Download or read book Ancient Arms Race Antiquity s Largest Fortresses and Sasanian Military Networks of Northern Iran written by Eberhard Sauer and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2023-03-13 with total page 928 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Which ancient army boasted the largest fortifications, and how did the competitive build-up of military capabilities shape world history? Few realise that imperial Rome had a serious competitor in Late Antiquity. Late Roman legionary bases, normally no larger than 5ha, were dwarfed by Sasanian fortresses, often covering 40ha, sometimes even 125-175ha. The latter did not necessarily house permanent garrisons but sheltered large armies temporarily – perhaps numbering 10-50,000 men each. Even Roman camps and fortresses of the Early and High Empire did not reach the dimensions of their later Persian counterparts. The longest fort-lined wall of the late antique world was also Persian. Persia built up, between the fourth and sixth centuries AD, the most massive military infrastructure of any ancient or medieval Near Eastern empire – if not the ancient and medieval world. Much of the known defensive network was directed against Persia’s powerful neighbours in the north rather than the west. This may reflect differences in archaeological visibility more than troop numbers. Urban garrisons in the Romano-Persian frontier zone are much harder to identify than vast geometric compounds in marginal northern lands. Recent excavations in Iran have enabled us to precision-date two of the largest fortresses of Southwest Asia, both larger than any in the Roman world. Excavations in a Gorgan Wall fort have shed much new light on frontier life, and we have unearthed a massive bridge nearby. A sonar survey has traced the terminal of the Tammisheh Wall, now submerged under the waters of the Caspian Sea. Further work has focused on a vast city and settlements in the hinterland. Persia’s Imperial Power, our previous project, had already shed much light on the Great Wall of Gorgan, but it was our recent fieldwork that has thrown the sheer magnitude of Sasanian military infrastructure into sharp relief.

Download or read book Desert Diggers written by David Mitchelhill-Green and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2024-04-03 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Desert Diggers: Writings from a War Zone ‘Somewhere in the Middle East’ 1940-1942 draws upon hundreds of soldiers’ letters in a fresh and captivating narrative of the war in North Africa. Desert Diggers follows the first men to volunteer after the outbreak of war in 1939, tracing their adventures in exotic ports before further training in Palestine. A hunger for action grew: ‘Most of the chaps are ... anxious to get into anything that looks like a fight’, one soldier wrote to his brother. From Egypt, ‘the hottest and dustiest place on God's earth’ was the Diggers’ next destination and their ‘blooding’ in the battles for Bardia and Tobruk. After Rommel failed to storm Tobruk in April-May 1941, Nazi propaganda denigrated the garrison, ‘caught like rats in a trap’. Amid frequent bombing and shelling, Berlin’s scornful broadcasts were an unintended tonic. ‘Frequently we laughed and joked until the tears came into our eyes’, a Digger quipped. From Tobruk, to the blunting of Rommel’s attacks at El Alamein, the price of victory was palpably high: ‘some of my best mates didn't come out of it’, lamented a corporal to his sister. Returning to Australia in 1943, some men maimed or traumatised, brought a further test for the Diggers ... Told in the words of the men who served, Desert Diggers offers a new personal perspective on the Western Desert campaign. With immediacy and raw emotion, these skillfully woven letters provide a remarkable and compelling account of the Australian experience of war.

Download or read book The History of the 7th Medium Regiment Royal Artillery Now 32nd Medium Regiment R A During World War II 1939 1945 written by Great Britain. Army. Royal Regiment of Artillery. 32d Medium Regiment and published by . This book was released on 1951 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Royal Navy and the Mediterranean written by David Brown and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-07-04 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume deals with the first 15 months of the Mediterranean Campaign including the preparations for war, the effect of the entry of Italy into the war in June, 1940, the tragic actions against the French Fleet, and the achievement of British command of the sea, which was the defining factor for all subsequent Mediterranean operations. It ends with the first Mediterranean convoy battle to run supplies from Gibraltar to Alexandria - Operation Hat.

Download or read book History of the Indian Armoured Corps 1941 1971 The Indian armour written by Gurcharn Singh Sandhu and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book For Love of Regiment written by Charles Messenger and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 1994-03-16 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author explains how the tradition of loyalty to the regiment has served the British Army so well over the past 350 years and, in his vivid description of some of the major campaigns in which it has fought, shows what it was like at various times to have been an officer or a soldier in the British Army.

Download or read book Hutchinson s Pictorial History of the War written by and published by . This book was released on 1941-10 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Voices from History Joyce s War written by Joyce Ffoulkes Parry and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2015-02-02 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joyce Ffoulkes Parry was an Australian nurse who came to Britain in 1937 to rediscover her Welsh roots. When war was declared, she signed up as a Queen Alexandra nurse and from 1940 until 1944, when she left India to begin her married life in Wales, she served as a sister in France, on hospital ships and in hospitals in Egypt, India and the Far East. Her journal came to light after her death in 1992. Out of the chaos of war emerges a unique voice telling a vivid, compelling and honest story of adventure, bravery, friendship, homesickness and wartime romance. Edited by her daughter and published for the first time, Joyce's wry observations about everything from the bureaucracy of the army to how poetry and shopping helped sustain her through four difficult but extraordinary years offer a fascinating glimpse into a vanished world.

Download or read book Everyman s History of the Sea War written by Alfred Cecil Hardy and published by . This book was released on 1948 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The D L I at War written by David Rissik and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2012-09-04 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Durham Light Infantry is not only one of the British army's proudest and most distinguised units - it is also one of the best recorded. This book is one among several published by the Naval and Military Press chronicling the DLI's many battle exploits, and it tells the regiment's story during the Second World War. The history comes complete with a foreword by Field-Marshal Montgomery who often found himself commanding the DLI in many fields, from Alamein to Germany via Sicily, Normandy and Holland. Monty writes: ‘It is a magnificent Regiment, steady as a rock in battle and absolutely reliable on all occasions'. This book tells the full and thrilling story of the regiment's many battle honours, which include Arras and Dunkirk in France in 1940; the western desert, Tobruk and Malta; Tunis, Sicily, Italy and Greece; the Arakan and Kohima in Burma; Normandy, the Low Countries and Germany in 1944-45. The book has 20 maps, 32 photographs and an index.

Download or read book Second to None written by Julian Paget and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2000-09-11 with total page 721 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Familiar to tourists at Buckingham Palace, the Coldstream Guards are also a fully operational combat unit. The regiment played a key role at Blenheim and Waterloo, fought at Monmouth in the American Revolution, served in both World Wars and is frequently deployed on short notice to the world's trouble spots even today. This lavishly illustrated volume has been produced to mark the regiment's 350th anniversary. Contributors include numerous distinguished British historians and past members of the regiment. Full details are given for both the Coldstream Guards' ceremonial duties and their participation in some of the key events in European history.

Download or read book The Guinness History of the British Army written by John Pimlott and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Rogue Heroes written by Ben Macintyre and published by Crown. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The incredible untold story of World War II’s greatest secret fighting force, as told by the modern master of wartime intrigue—now a limited series on Epix! “Reads like a mashup of The Dirty Dozen and The Great Escape, with a sprinkling of Ocean’s 11 thrown in for good measure.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times ONE OF NPR’S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • “Rogue Heroes is a ripping good read.”—Washington Post (10 Best Books of the Year) Britain’s Special Air Service—or SAS—was the brainchild of David Stirling, a young aristocrat whose aimlessness belied a remarkable strategic mind. Where most of his colleagues looked at a World War II battlefield map and saw a protracted struggle, Stirling saw an opportunity: given a small number of elite men, he could parachute behind Nazi lines and sabotage their airplanes and supplies. Defying his superiors’ conventional wisdom, Stirling assembled a revolutionary fighting force that would upend not just the balance of the war, but the nature of combat itself. Bringing his keen eye for detail to a riveting wartime narrative, Ben Macintyre uses his unprecedented access to the SAS archives to shine a light on a legendary unit long shrouded in secrecy.

Download or read book Burma 1942 written by R E S Tanner and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2011-11-08 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In December 1941 a Japanese battalion of 143rd Regiment of 55th Division crossed the Burma-Siam border and seized Victoria Point, heralding the invasion of Burma. The first air raids on Rangoon were opposed by only two fighter squadrons - 16 P40s of the American Volunteer Group (AVG) and 16 Buffaloes of the RAF. What followed was a fighting retreat as the British forces struggled to the Indian border, harried by an experienced Japanese force which was supported by at least 200 aircraft against the Allies' meagre fifty. Burma 1942 is a unique assessment of this disastrous episode in British military history, taken in part from the diary and maps kept by Ralph Tanner, who served with 2nd Battalion The Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry during the retreat, and from the official Battalion war diary by Major Chadwick. It includes background to the mobilisation of the Battalion in 1941, who they were, their equipment and what they were trained for, and considers the series of disasters at Moulmein, Sittang, Toksan and Yenangyaung which left them increasingly unable to fight as a unit. It also addresses the factors which prevented optimum military performance, includes discussions with the author's one-time enemies, and serves as a tribute to the strength of the men of the battalion - most of whom were conscripts - and of whom a fifth were killed and have no known grave.

Download or read book Walking in Their Boots written by Joanne Tapiolas and published by . This book was released on 2017-12-24 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over 1500 Italian prisoners of war, captured in the battlefields of north Africa, came to Queensland during World War 2.The Italians provided a much-needed workforce for farmers throughout nine south-east Queensland districts. Additionally, 250 Italians worked at the Commonwealth Vegetable Farm on the Burdekin River, to supply fresh produce to the north¿s military forces.Queensland farming families welcomed the Italians onto their farms and into their homes. A temporary refrain from life behind barbwire fences, friendships were forged and lasting memories remain clear over seven decades later.The Italian prisoners of war left their footprints in the landscape and in the memories of Queenslanders. ¿Walking in their Boots¿ traces the history of Italian prisoners of war in Queensland and tells the stories of a time when POWs worked on our Queensland farms.

Download or read book Fodor s 2010 Washington D C written by Fodor's and published by Fodors Travel Publications. This book was released on 2009-10 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the monuments and museums and offers information on Washington's history, attractions, parks, and gardens as well as practical tips on accommodations, restaurants, nightlife, and shopping

Download or read book History of the Second World War written by and published by . This book was released on 1967 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: