HISTORY OF THE BRITISH ARMY edited by Peter Young and J.P.Lawford. (11" x 9", 304 pages, 16 pages of coloured prints and approximately 200 black and white photographs and maps. Arthur Barker, London. 63s.)
Books get more expensive every day and 63s. seems a lot of money but this is the best value book I have seen for many a long day. Consisting of a series of authoritative and informative articles on the British Army, it lists amongst its contributors such well known names as Philip Warner, David Chindler, Brigadier Peter Young, Sir Reginald Savory, Lieutenant-Colonel J.P.Lawford, Antony Brett-James, William Y. Carman, Brian Bond, John M. Selby, Brigadier Anthony H.Farrar-Hockley, John D. P. KeeCan, Brigadier John H.S.Lacey, Sir Basil Liddell Hart, and Major-General Hubert Essame. Its prints and photographs are very fine, many of them familiar whilst others are new and more than illustrate the articles they accompany. To get the whole of the Britisn Army in a book of this length requires economy of words but not one of its chapters skimps the subject or fails to be both interesting and informative. With Christmas coming, I cannot recommend this book too highly - had it not been sent to me for review. I can think of little that would have given me greater pleasure to receive as a present from my doting wife and family!
German Artillery 1914-1918 by D,vid Nash. (8 1/2 x 6": 48 pages, 8 pages of colour and dozens of B&W photographs and drawings. Almark Publications. 17s.6d. paper cover, 25s. hard cover).
There is no excuse whatsoever for wargamers in the neglected World War I period to be at a loss for information concerning the artillery of the German Army. There is an almost incongruous disparity in the weapons and their equipment compared to their counterparts of World War II and today - when one considers that many men are still alive who took an active part in World War I. Not only is this book invaluable to the wargamer but it also is a bible to the model maker who is interested in amassing a collection of scratch-built guns. Strongly recommended.
Military Transport of World War I by C. Ellis and D. Bishop (7 1/4" x 5 1/2: 185 pages, 170 coloured plates and line drawings, Blandford Press. 25s.)
Armed with this and the preceding volume plus a few other carefully selected books, the wargamer will achieve his dreams of accuracy and realism so far as World War I is concerned. This very nicely produced, higbly informative and most attractive book covers, in pictures and words, the trucks, tractors, cars and gun-carriers of the world since the time of the Crimean War. It is enlightening to see just how mechanised were the armies of the past when most of us fondly imagine that they had nothing but horse-drawn transport. Did you know that highly powerful traction engines were in common use in the Franco-Prussian War and indeed from the time of the Crimean War? Have you got any anti-aircraft guns on lorries or motor-cycle machine-gunners ambling around your wargames table? If you have not, then buy this book and get cracking. I wish Chris Ellis would tell me how he manages to do without sleep so that he can churn out so many of these highly authoritive and painstaking books.
HOW TO GO ADVANCED PLASTIC MODELLING edited by Chris Ellis. (8 1/2" x 5 1/2": 24 pages of half-tone illustrations, over 50 line drawings. Patrick Stephens. 40s.)
Another gem from the fingers of that writer's cramp-proof bloke, Chris Ellis. this is of course a companion volume to his earlier book "How To Go Plastic Modelling" (now in its second successful edition). In this issue, Chris goes far more deeply in to the assembly, construction and conversion of many types of plastic models and has 'guest chapters' by a number of men well known in thv field of modelling and similar kandwork. So far as wargamers are concerned, this book includes valuable chapters on Task Conversions, modelling soldiers in both large and small scales, conversions of soldiers, aircraft and tank models built from scratch, modern warships, terrain modelling, etc. I can offer no greater praise than to say how I wish I had written this one!
BATTLE TANKS - FRENCH ARMOURED FIGHTING VEHICLES No.1 by P.Touzin and C.Gurtner. (9" x 7": 30 pages; 26 pages of photegraphs.--fellona-Publications. 12s.6d. postage and packing 1s. -d.)
In French and in English, this highly valuable booklet gives de&criptions and photographs of French battle tanks from 1917 until the present day. It is packed with information about these vehicles, sufficient to make the mouth water of any AFV model maker and collector. For the wargamer it opens up new vistas of some most unusual and interesting vehicles whicht regretfully at the moment at least, will have to be scratch-built before they can take their part on the wargames table along with the appropriate Airfix figures. Yet another of the excellent books put out by Bellona who are doing so much to aid the striking advance of our hobby.
Waterloo The Books to the Movie
The film "WATERLOO" will be able to be seen in London from mid-October onwards and it promises to be of real interest to wargamers. In connection with the film, two paperbacks have been published by Pan Books and both are recommended for the wargamer. The first "The Field of Waterloo" by Paul Davies is a profusely illustrated booklet describing the events that led up to the battle. It contains 27 coloured plates, many of which are excellent uniform plates of the soldiers of the period, together with maps of the Battle of Quatre Bras, the Waterloo campaign of 1815, and the morning and evening dispositions of the battle itself. The text that goes with the illustrations is very good and many of the cQloured plates are rather like photographs of the battle because they are stills from the film. This is strongly recomi mended.
The second book is the story of the film and may not be accepted quite so easily by critical military historians. Nevertheless it is a reasonable buy and at the price of only a few shillings should be on the shelves of all Napoleonic wargamers.
Back to Table of Contents -- Wargamer's Newsletter # 104
To Wargamer's Newsletter List of Issues
To MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 1970 by Donald Featherstone.
This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com