Recently Read and Highly Recommended

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"All American, All The Way" by Phil Nordyke

As fine a combat history as you are likely to see, this book takes you along with the 82nd Airborne Division from its activation at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, to VE Day. Full of both human interest, and vivid descriptions of small unit combat. Published in 2005 it may be a bit hard to find now.

It rate it excellent, and recommend it to anyone interested in U S Army airborne forces history. 

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"Hunt The Bismarck" by Angus Konstam

Best telling of the story I have ever read. Written in layman's language, you do not have to be an old sea dog to read it and enjoy the experience.

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In this instance re-read for at last the tenth time.

"Team Yankee" by Harold Coyle

Team Yankee is a novel, a fictional tale of a mythical war against the Soviet Union set in the sector of the Central Army Group in then West Germany. The novel dates from 1987, so it is a little dated. Team Yankee is equipped with M-1A1 tanks and M113 armored personnel carriers which modify the procedures we use today somewhat. Usually that means adjusting speeds so the 113's can keep up with the tanks, but really not much more.

Team Yankee is a combined arms company team, made up with the headquarters and two platoons of a tank company attached from an tank battalion that is outside the narrative until the very end of the book, along with a mechanized Infantry platoon, from the battalion that Team Yankee is attached to. The other tank platoon in attached to Team B of this same combined arms task force. Confused yet?

The reason I mention this work, in my mind Coyle's best effort, is that I think anyone reading it would enjoy it, in particular Ian. Coyle goes to great pains to explain formations, and gives you maps that support the narrative so that the reader can picture exactly what Coyle is saying. Coyle admits he got the idea for this book from Charles MacDonald's "Company Commander" and indeed it is just what Company Commander is, small unit combat as seen through the eyes of a company commander. The only difference being that MacDonald set his narrative in 1944-45, and Coyle sets his in 1987.

This is a very good book, for one who wishes to understand modern mobile combat. A must read.

[yanmacca]

Sounds a good read Chuck, I still have a copy of armor attacks to start yet. I was going to start it when we went to Crete but I found a copy of Sharpes Company by accident in one of the places which I work, so I took that instead which was a mistake, as I should have taken the both of them because I read Sharpe in three days.
I was pondering with 'All American, All The Way' for $18 on Amazon and decided to drop a hint to my nearests and dearests but she had already bought my prezzies.
The problem is that I need to restock my library with some fresh books, I was looking at the range of books by Patrick Delaforce, which covers all the British units that took part in the Normandy campaign and the battles which followed.
The Team Yankee is $6.5 with P&P, which is not bad.

[dave]

I highly recommend the late Harry Pfanz's Gettysburg---Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill. It is a great telling of the largely unknown conflict on Culp's Hill on July 2-3, 1863. Pfanz has the ability to make the interactions between Confederate and Union commanders come alive. He deals in a honest and open fashion with Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell's controversial decision not to assault Culp's Hill on the 1st day of Gettysburg. Great read.
I receive this jewel of a book from a friend who loves to share his wealth! Thank You Chuck.
Regards
Dave

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Pigeon Poop--- I am a wealthy man. My wealth is measured in friends, not money.

[dave]

Wealth = Great Books
My GGGrandfather was in the 3rd NC Infantry and fought in General Steuart's Brigade which assaulted Culp's Hill several times! Great read.
Regards
David

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Then your great great grandfather also fought in my back yard, literally, when I lived in Chantilly, Virginia. I wondered who left all the mess I had to clean up when I moved in.

He was known as "Maryland" Steuart

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Ian: I am very glad you found "Team Yankee". I think Coyle, who was himself a tanker,will explain all this stuff much better than I can.

Pay particular attention to the way Captain Bannon plans for his operations, mainly how he attacks. He tells you what formations Yankee will adopt, when, under what circumstances, and why. You will also note that he employs Yankee as if they were 19th century dragoons, tanks mounted, supporting dismounted elements of the team, as appropriate. Bannon would be right at home with the Royal Scots Dragoons, or for that matter our own cavalry in the west. And they in turn would fully understand the way Bannon goes about his business, Nothing ever changes, only the big toys are different.

The last part of the book is nothing more than an old fashioned mounted cavalry charge, that goes deep into the enemies rear.

Brilliant book.

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"Operation Crusader" by Hermann Buschleb

This book arrived yesterday and already it is in my have read pile, and taken its place in my War in the Western Desert shelf in my upstairs (as opposed to my basement) library. It is a short book with only 79 pages of text, so reading it in one day was no monumental task.

First some background. Buschler was a Wehrmacht vet in World War II, and later joined the Bundeswher in the 1950's and rose to the rank of Major General. During the late 1950's and into the 1960's several former Wehrmacht officers wrote books recounting some area of WWII conflict. They were meant to be operational studies for military use, and are very similar in format to what the U S Army did and still does under the series title Leavenworth Papers.

So, calling this a book is a bit of a misnomer. It is really an operational analysis, and as such takes the reader to the bare bones of the Crusader battle, without all the fluff of inserting personal narratives into the text. It tells it all from a pure operational and tactical perspective, the good, the bad, the ugly of both sides, and ends with a lessons learned, one of which I will share here, and one that is so applicable to the subject we discuss most on this board.

"Without reconnaissance every commander in the field is blind. Lack of organic reconnaissance elements must be made good by assigning reconnaissance missions to all other combat units. Without reconnaissance, boldness depends on luck. Reconnaissance, however, promises the bold leader the greater victory".

What puts the stamp of approval on this work for me is that the series, appearing now for the first time in English, is sponsored by the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) and they are very careful about the works that carry the AUSA logo.

This is a book I know Ian and Colt would enjoy, and probably other as well

[Beth]

Dec 4, 2019 16:44:51 GMT quincannon said:

Then your great great grandfather also fought in my back yard, literally, when I lived in Chantilly, Virginia. I wondered who left all the mess I had to clean up when I moved in.

He was known as "Maryland" Steuart

And my great great grandfather practically fought in Dave's backyard.  Small world.

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"The Battle of Alamein - Turning Point, World War II" by John Bierman and Colin Smith.

This is an older book, published in 2002, but new to me. For anyone with little (or a lot, for that matter) knowledge of the North African Campaign of 1940 to 1943 this is the book for you. The authors take the reader from Operation Compass, the British defeat of the Italian Army in Egypt and Libya, all the way to the surrender of Axis forces in Tunisia in 1943 to the combined forces of the United Kingdom/Commonwealth and the United States. As such the title is a little deceiving. The authors spend two hundred plus pages telling you in some necessary detail what led up to Third Alamein (the third and decisive battle on that same terrain), and then spend a goodly number of pages informing you what happened in the aftermath.

It is an excellent job of relating history. I found only one error in the editing, and got past the authors opinion of the American built Tomahawk and Kittyhawk vs. Bf109 aircraft. They really were not nearly as bad as the authors make out, although they were far from the later model 109's equal. I took consolation though in that the authors had a fairly low opinion of the Hurricane as well.

Good book. Well worth your time. Might be a little hard to find at this late date, but again worth your trouble looking. Just the thing for a winter's day with snow falling, which is exactly how it was outside while I read it by my fireside.

[yanmacca]

That book has some great reviews on Amazon, I am looking into it now.