You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Vauban was the foremost military engineer of France, not only during his lifetime, but also throughout the 18th century when his legacy and methods remained in place almost unchanged. Indeed, his expertise and experience in the construction, defence, and attack of fortresses is unrivalled by any of his contemporaries, of any nationality. In all three of those fields he was a significant innovator and prolific exponent, having planned approximately 160 major defensive projects and directed over 50 sieges. This book provides not only a modern listing of his varied interventions and their fates, but also a wide-ranging discussion of just how and why they pushed forward the international boundaries of the arts of fortification.
Historians have portrayed British participation in World War I as a series of tragic debacles, with lines of men mown down by machine guns, with untried new military technology, and incompetent generals who threw their troops into improvised and unsuccessful attacks. In this book a renowned military historian studies the evolution of British infantry tactics during the war and challenges this interpretation, showing that while the British army's plans and technologies failed persistently during the improvised first half of the war, the army gradually improved its technique, technology, and, eventually, its' self-assurance. By the time of its successful sustained offensive in the fall of 1918...
Paddy Griffith was a key figure in development of operational and tactical military history, as well as the professional and hobby wargaming. As a senior lecturer at the Royal Military Academy (1973-89) his use of wargames made significant input into strategic decisions at the height of the Cold War. He also applied wargaming as a tool to assist his research into military history, as well as for teaching. This book captures some of the key points of the development of his ideas and innovations in wargaming, such as contributing to the Wargamer's Newsletter, to the launch of Wargames Developments in 1980 and his correspondence with some of the key figures in wargaming. Included in this book a...
Analyzes the events, weapons, and strategies of the Civil War and argues that the introduction of modern weaponry did not have significant effect on the outcome or the conduct of the war
The wargaming rules in this book have been designed by the well-known military historian, Paddy Griffith, and combine simplicity with fun and speed. No less than seven types of wargame are explained: the traditional skirmish and Divisional games, the brigade game and army level game, which all involve the use of model soldiers in battles of varying scales; the generalship game, which is concerned with how a general on campaign divides his time; and finally, a map kriegsspiel and a tactical exerise without troops.
This collection points out the very real and substantial evolution of tactics that went on in response to new warfare and how this had a real effect on the positive performance of the British Army from 1916 onwards.
Paddy Griffith (1947- 2010) was a leading British military theorist and historian, who used wargaming as part of his tool set to critically analyse operational and tactical military history. This book includes two previously unpublished COunter-INsurgency (COIN) wargames from 1976 to 1980 and an example of a British Army live-roleplaying COIN from 1980. The first COIN game, Longreagh Village, is about a security force base facing a particularly challenging week of supporting the local police in a border village. The second COIN game, summer in Dogem-on-Sea, is set in ORANGELAND. The local police are facing a two pronged threat against the local population. The third COIN game is an outline of a British Army live-roleplaying exercise, to allow the officer cadets of Sandhurst to gain practical experience of COIN. The foreword is by Brian Train, a well-known current game designer, who specialises in producing games about irregular warfare.
Battle in the Civil War is a step-by-step explanation of how the Blue and Gray armies squared up to fight each other; how they maneuvered on the battlefield and what happened when they came to close combat. It is a concise summary of the art of war in that conflict. Military historian Paddy Griffith looks at the problems faced by the commanders in this fascinating conflict and examines in detail how they overcame them. Working closely with illustrator Peter Dennis, Dr. Griffith reveals in a new and exciting way the mechanisms of command, the instruments of victory and of defeat during those four terrible years. This second edition is edited by John Curry as part of the History of Wargaming Project series of books.
Part of their strategic problem was the scarcity and even unreliability of their shipping. They had an essentially coastal rather than oceanic navy, and their manpower was limited. For most of the high Viking era they could field only one 'Great Army' at a time, and had to be content with relatively minor raiding operations elsewhere. Nevertheless, the appearance of even few highly-motivated Vikings in an area without good coastal defence could often spread.
The first edition (1981) took a critical look at the accepted wisdom of historians who interpreted battlefield events primarily by reference to firepower. It showed that Wellington's infantry had won by their mobility rather than their musketry, that the bayonet did not become obsolete in the nineteenth century as is often claimed, and that the tank never supplanted the infantryman in the twentieth. A decade later, the author has been able to fill out many parts of his analysis and has extended it into the near future. The Napoleonic section includes an analysis of firepower and fortification, notably at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. Additional discussions of the tactics of the American...