Books published by publisher Pen and Sword Military

Many wargamers enjoy the challenge of skirmish games where, instead of the strategy of vast armies portrayed by traditional wargames, the focus is on the tactics of a small unit. However, skirmish rules are often so complex that it can take hours of rolling dice, consulting tables and recording data to recreate what would in reality be a fast and furious firefight lasting just minutes. Now these new rules make it possible to recapture the speed and intensity of these actions where every man, and every second, counts. The basic rules are supported by sections which give special rules and scenarios to capture the flavor of a range of different periods, from Napoleonic to Modern Warfare and beyond with Sci-Fi. From the 95th Rifles scouting for Wellington, Western gunfights and WWI trench raids, through WW2 parachute assaults or Special Forces strikes in Afghanistan, or even Space Marines storming a space station, Squad Firefights elegantly simple system allows you to focus on proper tactical decisions rather than rolling buckets of dice or calculating masses of modifiers.

Adrian Carton de Wiart’s autobiography is one of the most remarkable of military memoirs. He was intended for the law, but abandoned his studies at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1899 to serve as a trooper in the South African War. Carton de Wiart’s extraordinary military career embraced service with the Somaliland Camel Corps (1914-15), liaison officer with Polish forces (1939), membership of the British Military Mission to Yugoslavia (1941), a period as a prisoner of war (1941-43), and three years as Churchill’s representative to Chiang Kai-shek (1943-46). (Churchill was a great admirer.) During the Great War, besides commanding the 8th Glosters, Carton de Wiart was GOC 12 Brigade (1917) and GOC 105 Brigade (April 1918). Both these commands were terminated by wounds. He was wounded eight times during the war (including the loss of an eye and a hand), won the VC during the Battle of the Somme, was mentioned in dispatches six times, and was the model for Brigadier Ben Ritchie Hook in the Sword of Honour trilogy of Evelyn Waugh.

These are the combat experiences of the first Marine to command a special operations task force, recounted against a backdrop of his journey from raw Second Lieutenant to seasoned Colonel and Task Force Commander; from leading Marines through the streets of Mogadishu, Baghdad, Fallujah and Mosul to directing multi-national special operations forces in a dauntingly complex fight against a formidable foe. The journey culminates in the story’s centerpiece: the fight against ISIS, in which the author is able to use the lessons of his harsh apprenticeship to lead the SOF task force under his command to hasten the Caliphate’s eventual demise. Milburn has an unusual background for a US Marine, and this is no ordinary war memoir. Very few personal accounts of war cover such a wide breadth of experience, or with so discerning a perspective. As Bing West comments: “His exceptional skill is telling each story of battle and then knitting them into a coherent whole. By the end of the book, the reader understands what happened on the ground in the wars against terrorists over the past twenty years.” Milburn tells his extraordinary story with self-effacing candor, describing openly his personal struggles with the isolation of command, post-combat trauma and family tragedy. And with the skill and insight of a natural story teller, he makes the reader experience what it’s like to lead those who fight America’s wars.

In the dark and uncertain days of 1941 and 1942, when Rommel’s Afrika Korps was sweeping towards Egypt and the Suez Canal, a small group of daring raiders made history for the Allies. They operated deep behind the German lines, driving hundreds of miles through the deserts of North Africa. They hid by day and struck by night, destroying aircraft, blowing up ammunition dumps, derailing trains and killing many times their own number. The men were the Special Air Service, the SAS, the brainchild of David Stirling, a deceptively mild-mannered man with a brilliant idea. Under his command, small teams of resourceful, highly trained men penetrated beyond the front lines of the opposing armies and wreaked havoc where the Germans least expected it. Virginia Cowles’s The Phantom Major is a classic account of these raids, an amazing tale of courage, impudence and daring, packed with action and high adventure. Her narrative, based on the eyewitness testimony of the men who took part, gives a fascinating insight into the early years of the SAS.

The assault guns and tank destroyers deployed by the Wehrmacht during the Second World War are not as famous as tanks like the Tiger and Panther, but they were remarkably successful, and they are the subject of Anthony Tucker-Jones's wide-ranging photographic history. As the conflict progressed, the German army had to find a use for its obsolete panzers, and this gave rise to the turretless Sturmgeschütz or assault guns designed for infantry support. From 1944 onwards they played a vital role in Nazi Germany's increasingly defensive war. A selection of rare wartime photographs shows the variety of turretless armored fighting vehicles that were produced and developed – various models of the Sturmgeschütz III, the Sturmhaubitze, Jagdpanzer, Panzerjäger, Marder, Hetzer. Often a lack of tanks meant that these armoured vehicles were called on to fill the panzer's role, and they proved ideal during the Germans’ defensive battles on the Eastern Front as well as in Italy and Normandy – they were instrumental in delaying Germany's defeat. This highly illustrated account provides is a fascinating introduction to one of the less well-known aspects of armored warfare during the Second World War.

Michael K. Jones's new history of Stalingrad offers a radical reinterpretation of the most famous battle of the WW2. Combining eyewitness testimony of Red Army fighters with fresh archive material, the book gives a dramatic insight into the thinking of the Russian command and the mood of the ordinary soldiers. He focuses on the story of the Russian 62nd Army, which began the campaign in utter demoralization, yet turned the tables on the powerful German 6th Army. He explains the Red Army's extraordinary performance using battle psychology, emphasizing the vital role of leadership, morale and motivation in a triumph that turned the course of the war.Colonel-General Anatoly Mereshko fought throughout the battle as staff officer to the commander, Chuikov. Working with the author much of Mereshko's testimony is entirely new - and will astonish a western audience. It is backed up by accounts of other key veterans and the recently released war diary and combat journals. These show that the oft-repeated descriptions of Stalingrad's two critical days of fighting - 14 September 1942, when the Germans broke into the city, and 14 October, when they launched a massive attack on the factory district - disguise how desperate the plight of the defenders really was. In their place is a far more terrifying reality. Grasping this, we come to see Stalingrad as more than a victory of successful tactics - rather, as an astounding, improbable triumph of the human spirit.

Since its introduction in 1981, at the height of the Cold War, the Abrams main battle tank has been one of the most visible and iconic symbols of American military power, and it is the fascinating subject of this heavily illustrated historical and modeling guide in the TankCraft series by David Grummitt.Designed to meet head-on the massed tank forces of the Warsaw Pact, its combat debut in fact came in a different scenario in 1991 during the First Gulf War. Since then it has served in the peace-keeping role in the former Yugoslavia and seen combat in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen. It has gone through a series of modifications and modernizations that see it set to remain the backbone of the US Army until at least 2050.As well as charting the development and combat history of the vehicle, the book is illustrated throughout with color photos and specially commissioned color profiles. Five different models, covering the service history of the Abrams, are featured, as is modeler’s guide to the existing kits and accessories in the all the popular scales.

A total of eleven British armoured divisions were formed during the 1939-1945 war but, as this highly informative book reveals, just eight saw action. In 1940 only 1st Armoured Division faced the German blitzkrieg and it was in the North African desert that armoured divisions came into their own. The terrain was ideal and six such divisions of Eighth Army fought Rommel's Panzers into submission. Three were disbanded prior to the invasion of Sicily and Italy. The campaign from D-Day onwards saw the Guards Armoured, 7th Armoured (the Desert Rats), 11th and Percy Hobart's 79th Armoured Division in the thick of the action. Of particular interest are the men who commanded these elite formations and the way their characters contributed to the outcome of operations. While some, such as Dick McCreery, went onto greater heights, others did not make the grade; the stakes were high. A number, such as 'Pip' Roberts, were just perfectly suited in the role. Written by a leading military historian, this book describes many fascinating aspects of armoured warfare from its uncertain beginnings, through the development of tactics and the evolving tank design. Due to British deficiencies, reliance had to be placed on US Grants and Shermans, with the Comet coming late and the Centurion too late. The combination of gripping historical narrative and well researched fact make this an invaluable and highly readable work on the contribution of British Armoured Divisions to victory in the Second World War.

The ancient evidence suggests that international commerce supplied Roman government with up to a third of the revenues that sustained their empire. In ancient times large fleets of Roman merchant ships set sail from Egypt on voyages across the Indian Ocean. They sailed from Roman ports on the Red Sea to distant kingdoms on the east coast of Africa and the seaboard off southern Arabia. Many continued their voyages across the ocean to trade with the rich kingdoms of ancient India. Freighters from the Roman Empire left with bullion and returned with cargo holds filled with valuable trade goods, including exotic African products, Arabian incense and eastern spices. This book examines Roman commerce with Indian kingdoms from the Indus region to the Tamil lands. It investigates contacts between the Roman Empire and powerful African kingdoms, including the Nilotic regime that ruled Meroe and the rising Axumite Realm. Further chapters explore Roman dealings with the Arab kingdoms of south Arabia, including the Saba-Himyarites and the Hadramaut Regime, which sent caravans along the incense trail to the ancient rock-carved city of Petra. The Roman Empire and the Indian Ocean is the first book to bring these subjects together in a single comprehensive study that reveals Rome's impact on the ancient world and explains how international trade funded the Legions that maintained imperial rule. It offers a new international perspective on the Roman Empire and its legacy for modern society.

There are many books about the Knights Templar, the medieval military order which played a key role in the crusades against the Muslims in the Holy Land, the Iberian peninsula and elsewhere in Europe. What is seldom explored is the military context in which they operated, and that is why Paul Hill’s highly illustrated study is so timely, for he focuses on how this military order prosecuted its wars.The order was founded as a response to attacks on pilgrims in the Holy Land, and it was involved in countless battles and sieges, always at the forefront of crusading warfare. This absorbing study examines why they were such an important aspect of medieval warfare on the frontiers of Christendom for nearly two hundred years.Paul Hill shows how they were funded and supplied, how they organized their forces on campaign and on the battlefield and the strategies and tactics they employed in the various theaters of warfare in which they fought. Templar leadership, command and control are examined, and sections cover their battles and campaigns, fortifications and castles.

The ancient evidence suggests that international commerce supplied Roman government with up to a third of the revenues that sustained their empire. In ancient times large fleets of Roman merchant ships set sail from Egypt on voyages across the Indian Ocean. They sailed from Roman ports on the Red Sea to distant kingdoms on the east coast of Africa and the seaboard off southern Arabia. Many continued their voyages across the ocean to trade with the rich kingdoms of ancient India. Freighters from the Roman Empire left with bullion and returned with cargo holds filled with valuable trade goods, including exotic African products, Arabian incense and eastern spices. This book examines Roman commerce with Indian kingdoms from the Indus region to the Tamil lands. It investigates contacts between the Roman Empire and powerful African kingdoms, including the Nilotic regime that ruled Meroe and the rising Axumite Realm. Further chapters explore Roman dealings with the Arab kingdoms of south Arabia, including the Saba-Himyarites and the Hadramaut Regime, which sent caravans along the incense trail to the ancient rock-carved city of Petra.The Roman Empire and the Indian Ocean is the first book to bring these subjects together in a single comprehensive study that reveals Rome’s impact on the ancient world and explains how international trade funded the Legions that maintained imperial rule. It offers a new international perspective on the Roman Empire and its legacy for modern society.

It is a curious paradox that, while for many centuries there has been deep antagonism between the British and the Irish, the latter have fought the former's wars with exemplary courage and tenacity. This has never been better demonstrated than when, as a result of the Irish regiments' superb service in the South African War (Boer War) at the end of the 19th Century, Queen Victoria ordered the formation of the Irish Guards in 1900 as a mark of the Nation's gratitude. Even after the trauma of Partition, Irishmen continued to serve in Irish regiments in large numbers and the tradition continued today. Indeed during the Second World War a very significant number of the most influential generals were of Irish extraction.