Military engineering Books

Book SynopsisThis Naval and Military Press series on military technology continues with this very important publication, which gives details of all ammunition in use by the British Army in 1936 With few exceptions, it covers ammunition, explosives and propellants in service just prior to the start of the Second World War.Every military historian, war gamer, re-enactor and reader should be familiar with the technology associated with the tactics, and this series of reprints aims to provide that information. No true, objective appreciation of tactical operations is possible without a basic knowledge of the weapons and ammunition being used at a specific point in time, and the series will serve as a continuing source of the relevant information.This volume looks in detail at explosives, cartridges, tubes and primers in detail. It also gives a treatment of projectiles, explaining the form of shells, and how they are designed for their purpose. There is a detailed examination of time fuses (the proximity fuse being still a dream in 1936). Small arms ammunition is described, as are grenades (including the famous Mills 36) and a section deals with military explosives.There is a wealth of illustration including many colour plates and the book is an essential to any study of the British Army and its equipment at the start of World War II.

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Book SynopsisWritten by a former Colonel of the Coldstream Guards, this book gives an account of the Crimean War generally, from its causes and beginnings to its conclusion after the long-delayed fall of Sebastopol. As such, it can be read with profit by the general reader as well as the student of military or regimental history.The first part sets the political scene for the war, detailing the inconclusive military operations in Bulgaria and Romania and the novel arrival of women nurses in a theatre of war as well as the ravages of disease. The second part deals with the allied invasion of the Crimean peninsula - making no effort to hide now ill-equipped and badly prepared the allies were - and the Battle of the Alma. Part III describes the beginnning of the long and weary siege of Sebastopol and the Battle of Balaclava, with the infamous Charge of the Light Brigade. Part IV is solely concerned with the bloody Battle of Inkerman in which the Guards took a major part and suffered heavy losses. Part V outlines the savage winter of 1854-55 in the Crimea, during which the scantily-clad British army suffered more from the weather than the enemy. In Part VI, Sebastopol is at last taken and finally, Part VII deals with the end of the war on March 30th 1856. There are five appendices, including Crimea casualty breakdowns of the Coldstreams and the British Army generally, and six maps.

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Book SynopsisNicholas Rogers' book gives the reader a detailed and illuminating insight into the world and ways of the press gang. The press gang, and its forcible recruitment of sailors to man the Royal Navy in times of war, acquired notoriety for depriving men of their liberty and carrying them away to a harsh life at sea, sometimes for years at a time. Nicholas Rogers explains exactly how the press gang worked, whom it was aimed at and how successful it was in achieving its ends. He also shows the limits to its operations and the press gang's need for cooperation from local authorities, who were by no means prepared to support it. Written by an expert in the social history of eighteenth-century Britain, it is both well-researched and highly readable.Trade Review"The Press Gang was a pleasure to read. Rogers has done his research, consulting a variety of primary sources including Admiralty records, numerous newspapers of the period and pamphlets. He places the press gang and community resistance to their activities in a new light, and challenges the prevailing historiography of British naval history by bringing this story to light. By examining the violent practices of the Navy, and the British government's support of them, Rogers has transcended the prevailing heroic interpretation of naval history." -Donald H. Parkerson, Nautical Research Journal, Vol. 54, June 2009"Detailed and illuminating insight into the world and ways of the press gang" Bookseller Buyers GuideMention -Book News, February 2009"The great strength of this book is Roger's ability to link impressment, which only a small demographic can define and discuss, to larger social issues...Rogers has done much to illuminate the ways in which human agency constrained the expansion of coercive, government-sponsored military conscription throughout much of the British Atlantic World. He is to be applauded for refusing to yield the human spirit to ubiquitous structural forces associated with legal, political, and military institutions such as impressment." -Christopher P. Magra, The Northern Mariner/Le Marin du Nord, 2009"[Rogers] should be commended for his efforts. This volume reads easily and makes a major contribution to the literature on civil-naval relations." -Keith Mercer, International Journal of Maritime History, Vol. 21, 2009Table of ContentsIntroduction; Impressment and the Law; Resisting the Press gang: Trends, Patterns, Dynamics; Spotlight on Two Ports: Bristol and Liverpool; Manning the Navy in the Mid-century Atlantic; The Navy and the Nation, 1793-1820; Epilogue.

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Book SynopsisThis volume pulls together and republishes, with some editing, updating, and additions, articles written during 1978-86 for internal use within the CIA Directorate of Intelligence. The information is relatively timeless and still relevant to the never-ending quest for better analysis.The articles are based on reviewing cognitive psychology literature concerning how people process information to make judgments on incomplete and ambiguous information. Richard Heur has selected the experiments and findings that seem most relevant to intelligence analysis and most in need of communication to intelligence analysts. He then translates the technical reports into language that intelligence analysts can understand and interpreted the relevance of these findings to the problems intelligence analysts face.

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