A. J Smithers
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In the long history of the British Isles few years can stand in comparison with 1940 in terms of unrivalled gloom. The fiasco in Norway, the evacuation of the BEF from Dunkirk, the fall of France and the entry of Italy into the war were hardly offset by the success of the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain and the failure of the Italian troops in their attempted invasion of Egypt. Near the end of the year, however, there occurred an event which...
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It is probably true to say that no land battle of this century passes Cambrai in importance. Up to the winter of 1917 warfare had changed only in degree since the coming of gunpowder. The scenario, with parts for horse, foot and guns, remained essentially the same. All this was part of a world about to disappear for good with the introduction of the tank. The British Army, hammered by years of war and facing almost alone the vastly increasing strength...
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The origin of the Corps of Royal Engineers, now affectionately known as The Sappers but then as the King's Military Engineers, has been traced as far as 1414, though it was not until 1716 that a permanent officer corps of engineers was established by the Board of Ordnance with the title Corps of Engineers.. Being part of the Regular Army it is hardly surprising that the Corps should be associated in the public mind with such tasks as building roads,...
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In this sequel to "An New Excalibur", which examined the development of the tank during World War I and after, Smithers examines the role played by tanks in World War II. At the beginning of the war only the Germans and the Russians had realized the full power of the tank. The British and the Americans were forced to try to catch up. One difficulty was fundamentally a matter of finding the right tool for the right job. In the last year of the war,...
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The story of the inventors, engineers, soldiers, and politicians behind the emergence of the armored fighting vehicle. The birth and infancy of the tank had an enormous number of technical problems to be solved-but the issues with its construction paled in comparison to the endless squabbles among the people involved. This fascinating study of the vehicle which was born out of the stalemate of the Western Front in the First World War looks at all...