Weapons and equipment Books

Book SynopsisChemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN), terrorism and the 'war on terror' are major features of international relations and global concern. Terrorist threats and actual violence have become increasingly dangerous and lethal since the 1970s. However, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001 heralded a new era in terrorist action and were the culmination of a terror campaign against American targets world-wide. "The Changing Face of Terrorism" evaluates the continuing threat and counter-measures since 9/11 and into the 21st century. It is a sober and measured evaluation of the CBRN threat and argues that continuing terror attacks are inevitable and the 'war on terror' will be a continuing feature in international politics and military action. Benjamin Cole shows how effective counter-terrorist measures must be measured and based not only on effective police and military intelligence and action but on careful evaluation of the politics, motivations, scientific and technical abilities of groups - no terrorist group has made a nuclear device - and religious and personal motivation.Trade Review"This topic is unquestionably of major importance, on a par with some of the most serious environmental dangers we face'. Adrian Guelke, Professor of Comparative Politics at the Centre for the Study of Ethnic Conflict, Queen's University, Belfast and author of Terrorism and Global Disorder"Table of Contents1 Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Terrorism in Historical Context 2 Technical Opportunities and Constraints 3 Operational Motivations and Disincentives to Using CBRN Weapons 4 Political Motivations and Disincentives to Using CBRN Weapons 5 Theological Motivations and Disincentives to Using CBRN Weapons 6 Psychological Motivations and Disincentives: The Terrorist Personality and Group Decision Making 7 State-Sponsored CBRN Terrorism: Motivations and Disincentives 8 Homeland Security and Terrorist Decision Making 9 The Future

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Book SynopsisIn King of Battle: Artillery in World War I, a distinguished array of authors examines the centrepiece of battle in the Great War: artillery. Going beyond the usual tables of calibres and ranges, the contributors consider the organization and technology of artillery, as well as present aspects of training, doctrine, and other national idiosyncrasies. Artillery dominated the battlefields of World War I, and forever changed the military doctrine of war. No nation that had participated in significant ground combat would blithely assume that morale could ever replace firepower. The essays included in this volume explain how twelve countries, including all the major combatants, handled artillery and how it affected the Great War. Contributors include Filippo Cappellano, Boyd Dastrup, Edward J. Erickson, Bruce Gudmundsson, James Lyon, Sanders Marble, Janice E. McKenney, Dmitre Minchev, Andrey Pavlov, Kaushik Roy, Cornel and Ioan Scafes, John Schindler, and David Zabecki.Trade Review"The new book, King of Battle: Artillery in World War I, is an excellent international study of artillery during the war. Whether comparatively smaller cannons or mortars manned by infantrymen or huge railroad guns served by sailors, these pieces made themselves known on the battlefield, causing death and destruction and driving changes in fortifications and tactics. World War I artillery even “holds the dubious distinction of causing a new diagnosis, shellshock” (p. vii). While acknowledging that scholars have written about artillery since the war, editor Dr. Sanders Marble then states: “Overall, there are only a few books examining artillery in World War I on a comparative, international basis” (p. vii). Marble and his contributors seek to address the gap with this book." Major Peter L. Belmonte, Marine Corps History 3.1 (2017). "Bringing together some of the most renowned scholars from their respective national specializations, King of Battle provides a skillful and important study of World War I artillery. Alongside trenches and machine guns, artillery stands are at the core of the most evocative images of the conflict. As the most lethal category of weapons, artillery in many theaters literally dominated the war. In view of the importance of the topic, it perhaps seems surprising that more has not previously been done to encapsulate World War I artillery. The immensity of the topic helps explain the earlier absence. This work goes a long way toward filling a significant gap. [...] Each part of the book is excellent, and the work as a whole is even more impressive than the sum of its parts. [...] In sum, King of Battle packs a formidable punch—in keeping with its subject." Nicholas Sambaluk, Air University, in: H-War, H-Net Reviews, (2017).Table of ContentsContents Preface vii List of Maps, Figures and Tables viii List of Contributors xii 1 Introduction 1 Bruce Gudmundsson 2 The British Artillery in World War I 35 Sanders Marble 3 The French Artillery in the First World War 62 Bruce Gudmundsson 4 German Artillery in the First World War 101 David T. Zabecki 5 Austria-Hungary in the First World War 126 John R. Schindler 6 Bulgarian Artillery in the First World War 157 Dimitre Minchev 7 Ottoman Army Artillery in the First World War 173 Edward J. Erickson 8 Italian Artillery during the First World War: Its Structural, Organic, Tactical and Material Evolution 196 Filippo Cappellano 9 Serbia’s Artillery during the First World War 221 James Lyon 10 Russian Artillery 255 Andrey Pavlov 11 United States Field Artillery in World War I 281 Janice McKenney 12 Artillery of the Army in India in World War I 299 Kaushik Roy 13 Romanian Artillery in the First World War 324 Cornel and Ioan Scafeş 14 Conclusion: Artillery as a Result of World War I 360 Boyd Dastrup Index 377

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Book SynopsisArtillery in the Era of the Crusades provides a detailed examination of the use of mechanical artillery in the Levant through the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Rather than focus on a selection of sensational anecdotes, Michael S. Fulton explores the full scope of the available literary and archaeological evidence, reinterpreting the development of trebuchet technology and the ways in which it was used during this period. Among the arguments put forward, Fulton challenges the popular perception that the invention of the counterweight trebuchet was responsible for the dramatic transformation in the design of fortifications around the start of the thirteenth century. See inside the book.Table of ContentsContents Foreword List of Illustrations Abbreviations Names Weights and Measures Regional Maps Introduction 1 Background   Classical Artillery   Terminological Issues   Early Traction Trebuchets in the Near and Middle East   Early Traction Trebuchets in Europe   Appearance of the Counterweight Trebuchet 2 Mechanics   Traction   Counterweight   The Mathematics 3 First Crusade   Nicaea: 1097   Antioch: 1097-98   Ma’arrat al-Nu’man and ‘Arqa: 1098   Jerusalem: 1099 4 Twelfth Century   The Opening Decades   Tyre: 1124   Offensives of Zanki and John Comnenus   The Second Crusade and the Ebb of Frankish Dominance   Egypt: A New Frontier   The Rise of Saladin   Transjordan 5 Third Crusade   The Hattin Campaign   Indications of Range in Western Syria and Transjordan   Saladin’s Conquest of Northern Palestine   The First Great Siege of Acre   Later Sieges of the Crusade 6 Ayyubid Period   The Fifth Crusade and New Latin Terminology   The Sixth Crusade and War on Cyprus   Continued Infighting and New Arabic Terminology   Louis IX and the Seventh Crusade   The Mongols and the War of St Sabas 7 Mamluk Period   Baybars’ Early Artillery   Indications of Significant Power: 1271   The Sultanate of Qalawun   The Second Great Siege of Acre: 1291 Plates 8 Influence of Offensive Artillery   Theories Regarding the Influence of Artillery   Siege Length   Development, Manpower and Resources   Concentricity   Wall Thickness   Entrances   Dressing   Tower Shape 9 Influence of Defensive Artillery   Ground-mounted Artillery   Tower-mounted Artillery   Possible Ayyubid Artillery Towers   Possible Frankish Artillery Towers   Possible Mamluk Artillery Towers   Other Interpretations Conclusion   Development   Employment Appendix 1: Mentions of Artillery Appendix 2: Images and Technical Treatises Appendix 3: Mathematical Scenarios Appendix 4: Reconstructed Engines Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisA Jewish weapons manufacturer during the American Civil War, a Jewish-Canadian chair of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Board, and Jewish-Argentine guerrilla fighters—these are some of the individuals discussed in this first-of-its-kind volume. It brings together some of the best new works on armed Jews in the Americas. Links between Jews and their ties to weapons are addressed through multiple cultural, political, social, and ideological contexts, thus breaking down longstanding, stilted myths in many societies about Jews and weaponry. Anti-Semitism and Jewish self-defense, Jewish volunteers in the Spanish Civil War and in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and Jewish-American gangsters as ethnic heroes form part of the little-researched topic of Jews and arms in the Americas.Table of ContentsContents Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors 1 Introduction: A Curious Mix of Jews and Weapons  David M.K. Sheinin and Raanan Rein 2 “If I Can See One … I Can Build Them”: David Lopez Jr. and Weapons Manufacturing during the American Civil War  Barry L. Stiefel 3 American Jewish Gangsters  Larry D. Gragg 4 “Our Fight Is Not Yet Over”: Jewish-Canadians in the Spanish Civil War  Michael Petrou 5 Mika, mi Guerra de España: Ideology and Commitment  Gabriela Jonas Aharoni 6 The Spirit of 1776 in 1948: American Machalnikim and Israel’s War of Independence  Amy Weiss 7 “To Get a Conviction a Morality Officer Has to Practically Crawl into Bed with a Hooker”: Phil Givens, the Police, and the Battle for Toronto’s Yonge Street  David M.K. Sheinin 8 “We Had Our Own Problems and So We Had Our Own Bitachon”: Jewish Self-Defense in Uruguay, 1960–1987  Raanan Rein 9 From Zionist Movements to Guerrilla Groups: David Armando Laniado, Raúl Milberg, and Political Radicalization in Argentina  Adrián Krupnik 10 Revolutionary Eschatology: The Argentine Ejército Guerrillero del Pueblo and the Secularization of Religious Traditions  Lukas Böckmann 11 The Montoneros and the Jewish Question in Argentine Fiction  Stephanie M. Pridgeon Index

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Book SynopsisDesigned by a motorcycle racer turned small-arms engineer, George Patchett, the submachine gun that eventually became known as the Sterling was developed during World War II. Some suggest it first saw action during Operation Infatuate with No. 4 Commando, before becoming fully adopted by the British Army in 1953 as the Sterling Machine Carbine (L2A1). It was center stage for many of Britain''s post-colonial conflicts from Malaya to Kenya and from Yemen to Northern Ireland. The silenced L34A1 Sterling-Patchett entered service in 1966 and first saw action deep in the jungles of Vietnam in the hands of the elite special forces of Australia, New Zealand, and the United States during prisoner snatches and reconnaissance patrols. Employing first-hand accounts and painstaking technical analysis, this engaging account features carefully selected archive photography and specially commissioned color artwork of the submachine gun that armed British and other forces for Trade ReviewWith plenty of gun photos, period photography of it being used and colour illustrations of action scenes this is a pint-sized, handy guide to the post-WWII weapon. * The Armourer, January 2019 *A great book for weapon collectors and weapon enthusiasts. * Gun Mart *Table of ContentsIntroduction / Development / Use / Impact / Conclusion / Bibliography / Index

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