Collins Encyclopedia of Military History

 I'd not come across this book before but John A saw a copy in a local charity shop and asked if I wanted one. 

The Collins Encyclopedia of Military History by R and T Dupuy, the latter obviously famous for his work on military science, "Numbers Prediction and War" etc.

I've got several military encylopedias already, but they tend to be period specific and of distinctly patchy quality. This one covers a vast period, from the earliest recorded history (Sumerians etc) up to 'the present day', which apparently means 1991. I guess they are subscribers to the End of History thesis. It covers the first Gulf War anyway.

Ignoring the missing ultra modern stuff, this is a really, really good encyclopedia. Each military epoch has a chapter on significant military methods and developments in the period. This one is explaining the Philip IIs, Macedonian Army.

And then there are fairly standard encyclopedia type pages covering the few hundred years of ensuing military history, covering the entire globe, as far as we know about it anyway. Where appropriate, key battles are illustrated, but for me the fascinating thing was the coverage of areas I know little about (India, China, South America etc) and it also filled in lots of gaps about periods I do have some knowledge of (who on earth were the Phoenecians?)

You also get the inevitable campaign and regional maps, which are also very useful. 

I really can't recommend this highly enough. I'm sure wikipedia covers a lot of this stuff these days, but you need a starting point about what to look for, and this is as good as any. What a great book, thanks very much John!

August Storm, the 1945 Soviet Strategic Offensive in Manchuria

 I recently read 'August Storm' by David Glantz. As the title suggests, it covers the Soviet offensive into Manchuria in August 1945. 

Like many of Glantz's campaign histories this is liberally sprinkled with very legible maps, full orders of battle and the sorts of things I like such as the detailed March Order of various types of military formations.

The campaign itself was primarily a victory of logistics - the Soviets managed to manouvre overwhelming forces into the places the Japanese didn't expect and at a rate they didn't expect, so the overall defence just fell apart in a matter of days. Tactically the few Japanese units which were seriously engaged fought well, but but general they were outmanouvred, outflanked and either largely cut off and left to wither on the vine or fell back precipitously before surrendering.

The stuff on Soviet planning, force structures and execution of operational manouvre are fascinating though, particularly the way the force structures carried over into the postwar Soviet Army eg the vast majority of the Rifle Divisions had attached Tank Regiments or Tank Brigades which prefigured postwar Motor Rifle Divisions. Colonel Glantz's style can be a little repetitious and hectoring at times, but that doesn't detract from the content. The sections on riverine warfare in particular were every interesting and something I know little about in the context of the USSR.  Based on the very lengthy and detailed Orbats, it is a theatre which also involve the deployment of many, many armoured trains. 

As it is available for free from the US Army military press, it is hard to argue with the price either! Highly recommended.

It is available for download here: https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-books/Glantz-lp7.pdf

Simulating War

I recently re-read 'Simulating War' by Professor Phil Sabin. It is a couple of years since I last read it, and it was interesting how much more I got from it this time.

The first time I read it, it was largely a matter of confirming my own prejudices about how badly many/most/all wargames rules model the realities of twentieth century land warfare, in particular the fallacy of the Lanchester square law which holds that combat power and losses are a square (and inverse square) of force ratios.   This is demonstrably not the case in even the most trivial of real life examples, as otherwise simply throwing more bodies and tanks into the fray would be the solution to every tactical problem.

Anyway, I digress. This time around, one of the main things I got from it was a better understanding of the difference between  wargames as command simulators and as a mechanism to explore a historical narrative of events. In the former case, quite different mechanisms need to be involved, generally modelling various degrees of friction and fog of war (and all those mechanisms like cards or hidden movement which wargamers love or hate) whereas for the latter, a much more open approach is possible and generally much closer to traditional open wargames with high levels of knowledge. Trying to both at once has the potential to cause great confusion, and may explain many of my abortive attempts to come up with 'perfect' sets of rules.

Such thoughts did set me thinking abut how the general approach in Phils 'Korsun Pocket' game could actually be applied as more generic operational Eastern Front set of rules, with the grandiose scale of the stands representing entire Divisions and Corps - a step up from my own Panzergruppe rules. Re-reading David Glantz's 'From the Don to the Dneipr' produced lots of examples where the combat model and scale of representation fitted rather well.  Anyway, various half baked ideas emerged over the summer, so that one is a work in progress.

It also got me thinking about my favourite WW2 level, brigade level games with platoon(ish) sized stands. My last outing in this arena was a bit of a disaster, too much stuff with mechanisms which were too slow. Inspiration has once more struck, so again, a work in progress there.

In the meantime I have been doing some painting, and interesting foray into 2mm Pike and Shot thanks to an impulse buy from Mr Gow at Triples, as well as finally painting the 15mm Early WW2 Germans I got last year. I have also been very gratified to find people like my One Hour Wargame rule variants, so I seem to be on the right track with some of this stuff at least.

WW2 OR documents

No pictures this week, I have however finally got around to uploading a couple of John D. Salts compendiums of WW2 Operations Research documents. One on weapons effectiveness, the other on artillery.

The former is fascinating as it includes contemporary analysis of the suppressive effects of various weights of small arms and artillery fire against different types of targets, among other things. They are both on the 'downloads page', but here are the direct links.

Artillery snippets

WW2 Weapons Effectiveness