by Bryan Perrett. (9 1/2" x 7"; 96 pages; 152 photographs; 7 maps and 12 vehicle plans. Ian Allan Ltd £ 5.50p). Surely one of the most surprising, stimulating and quite magnificent victories of military history was that of Wavell's 30,000 men, ably led by General O'Connor, who utterly destroyed an Italian army of 250,000 men in less than two months, bringing an aura to the Western Desert which it has never lost. The original force of British, Australian and Indians who performed the astonishing feat were real professionals, trained to the minute, led by far-seeing and excellent commanders against whom the badly equipped and low moraled Italians, bravely as they fought, stood little chance. The author is well-known for his books on tanks and armoured warfare - indeed he was most complimentary about my own Regiment and Brigade in his book on the Churchill tank. He has spared no effort to bestow the appropriate accolade,upon Wavell's army, his pictures are first-class and most illustrative, his maps well drawn and his plans of vehicles a boon to the military modeller. Indeed, the military historian, modeller and, above all, the wargamer will find much to stimulate them within the text and pictures of this book. I know of few wargamers who have set this up on table-top battlefields - much to our shame, and it would be nice to think that this book inspired such a course of action. More Book Reviews Wavell's Offensive Great Battle Tanks Patrick Stephens Catalogues Infantry Weapons of the World From Recruit to Staff Sergeant English Weapons and Warfare 449-1660AD Back to Table of Contents -- Wargamer's Newsletter #210 To Wargamer's Newsletter List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1979 by Donald Featherstone. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com