Search results for ""author richard chasemore""

In the summer of 1944, the Red Army staged a massive armoured assault up the Karelian Isthmus with the intent of eliminating any remaining German and Finnish forces facing the Leningrad region. Most of the Soviet units sent into Finland were new to the region, moving mainly from the fighting in the Leningrad area. As a result, some had the latest types of Soviet equipment including the new T-34-85 tank, fielded alongside the older T-34-76. Germany refused to sell the Finns new tanks without a reinforced military alliance, but in 1943 began selling them a few dozen StuG III assault guns. This made the StuG III battalion the most modern and powerful element of the Finnish armoured division, and it saw very extensive combat in the June–July summer battles. Featuring specially commissioned artwork and an array of archive photographs, this is the absorbing story of the parts played by Soviet and Finnish armour in the epic battles in Finland during June and July 1944.

Read more less

This fully illustrated study assesses the origins, development, and combat record of the legendary Tiger and Churchill Tanks during World War II. The Tiger and the Churchill are two of the most recognizable heavily armoured tanks of World War II. Both were designed hastily in the early years of the war, and both witnessed inauspicious debuts in battle in August 1942 (the Churchill in the disaster at Dieppe, the Tiger near Leningrad). Despite their heavy weight, both tanks, which were intended to serve in breakthrough operations, had surprisingly good tactical mobility. Yet there were key differences between them too, chiefly in the effectiveness of their main armament. This fascinating and detailed work explores the design and development of these famous tanks and its influence on their head-to-head encounters, the effectiveness of the support services each tank relied upon, and the skills and experiences of the crews that fought in them. The specific battlefield conditions of Normandy in June and July 1944 are also examined, exploring the effect they had on the duels between these two heavyweight AFVs.

Read more less

The armour clashes in May 1940 were the biggest the world had yet seen, as the sweeping German advances of that period came to epitomize Blitzkrieg. The Wehrmacht's Panzer III was well matched by the French Somua S35 tanks, the two representing very different design philosophies and yet both ranking among the best in the world at the time. Fully illustrated with specially commissioned colour artwork, this work draws upon the latest research to provide a definitive analysis of the clash between these two high-quality, cutting-edge tank designs. It describes one of the key duels at the heart of a new type of warfare, in the epic battles at the outset of Hitler's conquest of France and the Low Countries.

Read more less