviet Unions first successful atomic bomb detonation in August 1949 was a wakeup call for US Navy planners. The possibility of a single Soviet aircraft wiping out an entire convoy of merchant ships with a nuclear weapon had suddenly become very real. With military budgets having shrunk prior to the Korean War, it was simply not possible to ......
Motorcycles entered military service in World War I, replacing the mounted despatch rider and mechanizing machine-gun and stretcher units. The conflict brought an enormous upsurge in the use of motorcycles in Europe and America. This comprehensive new book covers the lively history of the machines, highlighting the roles of military ......
This is the story of a soldier without a gun. It is personal, yet universal. It is the story of what is left behind when the battles have been fought and the war has moved on.
To the Australian Army, Private Lawrence Nicholas Kennedy was NX21854, a soldier who served for 1907 days with the 2/4th Australian Army Field ......
A detailed, technical history of the WWII tank and tank destroyer designs of automotive icon Ferdinand Porsche. Ferdinand Porsche was an Austrian engineer born in 1875. In the interwar period, Ferdinand founded an automotive consultation firm, which gradually grew into todays Porsche AG automotive company. Porsches firm was responsible for the ......
The Jeep is among a handful of motor vehicles, along with other classics such as the VW Beetle, the Mini, the E-Type Jaguar and the Citroen 2CV which are deserving of that over used adjective; iconic. During WW2, the Jeep could be found wherever the Allies were fighting and soldiers soon learned that here was a dependable, go-anywhere machine. ......
This is the fully revised and updated edition of the first comphrensive account of every peacetime submarine disaster from 1774 to the present day. By examining many of the sinkings in considerable detail, analysing what went wrong and describing the attempts made to rescue the crew and the vessel, Edwyn Gray traces the development of the ......
The Pzkpfw Ill was the most effective tank available to the German army in North Africa during the battles of 1941. It outnumbered all the other types in service with the Afrikakorps at that time and when compared to the Pzkpfw I and Pzkpfw II designs it was a potent, modern weapons system. Although less heavily armoured than its British ......
The Allied invasions of Sicily and the Italian mainland had been met with tenacious resistance by the Germans but the defence consisted for the most part of armoured units that were little different to those the British had faced in North Africa. But in early 1944, with the landings at Anzio and Nettuno and the attempt to bypass the German ......
The book describes the vehicle development activities carried out at the Military Vehicles Research and Development Establishment on Chobham Common from the end of World War II through to its close in 2004. For most of this period it was the design authority for all British Military vehicles and hence was responsible for the design and ......
The Type 82 Destroyer HMS Bristol was born in a blaze of glory as lead ship in a proposed class of four - designed to escort a new generation of super carriers for the Royal Navy. The carriers never materialized and neither did the other Type 82s, leaving Bristol literally in a class of her own.
Completed as a trials ship for new ......
In 2021, as the Jeep celebrates its 80th anniversary, there is no doubt that itis one of the worlds most famous automobiles. The utility 4x4 machine was designed to help win a war - something that it did with aplomb - and a legend was born, spawning both evolved models that remain in production to this day and numerous imitators around the ......
favorite tanks. Start 2023 with a blast! Classic square format. Updated style. Our square wall calendars include stunning images and even clearer grids and text. Filled with an abundance of holidays, each month’s grid is large enough for daily tasks and appointments.
They had faced the indignity of surrender and the squalor of Changi prison, so the spirits of the British and American troops lifted when they were told that they would be transferred to another healthier location where conditions would be more benign and food far more abundant. A total of 7,000 men, approximately half British and half ......
While the Red Armys arsenal at the start of the Second World War included weapons dating back to the Great War or earlier, the 1930s modernisation programme had introduced the automatic Tokarev pistol and self-loading Tokarev rifle. Its small arms were soon replaced by mass-produced sub-machine guns, such as the PPSh 1941, nicknamed the ......
On the night of 31 May 1942, Sydney Harbour was attacked by midget submarines of the Imperial Japanese Navy. A vessel of the Royal Australian Navy was torpedoed, and 21 sailors died. The midget submarines were hunted down, and two sunk, while another was found in more recent times.
War had already come to northern Australia, and now ......
Japanese Major General Horii Tomitarô, commanding the South Seas Force, was after taking Kokoda Plateau in late July tasked with entering the Owen Stanley Range to capture Port Morseby. After the battles for Deniki and Isurava, his troops were pushing south through the mountains. The Australians under Brigadier Arnold Potts, however, were not ......
This illustrated history explores the cruiser forces of the Italian and British Royal navies, the jack-of-all trades warships of the Mediterranean Naval War. In 1940, when Italy entered World War II, the Royal Navy was badly overstretched, and its Mediterranean Fleet had to face both the Italian Navy and the German and Italian ......
Innovating Victory: Naval Technology in Three Wars, studies how the worlds navies incorporated new technologies into their ships, their practices, and their doctrine. It does this by examining six core technologies fundamental to twentieth-century naval warfare including new platforms (submarines and aircraft), new ......
A new analysis of the technology and tanks that faced off against each other on opposite sides of the Iron Curtain, during the very height of the Cold War. From the 1960s onwards, there was a generational shift in tank design and warfare with the advent of CBR (chemical, biological, radiological) protection and a move away from ......
Continuing the Single Vehicle series from Mushroom Model Publications - a new range of booklets for military modellers featuring original colour profiles, photographic details and scale plans in 1/35 scale, plus drawings from military technical manuals for individual single variant military vehicles. This forth title covers the single variant ......
A visual history of USS Intrepid, one of the most visited museum ships in the world. USS Intrepid, the "Fighting I," was one of Americas longest-serving aircraft carriers. Launched during WWII, Intrepid and her crews weathered kamikazes, torpedoes, and typhoons throughout three years of heavy combat. Decommissioned after WWII, Intrepid was ......
$6.95 flat rate Australia wide