Bøger i Helion Studies in Military History serien

The Whole Armour of God examines and reassesses the role of the Anglican army chaplains in the Great War. The tensions and ambiguities of their role in the trenches resulted in criticism of their achievements.

This work examines the nature of the relationship between the British Government and the Polish Government in Exile, 1939-1945. The relationship was extremely difficult owing to the extremity of the time and the situations of the two governments. Before 1939 there had been little contact between Poland and Britain.

This book investigates several controversial issues regarding the role of the Soviet Union and the performance of the Soviet government and Red Army, to which the author provides some provocative answers. The primary question explored by the author, however, regards the effectiveness of both the Red Army and of the Soviet military economy. Dr. Sokolov argues that the chief defect of the Soviet military economy was the disproportionate emphasis on the production of tanks and aircraft at the expense of transportation means and the means of command and control. This leads the author to look at the role of Lend-Lease during the war. Through the delivery of radio sets, trucks, jeeps, locomotives, fuel, explosives and so on, the author concludes that Lend-Lease was critical to the Red Army, and that the Soviet Union would not have been able to wage a long war against Germany without the Lend-Lease supplies - a conclusion that defies decades of Soviet claims to the contrary. Finally, the author looks at the still very controversial and hot topic of Red Army losses in the war, which was taboo for decades, arguing that this is an effective measure of the Red Army's military performance. He and other scholars have estimated that the Red Army's losses were on the scale of 27 million, three times larger than the official estimates, and approximately 10 times greater than the German losses on the Eastern Front. He argues that such horrendous casualties and such an unfavorable ratio for the Red Army were the result of the relatively low value placed on human life in both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, and the much more destructive nature of the Soviet totalitarian regime as compared with the Third Reich, which cowed the Soviet generals and officers into total subservience. Due to the elimination of all political opposition and the total control over people's lives, soldiers and civilians could not protest against the crude tactics that resulted in such a very high rate of losses.

The story of British Forces Broadcasting began officially on 1st January 1944 in North Africa. Mobile stations were used in the advance northwards through Italy, and followed closely behind the troops after D-Day as they fought their way across Europe into Germany. However, this approach was not suitable for the war east of Suez. The India and South-East Asia Commands (SEAC) covered such a huge area that other means were needed to deliver programs to the forces in that theater. A start had been made in Delhi in 1944, where a station had been set up which used air time provided by All-India Radio on one of its transmitters. Efforts to improve welfare facilities were made by Vice-Admiral Mountbatten, soon after he arrived to take up his appointment as Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia. He set up a forces newspaper, and started experimental radio transmissions, but found there were financial constraints on what could be achieved. Friends and relatives back home became unhappy about the forces' living conditions, and articles appeared in the English press. These came to Churchill's notice, and he was persuaded to send Lord Munster on a fact-finding tour to establish what improvements were needed. His report was made available to M.P.s just before Christmas 1944, when Churchill addressed the Commons on the situation. Lord Munster had noted the station in Delhi, but wrote that transmitters were needed for forces broadcasting, and that many more receiving sets were required. Discussions involving the War Office and the BBC reached the conclusion that the best option was a powerful short wave transmitter, supported by another with less power. This was approved by the War Cabinet, along with most of Munster's recommendations. What was much more difficult to resolve was the disagreement between those who wished to have the station in Delhi, and Mountbatten who wanted it under his command, in Ceylon. The text of a signal is included in which he set out his reasons. The furious argument was decided in his favor, and the result was Radio SEAC. Early estimates of targets for when the station might go on the air proved to be optimistic. They underestimated the difficulty of shipping, from England to Ceylon, the components of a big transmitter, complete with its own power supply. Several aerial towers (300 feet high) had to be dismantled, shipped and re-erected. In order to provide some broadcasting as soon as possible, the small transmitter was used for about a year before the powerful one went on the air in May 1946 - long after the war was over. Even readers with some knowledge of the technical details of radio receivers may be surprised by photographs showing the sheer size of the components used in the big transmitter. One could justify the huge expense of the transmitting station on the grounds that when it was not longer needed for forces broadcasting it could serve as a relay station for the BBC. This would mean, for example, that the BBC Overseas Service would be received well in Australia. It was used in this way for a short time, but independence for Ceylon led to the station being handed over to the country's new government. The story of Radio SEAC, and Mountbatten's pivotal involvement in it, has remained untold until now. Eric Hitchcock presents a balanced and fascinating account, blending military, social, political and scientific history together to produce an important account.

The Korean War (1950-1953) was the first - and only - full-scale air war in the jet age. It was in the skies of North Korea where Soviet and American pilots came together in fierce aerial clashes. The best pilots of the opposing systems, the most powerful air forces, and the most up-to-date aircraft in the world in this period of history came together in pitched air battles. The analysis of the air war showed that the powerful United States Air Force and its allies were unable to achieve complete superiority in the air and were unable to fulfill all the tasks they'd been given. Soviet pilots and Soviet jet fighters, which were in no way inferior to their opponents and in certain respects were even superior to them, was the reason for this. The combat experience and new tactical aerial combat tactics, which were tested for the first time in the skies of Korea, have been eagerly studied and applied by modern air forces around the world today.

Wars in the 19th century were accompanied by a very heavy loss of life from infectious diseases. Typhus fever, dysentery, malaria, typhoid fever and yellow fever caused many more deaths than wounds inflicted by enemy actions. During the Peninsular War, for example, for every soldier dying of a wound, four succumbed to disease.

As with many other aspects of the British army, the outbreak of World War One started a process of change that was to result in a radically different provision of chaplaincy care once the war was over. Nothing was ever simple with chaplaincy as a number of churches becoming involved with the army, many for the first time. The structure was already under pressure before the war with the Catholic Church insisting on new rules for chaplaincy in the first decade of the twentieth century. The creation of the Territorial Force added a new dimension after 1907, bringing new players into the mix including the Jewish community. These chaplains challenged the traditional Garrison Church based ministry of the regulars. The book examines the muddled state of chaplaincy in August 1914 and looks at how chaplains were mobilized. It then reviews how organizational changes were often the result of pressure from the different churches. The unilateral decision of the Church of England, in July 1915, to leave the unified administration in France that had existed since August 1914 is examined in the light of the availability of the relevant volume of the diaries of Bishop Gwynne, a key participant in the change. Chapters also look at the experience of other Imperial forces and of the casualties suffered by chaplains. These all provide evidence of the expectations that various groups had of army chaplains. It is often forgotten that two chaplains were captured during the retreat from Mons in 1914. They were never far from the fighting throughout the war. The experiences of the war meant that the pre-war structure needed reform. The final chapter looks at the structure that was created in 1920 and then survived virtually unchanged until 2004. Army chaplaincy has always been a mix of Churc

The United States has been in a mountain war in Afghanistan for almost a decade. Other nations have different, extensive experience in training and conduction mountain combat. Les Grau and Chuck Bartles gathered this experience in a detailed study aimed at being of use both to military professionals and others with an interest in military operations in mountainous terrain. Chapters include small and large unit actions, reconnaissance, artillery, small arms fire, logistics, communications, medicine and aviation. Much experience is drawn from Soviet efforts in Afghanistan during the 1980s, and modern Russian army training. The text is complemented by numerous maps and diagrams.

This book investigates several controversial issues regarding the role of the Soviet Union and the performance of the Soviet government and Red Army, to which the author provides some provocative answers. The primary question explored by the author, however, regards the effectiveness of both the Red Army and of the Soviet military economy. Dr.

Learning From Foreign Wars examines how the Russian army interpreted and what lessons it learned from the wars in Europe between 1859 and 1871, and the American Civil War. This was a time marked by rapid change - political, social, economic and technological.

Abolishing the Taboo takes a new look at the integral role played by Eisenhower in the creation of a new nuclear creed for the United States during the Cold War.