Books about Artillery from Amazon.com

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The battle of Gettysburg in July 1863 marked the turning point of the American Civil War. The apex of the Confederacy's final major invasion of the North, the devastating defeat also marked the end of the South's offensive strategy against the North. From this battle until the end of the war, the Confederate armies largely remained defensive. The Artillery of Gettsyburg is a thoughtful look at the role of the artillery during the July 1-3, 1863 conflict.

By the time of the Gettysburg campaign, artillery had gained respect in both armies. Used defensively, it could break up attacking formations and change the outcomes of battle. On the offense, it could soften up enemy positions prior to attack. And even if the results were not immediately obvious, the psychological effects to strong artillery support could bolster the infantry and discourage the enemy. Ultimately, infantry and artillery branches became codependent, for the artillery needed infantry support lest it be decimated by enemy infantry or captured.

The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia had modified its codependent command system in February 1863. Prior to that, batteries were allocated to brigades, but now they were assigned to each infantry division, thus decentralizing its command structure and making it more difficult for Gen. Robert E. Lee and his artillery chief, Brig. Gen. William Pendleton, to control their deployment on the battlefield.

The Union Army of the Potomac had superior artillery capabilities in numerous ways. At Gettysburg, the Federal artillery had 372 cannons and the Confederates 283. To make matters worse, the Confederate artillery frequently was hindered by the quality of the fuses, which caused the shells to explode too early, too late, or not at all. When combined with a command structure that gave Union Brig. Gen. Henry Hunt more direct control than this Southern counterpart over his forces, the Federal army enjoyed a decided advantage in the countryside around Gettysburg.

Bradley M. Gottfried provides insight into how the two armies employed their artillery, how the different kinds of weapons functioned in battle, and the strategies for using each of them. He shows how artillery affected the ebb and flow of battle for both armies and thus provides a unique way of understanding the strategies of the Federal and Union commanders.

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Price: $15.54 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The complex relationship between America and the Arab world goes back further than most Americans or Arabs realize In Artillery of Heaven, Ussama Makdisi presents a foundational American encounter with the Arab world that occurred in the nineteenth century, shortly after the arrival of the first American Protestant missionaries in the Middle East. He tells the dramatic tale of the conversion and death of As'ad Shidyaq, the earliest Arab convert to American Protestantism. The struggle over this man's body and soul--and over how his story might be told--changed the actors and cultures on both sides.

In the unfamiliar, multireligious landscape of the Middle East, American missionaries at first conflated Arabs with Native Americans and American culture with an uncompromising evangelical Christianity. In turn, their Christian and Muslim opponents in the Ottoman Empire condemned the missionaries as malevolent intruders. Yet during the ensuing confrontation within and across cultures an unanticipated spirit of toleration was born that cannot be credited to either Americans or Arabs alone. Makdisi provides a genuinely transnational narrative for this new, liberal awakening in the Middle East, and the challenges that beset it.

By exploring missed opportunities for cultural understanding, by retrieving unused historical evidence, and by juxtaposing for the first time Arab perspectives and archives with American ones, this book counters a notion of an inevitable clash of civilizations and thus reshapes our view of the history of America in the Arab world..
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Strange sounds resembling the remote rumble of distant thunder were audible Everybody understood: it was the echo of the battle for Stalingrad ..A heavy rain began falling Stalingrad's outskirts provided Isaak Kobylyanskiy, a 19-year-old Jew from Ukraine, with his first exposure to combat and initiated his long odyssey in the Great Patriotic War against Germany. It would be more than three years before he was finally reunited with his family and his sweetheart, Vera, the schoolmate he had promised to marry.Kobylyanskiy started the war as a 76-mm infantry support gun crew commander for the 300th Rifle Division (and its later incarnations) and celebrated V-E Day as a battery commander. His combat journey was a long process of exhausting marches punctuated by harrowing moments of intense combat. From the liberation of Sevastopol, through Lithuania's countryside, to the final storming of Konigsberg's heavy fortifications, Kobylyanskiy's memoir sweeps across the great expanses of the Eastern Front. His narrative is packed with dramatic details and insights into the daily life of the Soviet army: the relentless marches to locate and engage the enemy, the prejudicial treatment of female soldiers, and the plight of Soviet civilians.Kobylyanskiy also discusses the role of military political officers (and his own conflicted views on communism), clarifies the place of Jews in the Red Army and discusses how his reaction to anti-Semitic utterances added a sense of responsibility to his fighting, and frames his account with personal glimpses into the stifling repression of Stalinist society, including the brutal collectivization program and resulting famine in Ukraine. But he balances such memories with warm recollections of some of his comrades and especially with an affecting portrait of his courtship of Vera, and concludes with an emotional coda: their wedding ceremony in a war-ravaged but recovering Kiev.By turns vivid, reflective, intense, and entertaining, Kobylyanskiy's narrative charts one warrior's epic journey and joins a select group of memoirs that deepen our understanding of what it was like for Russian soldiers on the Eastern Front..
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The concise guide to the weapons, ammunition and equipment of Civil War artillery More than 150 photos and drawings .
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Impressive in terms of scale and structure, the Fire Support Base became a dominant element in ground maneuver during the Vietnam War. Initially a mobile base, it soon evolved into a semi-permanent and more sophisticated fortress as a result of enemy counterattacks and bombardments.

As a consequence, the majority of US and other allied troops found themselves pinned down in defensive or support roles, rather than being free to conduct 'search and destroy' or other mobile missions. Thus, the first and foremost function of the Fire Support Base was defensive. Troops, machine guns, mortars, artillery, surveillance radars, and command centers all had to be dug into bunkers and fire trenches by nightfall of the first day. Around these positions there would be deep belts of barbed wire, generously scattered with several different types of mines and even, in a few cases after 1967, with a brand new series of electronic sensors to detect and locate the enemy at a distance.

With the benefit of the on-site howitzers, the FSB could also deliver offensive high volume fire, reaching as far as 14,600m and eliminating enemy firing sites, supporting friendly infantry operations, or simply participating in fire missions where exact targets were not known. In fact, the fort offered such a degree of support and protection that ground maneuver was eventually hampered by the troop's reluctance to leave the comfort and safety of the FSB.

With a description of the design, development and operational history of the Fire Support Base, this book provides the key to understanding one of the main assets of US battle strategy in the Vietnam War..
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The Medieval era was a period of huge variety and invention in siege warfare. Before the use of cannon and other gun-powder artillery, siege engines relied on assorted sources of power, from torsion 'energy storage' systems to man-power, counter-balances and others. This book reveals how technological traditions from the Graeco-Roman world, Persia, India and above all China made a massive contribution to siege warfare techniques. It also covers developments in military engineering, such as mining, counter-mining, the breaking of walls, the use of noxious and chemical fumes and the use of fire-weapons..
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Determined to learn from the lessons of World War I where it was unprepared and heavily reliant on British and French guns, the US Army developed a whole new generation of field artillery weapons and tactics during the 1930s. Consequently, in World War II it was the clear leader in field artillery.

Providing a thorough examination of the many critical innovations and doctrines, and the impact they had on performance in combat, this book demonstrates why US field artillery was so effective in World War II. Innovations featured include the motorization of artillery, which increased mobility; fire direction centers, which enhanced their firepower; aerial observation; and radio communications.

Exploring, in their entirety, the weapons that formed the backbone of the US artillery arsenal in World War II, this book reveals a wealth of detail not readily available elsewhere.

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The book is based on the official unit history of the 319th Glider Field Artillery Battalion, one of two field artillery battalions attached to the famous 82nd Airborne Division. The men of the 319th made two glider assaults during WWII, the first on D Day in Normandy (where almost 20% of the men were killed or injured in the multiple glider crashes behind enemy lines) and the second during the invasion of Holland. Gliders were used by both Allied and Axis armies in Europe to bring large numbers of fighting men, artillery and heavier weapons onto the battlefields as part of several large scale Airborne invasions. The gliders were towed by powered aircraft such as the DC-3 or various bombers (in the case of the British and German glider troops) and then were released behind enemy lines to float silently to the battlefield with no offensive weapons, no armored plating to ward off anti-aircraft or machine gun fire and no effective landing gear or steering mechanisms to avoid crash landing.Of the 16 million service men and women, who served the United States during WW II, less than 1% were required to ride into battle aboard these powerless, unarmed aircraft, in what the History Channel has described as "Suicide Missions" of WW II. However, because the helicopter had not yet been perfected, the men of the 319th provided sorely needed artillery support to the paratroops of the 82nd and fought alongside the men of the 504th, 505th, 507th, 508th and glider troops of the 325th regiments (82nd Airborne) in every major battle of the ETO. In this thrilling saga, follow the men of the 319th from N. Africa to Italy, then on to the British Isles, where they prepared for the Normandy Invasion on June 6th, 1944. In Normandy the 319th Glider artillerymen, along with the paratroops of the 82nd Airborne, set a record for 33 days of continual combat without relief. Then it was back to England for several months of training before embarking on Operation Market-Garden, the invasion of Holland. When the British First Airborne surrendered to the Germans in Arnhem, the 319th went fought defensive action for over 40 days supporting the British forces until relieved and sent to France for a much needed rest and retraining. This respite from combat did not last long however as the 82nd Div (including the 319th was called up to the front lines in December of 1944 to stem the German Ardennes Offensive. In January of 1945, the 319th was part of the attack on the Siegfried Line, the last western defense of Nazi Germany. Later the 319th liberated Cologne,Germany and was sent on a mad rush in April of 1945 to keep the Russians from coming too far West and possibly capturing Denmark. The 319th is one of the most highly decorated units among all of the U.S. Airborne forces, winning two Presidential Unit citations in WWII and then their third and fourth Presidential Unit citations for combat valor in Vietnam. During WWII,the men of the 319th fired over 88,000 high explosive shells against the enemy in five separate campaigns from Italy to the Siegfried Line, unleashing the equivalent destructive power of 3,345,786 pounds of TNT against German soldiers, troop vehicles, German artillery positions, Tiger tanks, 88 gun positions and pill boxes with devastating effectiveness..
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Corporal Bill Hanford had one of the US Army's most dangerous jobs in World War II: artillery forward observer (FO). Tasked with calling in heavy fire on the enemy, FOs accompanied infantrymen into combat, crawled into no-man's-land, and ascended observation posts like hills and ridges to find their targets. But beyond the usual perils of ground combat, FOs were specially targeted by the enemy because of their crucial role in directing artillery fire. Hanford spent much of his time fighting in the Vosges Mountains in eastern France and then in Germany in late 1944 and early 1945..
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