Search results for ""Author Bill Fawcett""

From the Spanish Armada to the modern age of aircraft carriers, history is littered with horribly bad military ideas on the open seas. Whether a result of lack of planning, miscalculations, a leader's ego, spy infiltration, or just a really stupid idea in the first place, each military defeat is fascinating to dissect. Among the catastrophic missteps: The French defeat of the British at the Battle of the Chesapeake, The rise of the American Navy during the Barbary Wars, The short life and death of Imperial Japan's Navy, The sinking of the Bismarck, Nazi megaship, Remember the Maine! How the Spanish-America War was started by lies, Admiral Nelson's greatest hits: The Nile and Trafalgar, The ANZAK disaster at Gallipoli, Germany's failed WWII campaign in the North Atlantic, Kennedy's quarantine of Cuba. With more than 35 chapters of incredible military disasters, both famous (infamous) and obscure, How to Lose a War at Sea is chock full of trivia, history, and fascinating looks at the world's greatest seafaring military defeats.

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There had never before been a war on the scale of World War II. The sheer size of the conflict and the immense scope of a single battlefield, multiplied the effects of both brilliant and bad decisions. When millions of men are attacking in a Russian offensive or thousands of aircraft are dueling in the skies over Europe, every key decision had dramatic, and often disastrous, results. The author of "How to Lose a Battle" and "How to Lose a War" introduces the catastrophic missteps, including: Poland's lack of preparation for the Nazi invasion; Germany's failure to take Britain out of the war at Dunkirk; Russia playing Goliath to Finland's David; allied forces getting trapped for four months on the beaches of Anzio; and, Germany wasting its costly development of jet power.

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