Download or read book The War Underground 1914 18 Tactics and Equipment written by Simon Jones and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2024-05-23 with total page 65 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This absorbing illustrated study reveals the evolving tactics and techniques used by all sides in the underground war during 1914–18. Covering the Western Front but also the Gallipoli and Italian theatres, this study explores three aspects of World War I below ground: military mining, attack tunnels and dugouts. In 1914–17, the underground war was a product of static trench warfare, essential to survive it and part of both sides' attempts to overcome it. In 1917–18 it was rendered largely obsolete by the development of the all-arms battle as mobility was restored to the battlefield. In the stagnant, troglodyte existence of trench warfare, military mining was a hidden world of heroism and terror in which hours of suspenseful listening were spent monitoring the steady picking of unseen opponents, edging quietly towards the enemy, and judging when to fire a charge. Break-ins to enemy mine galleries resulted in hand-to-hand fighting in the darkness. The ingenuity, claustrophobia and tactical importance of the underground war are discussed and depicted in this fully illustrated study from an acknowledged expert. The artwork plates include depictions of the specialized uniforms, weapons and equipment used underground, as well as vignettes that vividly convey the many aspects of subterranean warfare during World War I.
Download or read book Underground Warfare 1914 1918 written by Simon Jones and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2010-06-15 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Simon Joness graphic history of underground warfare during the Great War uses personal reminiscences to convey the danger and suspense of this unconventional form of conflict. He describes how the underground soldiers of the opposing armies engaged in a ruthless fight for supremacy, covers the tunneling methods they employed, and shows the increasingly lethal tactics they developed during the war in which military mining reached its apotheosis. He concentrates on the struggle for ascendancy by the British tunneling companies on the Western Front.But his wide-ranging study also tells the story of the little known but fascinating subterranean battles fought in the French sectors of the Western Front and between the Austrians and the Italians in the Alps which have never been described before in English. Vivid personal testimony is combined with a lucid account of the technical challenges and ever-present perils of tunneling in order to give an all-round insight into the extraordinary experience of this underground war.
Download or read book World War I Battlefield Artillery Tactics written by Dale Clarke and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-12-20 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the First World War bogged down across Europe resulting in the establishment of trench systems, artillery began to grow in military importance. Never before had the use of artillery been so vital, and to this day the ferocity, duration and widespread use of artillery across the trenches of Europe has never been replicated. Featuring specially commissioned full-colour artwork, this groundbreaking study explains and illustrates the enormous advances in the use of artillery that took place between 1914 and 1918, the central part artillery played in World War I and how it was used throughout the war, with particular emphasis on the Western Front.
Download or read book World War I Gas Warfare Tactics and Equipment written by Simon Jones and published by Osprey Publishing. This book was released on 2007-01-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Osprey's study of gas warfare tactics that were employed during World War I (1914-1918). Battlefield Gas was first employed in April 1915 at the village of Langemarck near Ypres. At 1700 hours the Germans released a five mile-wide cloud of 168 tons of chlorine gas from 520 cylinders, causing panic and death in the French and Algerian trenches. Despite initial widespread condemnation and disgust, its use rapidly spread with all the armies entering into the race to produce gases, new ways to use them, and protective measures including masks and warning systems. For the first time in detail, this book charts the development of gas as a battlefield weapon and the steps taken to counter it. Delivery methods, including the use of artillery, the consequences of changing wind direction, and infantry advancing into an area just gassed, are all covered alongside key milestones in its introduction and usage. With an abundant array of artwork and photographs illustrating the gas masks, insignia, and protective clothing of the protagonists, this book conveys the horror of the gas attack and reveals the practical challenges for soldiers struggling to cope with this new form of warfare. Conveying the reality behind the iconic Sargent painting of a column of blindfolded gas casualties, it is a fascinating survey of one of the darkest facets of 20th century warfare.
Download or read book Artillery in the Great War written by Paul Strong and published by Grub Street Publishers. This book was released on 2011-05-18 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A year-by-year examination of key WWI battles and how the ongoing advances in artillery shaped strategy, tactics, and oprations; includes battlefield maps! World War I is often said to have been an artillery war, yet the decisive role artillery played in shaping military decisions—and therefor the war itself—has rarely been examined. Artillery in the Great War traces the development of this all-important technology, the differing approaches to its use, the many innovations it underwent on both sides, and how those approaches and innovations in turn effected key battles such as the Battle of the Somme. This highly readable and informative history is perfect for any reader interested in understanding the legacy of World War I, or the evolution of modern warfare.
Download or read book German Machine Guns of World War I written by Stephen Bull and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-05-19 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World War I's defining weapon for many, Germany's MG 08 machine gun won a formidable reputation on battlefields from Tannenberg to the Somme. Although it was a lethally effective weapon when used from static positions, the MG 08 was far too heavy to perform a mobile role on the battlefield. As the British and French began to deploy lighter machine guns alongside their heavier weapons, the Germans fielded the Danish Madsen and British Lewis as stopgaps, but chose to adapt the MG 08 into a compromise weapon – the MG 08/15 – which would play a central role in the revolutionary developments in infantry tactics that characterized the last months of the conflict. In the 1940s, the two weapons were still in service with German forces fighting in a new world war. Drawing upon eyewitness battlefield reports, this absorbing study assesses the technical performance and combat record of these redoubtable and influential German machine guns, and their strengths and limitations in a variety of battlefield roles.
Download or read book The Hindenburg Line written by Patrick R. Osborn and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-10-20 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jagging across north-western Europe like an ugly scar, the Hindenburg Line was Germany's most formidable line of defence in World War I. Its fearsome reputation was matched only by its cunning design, with deep zigzagging trenches, concrete fieldworks, barbed wire and devilish booby traps forming an intimidating barrier for any attacking army. Through meticulous research, this volume explores each of the major portions of the Hindenburg Line, paying particular attention to three examples of Allied operations against it towards the end of the war: the critical flanking of the Drocourt-Qeant Switch; the daring but costly rupture of the line of the St Quentin Canal; and the bloody battles of the Meuse-Argonne. Specially commissioned artwork and historical photographs perfectly complement the analysis provided by the authors as they trace the life of the Hindenburg Line from its seemingly invulnerable early years through to the audacious tactics used by the Allies to achieve a bitter victory in 1918.
Download or read book Fortifications of the Western Front 1914 18 written by Paddy Griffith and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-08-20 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the early battles of 1914 along the Marne and in the Ypres salient, World War I rapidly changed from a war of movement into one of attrition, with the opposing sides entrenching themselves in a line of fortified positions from the Flanders coastline to the Swiss border. This volume details the different styles of fortification used on the Western Front throughout the course of the war, from the early ditches of 1914 to the complicated systems of 1918. It explains the development of the 'defence in depth' German system and the British reaction to it, as well as illustrating the importance of the pre-war forts, particularly around Verdun.
Download or read book Beneath Flanders Fields written by Peter Barton and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2005-07-07 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The result of over twenty-five years of research, Beneath Flanders Fields reveals how this intense underground battle was fought and won. The authors give the first full account of mine warfare in World War I through the words of the tunnellers themselves as well as plans, drawings, and previously unpublished archive photographs, many in colour. Beneath Flanders Fields also shows how military mining evolved. The tunnellers constructed hundreds of deep dugouts that housed tens of thousands of troops. Often electrically lit and ventilated, these tunnels incorporated headquarters, cookhouses, soup kitchens, hospitals, drying rooms, and workshops. A few dugouts survive today, a final physical legacy of the Great War, and are presented for the first time in photographs in Beneath Flanders Fields.
Download or read book British Generalship on the Western Front 1914 1918 written by Simon Robbins and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-12-21 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the British Army's response on the Western Front to a period of seminal change in warfare. In particular it examines the impact of the pre-war emphasis on worldwide garrison, occupation and policing duties for the Empire's defence of the mindset of the Army's leadership and its lack of preparation for a continental war involving a massive, unplanned increase in men and material. The reasons for the poor performance in the early years of the war, notably professionalism within the British Army, including poor staff work, 'trade unionism', careerism within the high command, and the tendency of an overconfident hierarchy to ignore the need for reform to tackle the tactical stalemate prior to 1916, are analysed. The high command rapidly learnt from the defeats of 1915-16 and performed much better in 1916-18, an especially formative period resulting in the promotion of a younger, more professional leadership and the development of the first truly modern system of tactics which has dominated wars ever since. During 1917-18 the Army's commanders and staff evolved and improved these new methods; developing a doctrine of combined arms to overcome the tactical stalemate bedevilling Allied offensives.
Download or read book French Soldier vs German Soldier written by David Campbell and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-03-19 with total page 81 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 21 February 1916, the German Army launched a major attack on the French fortress of Verdun. The Germans were confident that the ensuing battle would compel France to expend its strategic reserves in a savage attritional battle, thereby wearing down Allied fighting power on the Western Front. However, initial German success in capturing a key early objective, Fort Douaumont, was swiftly stemmed by the French defences, despite heavy French casualties. The Germans then switched objectives, but made slow progress towards their goals; by July, the battle had become a stalemate. During the protracted struggle for Verdun, the two sides' infantrymen faced appalling battlefield conditions; their training, equipment and doctrine would be tested to the limit and beyond. New technologies, including flamethrowers, hand grenades, trench mortars and more mobile machine guns, would play a key role in the hands of infantry specialists thrown into the developing battle, and innovations in combat communications were employed to overcome the confusion of the battlefield. This study outlines the two sides' wider approach to the evolving battle, before assessing the preparations and combat record of the French and German fighting men who fought one another during three pivotal moments of the 101⁄2-month struggle for Verdun.
Download or read book Soviet State Security Services 1917 46 written by Douglas A. Drabik and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-02-17 with total page 65 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Bolsheviks' seizure of power in Russia in late 1917 was swiftly followed by the establishment of the Cheka, the secret police of the new Soviet state. The Cheka was central to the Bolsheviks' elimination of political dissent during the Russian Civil War (1917–22). In 1922 the Soviet state-security organs became the GPU and then the OGPU (1923–34) before coalescing into the NKVD. After it played a central role in the Great Terror (1936–38), which saw the widespread repression of many different groups and the imprisonment and execution of prominent figures, the NKVD had its heyday during the Great Patriotic War (1941–45). During the conflict the organization deployed full military divisions, frontier troop units and internal security forces and ran the hated GULAG forced-labour camp system. By 1946, the power of the NKVD was so great that even Stalin saw it as a threat and it was broken up into multiple organizations, notably the MVD and the MGB – the forerunners of the KGB. In this book, the history and organization of these feared organizations are assessed, accompanied by photographs and colour artwork depicting their evolving appearance.
Download or read book The Fortifications of Verdun 1874 1917 written by Clayton Donnell and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-08-20 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ring of fortifications protecting the city of Verdun on the Meuse River would become critical in the infamous battle of World War I. This book examines these fortifications, including the famous forts of Douaumont and Vaux that saw some of the fiercest fighting during the battle.
Download or read book Weapons Gear and Uniforms of the Iraq War written by Shelley Tougas and published by Capstone. This book was released on 2012 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Describes the uniforms, gear, and weapons used by U.S. and Iraqi forces during the Iraq War"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book U S Air Force Special Forces written by Kim Covert and published by Capstone. This book was released on 1999-09 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to the United States Air Force pararescue units whose mission is to help air force members whose aircraft have crashed, including the development of the units and the equipment they use.
Download or read book World War II US Armored Infantry Tactics written by Gordon L. Rottman and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2011-09-20 with total page 115 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Little has been published on US armored infantry units and tactics over the years. However, their contribution to the war effort was hugely important. There were a total of 57 armored infantry battalions and two regiments that served throughout the war and in all theaters. Equipped with halftracks, they fought as part of combined arms teams and combat commands alongside tanks, tank destroyers and artillery battalions. Significantly, they were not simply standard infantry battalions provided with halftracks. Their company and platoon organization was very different from the standard infantry unit and these highly mobile, heavily armed battalions fought in an entirely different manner. Using period training manuals and combat reports this book provides an exclusive look at the unique tactics developed by US armored infantry units including movement formations and battle drills.
Download or read book World War II Infantry Tactics written by Stephen Bull and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-05-27 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite all technological advances, final mastery of any battlefield depends upon the tight-knit group of footsoldiers trained to manoeuvre, shoot and dig in. This first of a two-part study examines the methods by which the Western infantry of World War II - the German, British and US armies - actually brought their firepower to bear. Drawing upon period training manuals for the evolving theory, and on personal memoirs for the individual practice, this first book covers the organization and tactics of the squad of ten or a dozen men, and the platoon of three or four squads. The text is illustrated with contemporary photographs and diagrams, and with colour plates bringing to life the movement of soldiers on the battlefield.
