Each great samurai warlord, or daimyo, had a division of troops known as the Hatamoto, 'those who stand under the flag'. The Hatamoto included the personal bodyguards, the senior generals, the stan...
An illustrated history of how Japan devised and launched a new kind of air campaign in late 1944 - the suicidal assaults of the kamikaze units against the approaching Allied fleets.As s...
This fully illustrated new book describes and analyses the weapons and equipment traditionally associated with the samurai, Japan's superlative warriors. It examines the range of weapons used by th...
During the Pacific War the most successful component of the Imperial Japanese Fleet was its destroyer force. These ships were larger and, in most cases, better-equipped than their Allied counterpar...
The Royal Hungarian Army was Germany's largest ally on the Eastern Front, but information about the Hungarian Army in English is rare. Deployed in Ukraine at the beginning of the war, the Hungarian...
The ashigaru were the foot soldiers of old Japan. Although recruited first to swell an army's numbers and paid only by loot, the samurai began to realise their worth, particularly with arquebuses a...
One of the most underrated medium bombers of the Second World War, the Martin B-26 Marauder never fully managed to shake off an underserved early reputation as a dangerous aircraft to fly. Deemed s...
Few weapons developed a more deadly reputation than the German ‘88' in the role of anti-tank gun, its long reach and lethal hitting power making it a significant problem for every type of Bri...
World War I was the Golden Age of the railway gun. Even though at the start of the conflict none of the armies possessed any railway artillery pieces and the very idea was comparatively new, more r...
The Battle of Britain was a fight for survival against a seemingly unstoppable foe. With the German army poised to invade, only the fighters of the Royal Air Force stood between Hitler and the conq...
The wars between whites and Indians, the most famous of which were fought on the great Western plains between 1860 and 1890, were among the most tragic of all conflicts ever fought. To the victor w...
The Russian Jaeger regiments and Napoleon's Young Guard clashed repeatedly during the campaigns of 1812-14. The Russian Jaeger were light infantry who gained enormous experience and prestige during...
In 1543 three Portuguese merchants entered a turbulent Japan, bringing with them the first firearms the Japanese had ever seen: simple matchlock muskets called arquebuses. They proved a decisive ad...
The Imperial Japanese Navy of World War II surpassed the Allied and Axis fleets in innovation and technology. This title covers the 12 Japanese battleships that saw service between 1941 and 1945, i...
An improved version of the Allison V-1710 engine gave rise to the Curtiss H-87, which began life in 1941 as the P-40D and featured a completely redesigned fuselage. The shorter and deeper nose of t...
Whether referred to as web gear, TE-21, TA50, LBE or LCE, the American soldier's individual combat equipment was seldom praised - except by its developers. Nevertheless, it has always been, and wil...
From the earliest English settlements the survival of the infant colonies in North America depended upon local militias. Throughout the 17th and most of the 18th century royal troops were seldom sh...
The part played by Australian and New Zealand troops in the Vietnam War is sometimes overlooked; but it is generally accepted that the 'Diggers' and 'Kiwis' were among the most effective and profes...
The Fw 190D-9 - the ‘long-nosed' Dora - represented the cutting edge and pinnacle of wartime Germany's piston-engine aviation development. This new history by leading German aviation speciali...
In 1938, the Yokosuka Naval Air Technical Arsenal, acting under the requirements issued by the Kaigun Koku Hombu for a Navy Experimental 13-Shi Carrier Borne specification for a dive-bomber to repl...