Chris McNab
1) Verdun 1916
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The Battle of Verdun was one of the bloodiest engagements of the First World War, resulting in 698,000 deaths, 70,000 for each of the 10 months of battle. The French Army in the area were decimated and it is often most tragically remembered as the battle in which the French were 'bled white'.
A potent symbol of French resistance, the fortress town of Verdun was one that the French Army was loath to relinquish easily. It was partly for this reason...
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In September 1939, Hitler's Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Thus began the greatest armed struggle in history. Within days of the invasion, Germany was at war with France, Great Britain and much of the Commonwealth, but by the end of 1941 — by which time Japan and the United States had been plunged into war — the conflict had engulfed virtually the entire planet. World War II witnessed the mobilisation of more than 100 million military personnel....
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This book introduces readers to the best-equipped, most elite air force in the world and its unflagging mission to protect the citizens and interests of the United States. The U.S. Air Force (USAF) was only established in 1947-44 years after the Wright Brothers first flight; yet its aircraft, equipment, and power are unrivalled. Air National Guard squadrons monitor the skies over the United States. The USAF Space Command puts surveillance satellites...
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In the absence of high-tech weapons, warfare in the ancient world was dominated by military commanders with innovative strategies. The strategic thinking of leaders led to some of the most stunning upsets the world has ever seen. Today, the Battle of Marathon or the conquests of Alexander still hold their rightful place among the most daring victories. This book describes the battles, leaders, and technology that cinched success, or ensured defeat....
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What was the key to Jeff Bezos's success? This biography takes a deep-dive into his career and the decisions he made to become the world's most successful business magnate.
Entrepreneur and e-commerce pioneer Jeff Bezos is a success story of the business world. The executive chairman of Amazon and founder of Blue Origin, he became the first centibillionaire on the Forbes wealth index and one of the world's most recognisable names in modern history....
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A unique look at American military intelligence during World War II using contemporary manuals and briefings.
On December 7, 1941, an imperial Japanese carrier strike force attacked the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, taking advantage of what was one of the most profound intelligence failures in US history. Galvanized into action, the branches of the U.S. military subsequently developed one of the greatest, albeit imperfect, intelligence-gathering...
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The contents include day-to-day skills such as how to besiege a castle, fire a longbow, correctly clean a maxim machine gun and capture an enemy trench; sporting sciences such as jousting, fencing and boxing (Queensbury Rules, of course); and domestic essentials such as how to hunt, kill, clean and cook a wild boar. Airmen and soldiers, knights and pages, gentlemen and rogues: to you we say pip pip, and what what! Stiffen your lip and tighten your...
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Elon Musk is one of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, the CEO of Tesla, the founder of SpaceX and one of the richest people on the planet. Raised in South Africa, he attended a number of universities, before founding the software company Zip2 in 1995. Just four years later it was bought for $307 million. X.com, the online bank he founded in 1999, merged to form PayPal the following year. His business interests have expanded to include aerospace,...
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Perhaps no period of Native American warfare is as familiar as the Powhatan tribe's fight against British settlers in the early seventeenth century. The stories of Pocahontas, John Rolfe, and Chief Powhatan have been told and retold since that time. However, there are many more key figures from East Coast tribes, including the Cherokee, Seminole, and Creek, who shaped history through battle. This book highlights major conflicts and the warriors who...
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The Battle of Passchendaele has come to epitomize the mud and blood of the First World War. Passchendaele is perhaps one of the most iconic campaigns of the First World War, coming to symbolize the mud and blood of the battlefield like no other. Fought for over three months under some of the worst conditions of the war, fighting became bogged down in a quagmire that made it almost impossible for any gains to be made. In this Battle Story, Chris McNab...
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The U.S. Army is the most powerful military force on Earth. Every hour of every day it guards the United States and its citizens at home and abroad, ready to respond to any emergency with its elite personnel, hi-tech equipment, and massive firepower. This book explores how the U.S. Army defends freedom and democracy around the world. Since its creation, the Army has proved itself fighting wars as well as keeping the peace by deterring aggression....
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Pocket manuals bring together a wealth of information from a wide variety of training manuals and tactical documents. Between 1964 and 1975, 2.6 million American personnel served within the borders of South Vietnam during the Vietnam War, of whom an estimated 1–1.6 million actually fought in combat. At the tip of the spear was the infantry, the "grunts" who entered an extraordinary tropical combat zone completely alien to the world they had left...
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The Remembrance Poppy is a haunting reminder of the ultimate cost of war. Worn by millions around the world every year, the Poppy compels us to remember war's dead, wounded and bereaved, regardless of nationality or conflict. As we reflect on the centenary of the First World War, this book charts the history of the Remembrance Poppy, from its origins in the battle-tortured landscape of Flanders in 1915 to its enduring relevance in the present day....
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How the first military pilots learned to fly-and fight: guidance from Great War training manuals.
Aviation was still in its infancy when World War I broke out-and newly formed air forces produced manuals to help pioneers heading for the skies as they took warfare into a new dimension with reconnaissance missions, primitive bombing attempts, and attacks on enemy aircraft.
Pulling together information from British manuals such as A Few Hints for the...
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From the French Revolution to the American Revolution an ocean away, the age of revolution lasted less than a century but had profound, wide-ranging consequences. This book takes a battle-by-battle look at this exciting and dramatic time of social change. Through photographs, diagrams, timelines, and engaging text, the book shows how military leaders were emboldened by new ideas and new technology to change the world around them.
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A heavily illustrated account of the evolution, design and deployment of dreadnought battleships.
When HMS Dreadnought was commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1906 this revolutionary new class of big-gun iron-clad warship immediately changed the face of naval warfare, rendering all other battleships worldwide obsolete. The Admiralty realised that as soon as the ship was revealed to the global naval community Britain would be a in race to stay ahead,...
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During World War II, it quickly became apparent that the physical and tactical demands placed upon paratroopers required men of exceptional stamina, courage and intelligence. To create these soldiers, levels of training were unusually punishing and protracted, and those who came through to take their "wings" were a true elite.
The Paratrooper Training Pocket Manual 1939—1945 provides an unusually detailed look into what it took to make a military...
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This exciting volume explores the lives of Native Americans living in what is now Alaska and Canada. Many of these tribes lived in weather conditions that were inhospitable to settlers, at first. The book examines what happened when settlers and traders did make their way north, including the Beaver Wars and the French and Indian War.
20) Cambrai 1917
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The Battle of Cambrai has become synonymous with one of the Allies' first large-scale use of tanks on the Western Front. Cambrai certainly saw over 450 Mark IV tanks lumber across No Man's Land and penetrate the Hindenburg Line. For the Germans on the other side of these defenses the sheer scale of these 'iron monsters' was terrifying, however they quickly rallied and the battle was about much more than the tanks deployed.
Chris McNab explores how...