(Part 2) Best military history pictorials according to redditors

This photo is featured on the cover of US Small Arms in World War II: A photographic history of the weapons in action by Tom Laemlein and Dale Dye.

Here's one of the oldest online posts I could find of the photo.

This site describes this photo as the 8th Infantry Division, 1st Army, in Duren, Germany.

Just looked it up and that book is indeed crazy expensive but it has some really beautiful pictures. For anyone curious https://auction.catawiki.com/kavels/21643573-book-die-neue-reichskanzlei-1942

Cheapest I could find Is €170

Hitler's Chancellery: A Palace to Last a Thousand Years, should be the best modern book written on this building.

I also found a Dutch book with over 500 pictures. Hitlers Machtscentrum
nieuwe rijkskanselarij en Fuhrerbunker. The author has written several other books about Hitler and also made a documentary.

This German book from 2002 Hitlers Neue Reichskanzlei: Haus des großdeutschen Reiches 1938-1945 should also be very good.

In general, very poorly. With so many turrets, crew coordination was a major issue. Mechanical failures plagued the tanks. They were too heavy, breaking bridges or getting bogged at the worst moments.

u/TankArchives has compiled a list of the fate of some of the last T-35s.


If you're interested in the T-35 check out Francis Pulham's Fallen Giants: The Combat Debut of the T-35A Tank. If you don't wanna drop $10-20 bucks on the book, this interview with Pulham covers the gist of it.

Yeah sure.

One of the best books on the Sherman that is actually affordable is Steven Zaloga's Armored Thunderbolt which is a history of the development of the Sherman as well as an examination of its combat performance.

If you have a bunch of money to burn I would also recommend R.P. Hunnicutt's Sherman: A History of the American Medium Tank. This book spends less time on the actual combat performance of the tank and is more about the technical aspects and development of the M4, and spends a lot of time on the various other medium tanks that led up to the development of the M4. You want to know some obscure detail about the Sherman and its development? That book will have your answer. Unfortunately Sherman is like $200-$300 on Amazon. I was lucky enough to find my copy for $150. Hunnicutt also did a number of other books on the development of basically every American AFV, and they are an excellent resource, but once again, very expensive.

For a good book on how the Americans used tanks to support infantry look no further than Harry Yeides' The Infantry's Armor: The U.S. Army's Separate Tank Battalions in World War II. The book really gives an excellent account of the US Army's separate tank battalions.

Yeide also wrote a very good book on American TDs called The Tank Killers: A History of America's World War II Tank Destroyer Force

Steven Zaloga has also done book comparing the Sherman to the Panther, and one analyzing US tank performance from the Battle of the Bulge to the end of the war.

The Osprey books are also really good resources for different tanks and a number of very good historians contribute to that series of books.

This one I found funny(http://i.imgur.com/FqL8c.jpg) because I saw it before(http://www.amazon.com/World-War-I-HP-Willmott/dp/0789496275/ref=reader_auth_dp) and had actually talked with someone else about how intense the picture is. It's funny that they made the cover grey and green, whereas its actually a colored picture. Coloring is used as an artistic approach alot.

This series of books from The Crowood Press UK is excellent. They cover many more weapons than I knew existed, including some that were pretty old by 1914 but still in use by some third-line units or minor countries, and there are often a page or two on background information on how the weapons were developed and what companies produced them, in what numbers etc, in addition to some technical data. If there are any better/newer (in print) books on this topic I would be very interested, but these are the best I have in my bookshelf anyway (except for the one on Allied Artillery that I do not have unfortunately).

Allied Artillery of World War One (Ian V. Hogg, 1998)

German Artillery of World War One (Franz Jäger, 2001)

Allied Small Arms of World War One (John Walter, 2001)

Central Powers Small Arms of World War One (John Walter, 1999)

About the industry and economics of several of the involved countries David Stevenson's With our Backs to the Wall: Victory and Defeat in 1918 covers that for the last year of the war in particular, but it is not about weapons specifically. Never read his other books, so do not know if they might be good sources for earlier parts of the war.

I'd highly recommend a book I finished a few months ago, The Dead and Those About to Die, by John McManus and also I would recommend another D-Day story, this one about Pointe Du Hoc, if you don't know what that is, I'm sure a quick google search will intrigue you. That book being Dog Company by Patrick O'Donnel.

Also for a more general view of D-Day, the events leading to it, and the events immediately after, you can't go wrong with some good ol' Stephen Ambrose.

They are hard, stars are actually my least favorite to throw. I am making some of my own Shuriken though.

I highly recommend this book
: especially given the DVD included - which shows the throwing techniques Dany Fletcher uses.

Edit: to answer your question though - I am accurate with them - but they are very hard to get to stick.

yep, plus they are supposed to come with gold and premium time. If you buy them on Amazon they are pretty cheap. Currently, they are 55% off there-

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/194016902X

https://www.amazon.com/World-Tanks-T-34-Goes-War/dp/1940169038

Wonderful uniforms as well.I also like some of the traditional pieces to the uniform.Plus I like the simplicity of their equipment,just the basics.I actually have the book where the pic you've provided came from.Its a great book that has uniforms and gear illustrated in this manner.Different nations are represented with details about each piece of gear and uniforms depicted.It can be found here.

https://www.amazon.com/Infantry-Colour-Photographs-Europa-Militaria/dp/1872004253/ref=sr_1_46?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1482618984&sr=1-46&keywords=ww1+uniforms

Osprey Publishing is a great resource if you want illustrations of the uniforms and gear that were used. Example:

https://www.amazon.com/US-Army-World-War-Men-At-Arms/dp/1855329956/

This isn't really in any particular order, but here you go:

The Navy, ed. Rear-Admiral W.J. Holland

Battleships, by Paul Stillwell

US Navy in World War II, by Ronald Heiferman

History of the US Navy, by James Morris

The World's Great Battleships, by Robert Jackson

World War II US Naval Air Combat, by Robert Lawson & Barrett Tillman

US Battleships in Action: Part 1, by Robert Stern

US Battleships in Action: Part 2, by Robert Stern

US Aircraft Carriers in Action: Part 1, by Robert Stern

US Heavy Cruisers in Action: Part 1, by Al Adcock

US Heavy Cruisers in Action: Part 2, by Al Adcock

US Light Cruisers in Action, by Al Adcock

US Destroyers in Action: Part 3, by Al Adcock

US Destroyer Escorts in Action, by Al Adcock

U-Boats in Action, by Robert Stern

Ship's Data: USS Massachusetts (BB 59), by Norman Friedman

Regia Marina: Italian Battleships of World War Two, by Erminio Bagnasco

Italian Battleships of World War, by Mark Stille

Jutland 1916: Clash of the Dreadnoughts, by Charles London

Coronel and Falklands 1914: Duel in the South Atlantic, by Michael McNally

The Naval Battles for Guadalcanal 1942: Clash for Supremacy in the Pacific, by Mark Stille

British Battlecruisers: 1939-1945, by Angus Konstam

German Battleships:1939-1945, by Gordon Williamson

German Pocket Battleships: 1939-1945, by Gordon Williamson

German Heavy Cruisers: 1939-1945, by Gordon Williamson

German E-Boats: 1939-1945

Coronel and the Falklands, by Geoffrey Bennett

Maritime Dominion and the Triumph of the Free World: Naval Campaigns that shaped the Modern World, by Peter Padfield

These are some other books I have but my brother is borrowing them lol:

Fletcher DD's in Action, by Jerry Scutts

US Destroyers in Action: Part 4, by Al Adcock

I think that's all the ones I showed. Enjoy!

I'm taking this from "American Tanks and AFVS of World War II" by Michael Green, which quotes a USMC report titled Armoured Operations on Iwo Jima dated March 16, 1945.

> The enemy practice of tying aerial bombs to a yard stick mine is an expensive method of mining. Their policy is to completely demolish the mine as distinguished from the German policy of merely stopping the tank with the mine and destroying it by gunfire

I was going from memory, which explains why I added "Torpedo warheads" to the list of things used to boost AT mines - I don't have any evidence of that happening, so feel free to disregard that part.

A good starting point for the American Doctrine would be the US Army Field Manuals. FM 100-5, and its several differently named incarnations, cover the operational and strategic doctrine of the US Army. Here is a list of US Army FMs. You can get most of the online, as theyre all just public domain. But they can be hard to get, as most sites like to link to newer versions of the manual.

Another good avenue would be to mine secondary sources for their important documents which shaped the development of American doctrine. Treat 'em Rough is a great monograph on the development of American Armor doctrine during the Interwar Period, which of course was a central pillar in the military thought at that time. Ive recently got done work so Im a bit fuzzy on the details, but I know that doctrine evolved around unconventional lines as several laws, publications, and offical pronouncements railroaded armor developments along very specific lines. These documents would obviously also have broader implications beyond the provincial world of armor.

The AK47 was an almost carbon copy of the German MP43/StG44

The MG43/StG44 itself took many of its design feature from the earlier FG42, the first widely deployed selective-fire weapon with full-automatic capability

Ref

I think by far, the most comprehensive and accessible one volume history on the war is "A World Undone" by GJ Meyer.

Brigadier Sir Richard Holmes' "The Western Front" is a very quick read and very enlightening on aspects of, well, the Western Front. It's focus allows for detail on the main theatre of the conflict, but that focus does take away form the "World' aspect of World War One.

A wonderful, visual account of the war and the aspects surrounding it is found in Stephen Patricia's "And the World Went Dark" which is both informative and a fantastic illustrated history. (Full disclosure, I contributed written copy to this book.)

And I can't resist a little plug for my own work, a novel set on the Western Front in 1917, which, while a work of fiction has a painstaking approach to realism and I've used points in the narrative to take an educational tone so that readers unfamiliar with certain points of the conflict can become immersed in the story. It's only available as an ebook at the moment, "Killing is a Sin"

These were drawings from the book The Spartan Army by Nick Sekunda. I too find the lack of shoes odd, but it may just be for illustrative purposes.

Just gonna keep digging the hole huh?

> This bullshit is how Russia rewrites history... not focusing on how they forced people to run at the Germans with no weapons, only to be cut down with machine gun fire, and if they turned back... cut down by their own people with machine gun fire.

This is a great example of an opinion that comes more from watching movies than it does from doing any actual reading on the subject. Yes there was great incompetence on the side of the Soviet, but you are ignoring the brutality of the conflict completely.

How many books have you read about the Eastern Front? Your opinions echo those of uninformed people who haven't read much on the subject, yet think they have a concise idea about the conflict.

Here are some you might learn something from:

(This one is a great place to start)

https://www.amazon.com/Ostfront-Hitlers-1941-45-General-Military/dp/1855327112

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(Dry at times, but captures the struggle from both perspectives well)

https://www.amazon.com/Russias-War-History-Soviet-1941-1945/dp/0140271694

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(A personal favorite of mine that focuses on the lives of Soviet Soldiers mostly using first hand accounts and interviews.)

https://www.amazon.com/Ivans-War-Life-Death-1939-1945-ebook/dp/B000SEGP2U

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You originally claimed

> They had it worst due to their government, not because the Germans were extra vicious against them.

Anyone who has studied the conflict at all knows that it was because their government was shit and the Germans were extra vicious. Much like the Soviets were often extra vicious to the Germans in ways that were not seen on the western front.

Yes I have it actually. Very good visual guide. DK books are superb, there are a couple of others of theirs I have

http://www.amazon.co.uk/World-History-Atlas/dp/1405302674/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324647974&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Earth/dp/0789496437/ref=pd_sim_b_6

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Human-Definitive-Guide-Our-Species/dp/140530233X/ref=pd_sim_b_4

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Soldier-Reg-Grant/dp/1405344202/ref=pd_sim_b_21

All good

The Boy: A Holocaust Story