World War Ii Street Fighting Tactics

In a continuation of the tactics mini-series, this book analyzes the physical tactics of the close-quarter fighting that took place in ruined cities during World War II. Street-to-street fighting in cities was not a new development, but the bombed-out shells of cities and advances in weaponry meant that World War II took such strategies to a new level of savagery and violence. Packed with eye-witness accounts, tutorials from original training manuals, maps, and full-colour artwork, this is an eye-opening insight into the tactics and experiences of infantry fighting their way through ruined cities in the face of heavy casualty rates and vicious resistance.

Word Bird experiences hot soup, cold snow, and wet clothes on a snowy winter day.

This book describes and illustrates, in fascinating detail, the slow and painful learning curve followed by the Allies in the mid-war years as they attempted to end the Japanese stranglehold on Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Based on the actual wartime training documents and front-line memoirs, it shows how the British, Australian and US armies transformed their tactics, attitudes and equipment to master the art of jungle warfare. In 1944-45 the Allies finally conquered the jungle environment, exploiting their new strengths and their enemy's weaknesses, to win crushing victories in Burma and on the Pacific islands.

Despite all technological advances, final mastery of any battlefield depends upon the tight-knit group of footsoldiers trained to manoeuvre, shoot and dig in. This first of a two-part study examines the methods by which the Western infantry of World War II - the German, British and US armies - actually brought their firepower to bear. Drawing upon period training manuals for the evolving theory, and on personal memoirs for the individual practice, this first book covers the organization and tactics of the squad of ten or a dozen men, and the platoon of three or four squads. The text is illustrated with contemporary photographs and diagrams, and with colour plates bringing to life the movement of soldiers on the battlefield.

Osprey's study of air battle tactics of World War II (1939-1945). The delivery of entire divisions to battlefields behind enemy lines by parachute and glider played a significant part in the European campaigns of World War II. Despite notable successes, the costs and difficulties of this wholly new form of warfare have prevented airborne operations on a comparable scale since 1945. This book - by an airborne veteran of a later generation - explains in detail their advantages and drawbacks, developing techniques and equipment, with reference to specific German, US, British, Soviet and Japanese operations. The text is illustrated with period photographs, colour artwork and operation maps.

The history of WWI aviation is a rich and varied story marked by the evolution of aircraft from slow moving, fragile, and unreliable powered kites, into quick, agile, sturdy fighter craft. At the same time there emerged a new kind of 'soldier', the fighter pilots whose individual cunning and bravery became crucial in the fight for control of the air. Dog-fight traces this rapid technological development alongside the strategy and planning of commanders and front-line airmen as they adapted to the rapidly changing events around them and learned to get the best from their machines. Often, this involved discovering and employing tactics instinctively to stay alive. Based on the author's personal correspondence with a number of WWI fighter pilots and aces, and drawing on published contemporary memoirs, this is an authoritative and lively history that serves as a captivating tribute to the brave pilots of both sides.

The battlefield interaction between infantry and tanks was central to combat on most fronts in World War II. The first 'Blitzkrieg' campaigns saw the tank achieve a new dominance. New infantry tactics and weapons – some of them desperately dangerous – had to be adopted, while the armies raced to develop more powerful anti-tank guns and new light weapons. By 1945, a new generation of revolutionary shoulder-fired AT weapons was in widespread use. This book explains in detail the shifting patterns of anti-tank combat, illustrated with photographs, diagrams and colour plates showing how weapons were actually employed on the battlefield.

In this book, expert author and tactician Gordon L Rottman provides the first English-language study of Japanese Army and Navy tank units, their tactics and how they were deployed in action. The Japanese army made extensive use of its tanks in the campaigns in China in the 1930s, and it was in these early successes that the Japanese began to develop their own unique style of tank tactics. From the steam-rolling success of the Japanese as they invaded Manchuria until the eventual Japanese defeat, Rottman provides a battle history of the Japanese tank units as they faced the Chinese, the Russians, the British and the Americans.

“Urban terrain will likely be the predominant battlefield of future wars.” As September 11 and Somalia proved, hostile forces are now engaging America differently, avoiding open combat with our enormous military, striking at our civic centers or dragging us into theirs. But urban warfare isn’t new; it is as old as the battle of Jericho. Now an incomparable collection written by esteemed military veterans—some currently serving, others civilian analysts—re-creates the last century’s most astonishing examples of this kind of fighting . . . and offers important lessons for our future. Here are fourteen riveting histories that are both invaluable teaching tools for security leaders and engrossing accounts for any reader. They include • William M. Waddell’s “Tai-Erh-Chuang, 1938: The Japanese Juggernaut Smashed”—How China defeated the Japanese in battle for the first time in three hundred and forty years, by using a city only as a pivot area and attacking the exposed flank and rear ranks of its unprepared enemy. • Eric M. Walters’s “Stalingrad, 1942: With Will, a Weapon, and a Watch”—The largest and longest-running urban fight of the twentieth century, in which the Red Army became the tortoise to the Germans’ hare, out-lasting its stronger foe. • Norm Cooling’s “Hue City, 1968: Winning a Battle While Losing a War”—The six-day fight for the cultural center of Vietnam revealed how the American military’s distrust of the media made it fail to expose the enemy’s mass executions and lose the all-important information war. And these eleven additional accounts: “Warsaw, 1944: Uprising in Eastern Europe” by Maj. David M. Toczek “Arnhem, 1944: Airborne Warfare in the City” by Lt. Col. G. A. Lofaro “Troyes, France, 1944: All Guns Blazing” By Col. Peter R. Mansoor “Budapest, 1944-45: Bloody Contest of Wills” by Col. Peter B. Zwack “Aschaffenburg, 1945: Cassino on the Main River” by Mark J. Reardon “Manila, 1945: City Fight in the Pacific” by Col. Kevin C. M. Benson “Berlin, 1945: Backs Against the Wall” by Maj. Mike Boden “Jaffa, 1948: Urban Combat in the Israeli War of Independence” by Benjamin Runkle “Seoul, 1950: City Fight after Inchon” by Maj. Thomas A. Kelley “Da Nang-Hoi An, A Tank Skirmish in Quang Nam Province” by Dennis C. Fresch “Evolution of Urban Combat Doctrine” by Mark J. Reardon From the 1944 Warsaw uprising that almost caused the complete destruction of Poland’s capital to the crucial, near-forgotten fight for Manila in 1945 . . . from snipers and shoulder-launched missiles to tunnels and tanks . . . all aspects of the most important urban conflicts are revealed in stunning detail. Compelling and cautionary, City Fights powerfully reminds us that, in our ever more urbanized and vulnerable world, “if a state loses its cities, it loses the war.”

Little has been published on US armored infantry units and tactics over the years. However, their contribution to the war effort was hugely important. There were a total of 57 armored infantry battalions and two regiments that served throughout the war and in all theaters. Equipped with halftracks, they fought as part of combined arms teams and combat commands alongside tanks, tank destroyers and artillery battalions. Significantly, they were not simply standard infantry battalions provided with halftracks. Their company and platoon organization was very different from the standard infantry unit and these highly mobile, heavily armed battalions fought in an entirely different manner. Using period training manuals and combat reports this book provides an exclusive look at the unique tactics developed by US armored infantry units including movement formations and battle drills.