The formidable European longsword - featuring a double-edged straight blade in excess of 40in, and capable of being used with one or both hands - remains one of the most impressive and distinctive edged weapons of the late medieval era. Also known as the ‘bastard' sword and the ‘hand-and-a-half' sword, the longsword evolved from the war swords and great swords of the 14th century, and emerged as a battlefield weapon in the early stages of the Hundred Years' War. It went on to become a key weapon on the battlefields of late medieval Europe, creating a new system of sword fighting.
Drawing together period sources, modern technical analysis and his own experiences with the longsword, Neil Grant explores the origins, manufacture and evolving use of this iconic late-medieval edged weapon. Illustrated throughout with specially commissioned full-colour artwork and an array of period illustrations and close-up photographs, this is the enthralling story of one of late-medieval Europe's most distinctive and deadly close-combat weapons.

Osprey's study of the Chidits of Wolrd War II (1939-19445). Named after mythical beasts guarding Buddhist temples, the Chindits were a specially organized, equipped and trained body of men employing innovative fighting methods based on ideas originally developed in Palestine and Ethiopia by their commander, Major-General Orde Wingate. The two Chindit operations (LONGCLOTH in February - May 1943 and THURSDAY in March 1944) were praised by the press, but their contribution to the Allied cause remains controversial to this day. This book examines the origins of the Chindits and the genesis of Major-General Wingate's ideas about Long Range Penetration. The author discusses the recruitment and specialist fighting methods of the Chindits during 1943-44, which quickly created a force with a high espirit-de-corps and belief in Wingate and his ideas. Accompanied by full-color illustrations demonstrating the distinctive dress, equipment and weapons, this book assesses the contribution made by these elite troops to the Allied victory in South-East Asia during World War II.

Approximately 200,000 African Americans fought for the Union during the Civil War. Initially, many white soldiers doubted their bravery and skill; they were soon proved wrong. The United States Colored Troops performed countless acts of courage, most famously at the battle of Fort Wagner where the 54th Massachusetts marched forth and scaled the parapets, only to be driven back in fierce hand-to-hand combat. Through fascinating first-hand accounts, this title examines the journey of the African American from slave to soldier to free man, ultimately providing a fascinating insight into the impact that these brave men had on the war and how it influenced their lives thereafter.

As France emerged from the Franco-Prussian War she embarked on a period of active colonialism, acquiring territories in South-East Asia and Africa. By the turn of the century much of north, west and central Africa was under French control. In order to police all of these territories, the French needed an army and so the French Foreign Legion was born. In this book, world-renowned Legion expert Martin Windrow analyses what it would have been like to be a member of the French Foreign Legion and how the experience, equipment, tactics and training of the Legion developed in the 80 years between their foundation and the outbreak of the First World War. He investigates their glory years in North Africa and Indochina, and draws extensively on memoirs from two British legionnaires, peppering the text with extraordinary first-hand accounts of the French Foreign Legion.

In October 2001 the most militarily advanced nation on earth came into conflict with one of the least developed nations as American forces poured into Afghanistan. The tip of the spear was drawn from the US Special Forces community, and largely from the units of the United States Army Special Forces – the famous Green Berets. Together with the Special Activities Division of the CIA and the Afghan Northern Alliance, they overthrew the Taliban in a lightning campaign that redefined modern warfare.
This new study reveals the grueling Green Beret training and preparation, the specialized equipment they used in the field and traces their deployment throughout the campaign, from the first insertion of forces through to the fall of Kabul and Kandahar, the Taliban uprising at the notorious Fort of War in Mazar-e-Sharif, and the clearance of Tora Bora and Operation Anaconda in the Shahikot Valley.

The most famous admiral in history, Horatio Nelson's string of naval victories helped secure Britain's place as the world's dominant maritime power, a position she held for more than a century after Nelson's death. A young officer during the American Revolution, Nelson rose to prominence during Britain's war with Revolutionary France, becoming a hero at the battle of Cape St. Vincent. He went on to win massive victories at the Nile and Copenhagen, before leading the British to their historic victory at Trafalgar in 1805. But, in that moment of his greatest glory, Nelson was struck down by a French sharpshooter. Today Nelson is revered as an almost mythical figure - a naval genius and a national hero. He was also a deeply flawed individual whose vanity, ego and private life all threatened to overshadow his immense abilities. This book reveals the real Nelson.

Nicknamed 'The Desert Fox' for his cunning command of the Afrika Korps, Erwin Rommel remains one of the most popular and studied of Germany's World War II commanders. He got his first taste of combat in World War I, where his daring command earned him the Blue Max, Germany's highest decoration for bravery. He followed this up with numerous successes early in World War II in both Europe and Africa, before facing his biggest challenge - organizing the defence of France. Implicated in the plot to kill Hitler, Rommel chose suicide over a public trial. This book looks at the life of this daring soldier, focusing on his style of command and the tactical decisions that earned him his fearsome reputation.

By the end of the First Punic War, Carthage had been humiliatingly chased from the high seas, its once-powerful fleet reduced to a handful of triremes. But in 219 BC Hannibal, the eldest son of the charismatic general Hamilcar Barca, began the Second Punic War and was so successful that he threatened to destroy Roman power completely. Hannibal was a cool, thoughtful general, and can arguably be described as the greatest general of antiquity. His genius rested on a mixture of bluff, double bluff, and an ability to use all troop types to their best advantage. The battle of Cannae remains a chef-d'oeuvre to which generations of subsequent generals have aspired.

'Bill' Slim was one of the greatest British generals of World War II. In a career that stretched from 1914 until 1958, Bill Slim's greatest triumphs came in India and Burma in the long war against the Japanese. Thrust into a desperate situation, he orchestrated the longest retreat in British Army history in the withdrawal from Burma. He then turned on the Japanese in India, shattered their army, and pursued them to destruction. Apart from his great military victories, Slim also left a legacy of training and morale building that endures in the British Army to this day. This book examines both Bill Slim's military career and his place in military history by examining some of his greatest battles and the strategy and tactics that set him apart from his contemporaries.

Orde Wingate rose to fame by creating the Chindits in Burma in 1943. He is an extremely important figure in military history, and deserves just as much attention as Alanbrooke, Montgomery, and Auchinleck. Unlike them, however, he always operated outside the accepted etiquette and the formal chain of command. He was a maverick and misfit, and he held to the belief that the type of mass warfare demonstrated on the Western Front (1914-18) had very little to do with the warfare of the future. He believed that the latter would require an 'indirect approach', in which heavily lumbering armies would be exquisitely vulnerable to small groups of highly motivated, mobile and well-armed guerrillas. This book covers Wingate's experiences in pre-war Palestine, in Ethiopia in 1941 (where he formed an irregular guerrilla unit to harrass the Italian garrisons) and in World War II Burma, where the two Chindit campaigns would be his apotheosis.

One of the greatest military commanders in history, Julius Caesar's most famous victory - the conquest of Gaul - was to him little more than a stepping stone to power. An audacious and decisive general, his victories over the Gauls allowed him to challenge for the political leadership of Rome. Leading a single legion across the Rubicon in 49 BC, Caesar launched a civil war which would end the Roman Republic and usher in the Roman Empire, with Caesar at its helm. This examination of the great general's life covers his great victories and few defeats, looking at the factors which lay behind his military genius.

This book looks closely at the life, military experiences and key battlefield exploits of Giuseppe Garibaldi. Born on July 4, 1807 in the city of Nice, the turning point in his life occurred in April 1833 when he met Giovanni Battista Cuneo, a member of the secret movement known as "Young Italy." Joining this society, Garibaldi took an oath dedicating his life to the struggle for the liberation of his homeland from Austrian dominance. The subsequent years would see him fighting in Brazil, in the Uruguayan Civil War, and on the Italian peninsula. Between 1848 and 1870, Garibaldi and his men were involved in a prolonged struggle that eventually led to the final unification of Italy in 1870.

The Royal Navy's attack on Taranto in 1940 heralded a new age of warfare.
It was the decisive moment in a struggle for dominance of the Mediterranean that had gone on for months, as the British and Italian navies both looked to secure maritime supply routes for their colonies.
With the enormous demands of a global war beginning to tell, the British capital ships were simply too thinly spread for a large fleet action against Taranto, where the bulk of the Italian fleet lay menacingly.
How was the Royal Navy to eliminate the threat of the Regia Marina? This is the story of one of World War II's most devastating raids, recounting how a handful of obsolete Fairey Swordfish biplanes swooped in and destroyed an Italian battleship and badly damaged two more.
With expert analysis, detailed colour illustrations and a gripping narrative, this book explains the origins of the attack, its planning and execution, and what happened in the aftermath.

In August 334 BC, Alexander the Great invaded the Persian Empire and systematically set about its conquest. At the core of Alexander's army were 10,000 members of the phalanx, the phalangites. Armed with a long pike and fighting in formations up to 16 ranks deep, these grizzled veterans were the mainstay of the Macedonian army.
Facing them were the myriad armies of the peoples that made up the Persian Empire. At the centre of these forces was the formation known as the Immortals: 10,000 elite infantry, armed with spears and bows.
In this study, a noted authority assesses the origins, combat role and battlefield performance of Alexander's phalangites and their Persian opponents in three key battles of the era - the Granicus River, Issus and Gaugamela - at the dawn of a new way of waging war.

The fighting around the town of Demyansk was one of the longest encirclement battles on the Eastern Front during World War II, stretching from February 1942 to February 1943. Originally, the German 16. Armee occupied Demyansk in the autumn of 1941 because it was key terrain that would be used as a springboard for an eventual offensive into the Valdai Hills. Instead, the Soviet winter counter offensive in February 1942 encircled the German II Armeekorps and other units, inside the Demyansk Pocket. Yet despite severe pounding from five Soviet armies, the embattled German troops held the pocket and the Luftwaffe organized a major aerial resupply effort to sustain the defenders. For the first time in military history, an army was supplied entirely by air. In February 1943, Marshal Timoshenko was ordered to launch an offensive to cut off the base of the salient and annihilate the 12 divisions. At the same time, Hitler finally came to his senses after the Stalingrad debacle and authorized the 16. Armee to withdraw from the pocket. This volume will conclude with the drama of a German Army-sized withdrawal under fire in winter, under attack from three sides.

In March 1944, the Japanese Army launched Operation U-Go, an attack on Assam in India intended to inspire a rising against British rule. A month earlier the Japanese had launched Operation Ha-Go, which was intended as a feint to draw British attention away from the Imphal area. But British forces employed new defensive techniques to counter the Japanese infiltration tactics. These tactics were again employed on a larger scale when Imphal and Kohima were surrounded during Operation U-Go. Kohima took place in two stages. From 3 to 16 April, the Japanese attempted to capture Kohima Ridge. As the small garrison held out against fierce and repeatedly desperate attempts by the Japanese 31st Division to destroy them, so the British 2nd Division fought to break through and relieve them. Then for over two months British and Indian troops counter-attacked to drive the Japanese from the positions they had already captured. The battle ended on June 22 when British and Indian troops from Kohima and Imphal met at Milestone 109, thus ending the siege.

Osprey's study of one of the most important battles of the long-elasting Germanic Wars (113 BC - 439 AD). Arminius, a young member of the Cheruscan tribe under the Roman Empire felt that Rome could be beaten in battle and that such a victory would guarantee the freedom of the Germans as a confederation of independent tribes, led by the Cheruscans, who would - in turn - be led by him.
Throughout AD 8 and the early part of AD 9, Arminius used his position under the governor of Germania Inferior well, ostensibly promoting Rome whilst in reality welding the tribes together in an anti-Roman alliance, agreeing with his confederates that they would wait until the Roman garrison had moved to their summer quarters and then rise up against the invaders. With the arrival of September, the time soon came for the Roman troops to return to their stations along the Rhine and as they marched westwards through the almost impenetrable Teutoburg Forest, Arminius sprang his trap. In a series of running battles in the forest, Varus' army, consisting of three Roman Legions (XVII, XVIII and XIX) and several thousand auxiliaries - a total of roughly 20,000 men - was destroyed.
The consequences for Rome were enormous - the province of Germania was now virtually undefended and Gaul was open to a German invasion which although it never materialized, led a traumatized Augustus to decree that, henceforth, the Rhine would remain the demarcation line between the Roman world and the German tribes, in addition to which the destroyed legions were never re-formed or their numbers reused in the Roman Army: after AD 9, the sequence of numbers would run from I to XVI and then from XX onwards, it was as if the three legions had never existed.

Osprey's examination of one of the most famous battles of the latter part of the American Indian Wars (1622-1918). With the wars between the US and the Native Americans drawing to a close, one tribe in Eastern Oregon continued to resist. The Nez Perce, led by the "Red Napoleon" Chief Joseph, refused to surrender and accept resettlement. Instead, Chief Joseph organized a band of 750 warriors and set off for the Canadian border, pursued by 2,000 US Army troops under Major-General Oliver Howard. The army chased the natives for three months, fighting 13 actions. Finally, just 40 miles from the Canadian border, the Army ran Chief Joseph to the ground, and forced him to surrender after a five-day battle near Bear Paw Mountain.

When the Romans occupied the southern half of Britain in AD 43, the Iceni tribe quickly allied themselves with the invaders. Having paid tribute to Rome, they continued to be ruled by their own kings. But 17 years later when Prasutagus, the king of the Iceni, died the Romans decided to incorporate his kingdom into the new province. When his widow Boudicca protested, she 'was flogged and their daughters raped', sparking one of the most famous rebellions in history. This book tells how Boudicca raised her people and other tribes in revolt and nearly took control of the fledgling Roman province, before being finally brought to heel in a pitched battle at Mancetter.

Plataea was one of the biggest and most important land battles of pre-20th century history. Close to 100,000 hoplite and light-armed Greeks took on an even larger barbarian army that included elite Asian cavalry and infantry from as far away as India, with thousands of Greek hoplites and cavalry also fighting on the Persian side. At points in the several days of battle, the Persians with their more fluid, missile tactics came close to breaking the Greek defensive line and cutting off their supplies. But, in a fatal misjudgement when he nearly had the battle won, their general Mardonius committed the cream of his infantry to close-quarters combat with the Spartans and their Peloponnesian allies. He died and his men were finally crushed by heavier weaponry and superior discipline. Meanwhile, 250 miles to the east, the Greek navy inflicted an equally decisive defeat on the Persians, neutralising Xerxes' seapower in the Aegean. The tiny minority of Greek city states that actually took up arms against the invading forces of the mightiest empire yet seen in the ancient world had halted its western expansion and driven it back.

The reconstruction of the battle of Plataea will draw on recent persuasive academic interpretations of the textual sources and visual evidence (mainly from near-contemporary vase paintings) for the early 5th-century method of hoplite fighting.