osprey publishing

Yet another well-presented Osprey publication , no 397 in their campaign series.The author and artist have both been featured in numerous Osprey soft-cover titles and here they once more offer in 96 pages a concise, nicely illustrated and readable slice of WW2 history. The format of these short...

I asked to review this book as I had spent some time on Bougainville in 1997 as part of the ANZAC Truce Monitoring Force and recall the island being littered with aircraft wrecks and other detritus of WW2. Another of Osprey's excellent Air Campaign series, Operation Ro-Go is a detailed account...

P-38 Lightning vs Bf 109 is from Osprey and is part of their Duel series. Written by Edward M. Young, it covers the aerial combats between the two fighters over North Africa, Sicily and Italy in 1942-43. Once again, Osprey has exposed gaps in my knowledge. Like so many British people, what I...

Number 4 in the Osprey “Fleet” series, the full title of this book is “US Seventh Fleet, Vietnam 1964-75 - American Naval Power in Southeast Asia” and once again for an Osprey campaign book, it does exactly what it says on the tin. The author is a naval historian who’s concentrated on detailing...

This is a big book, and not just because it has over 520 pages, or that it measures around 12” x 10” in size and weighs a hefty 3kg, it’s big because it’s absolutely jam packed full of information relating to this iconic aircraft. This book is an upgrade from the authors first book published in...

The Royal Navy in the Downfall of Japan. Brian Lane Herder Illustrator PaulWright. Osprey Books. In September 1944, with Germany seemingly about to collapse, and after a lot of political and strategic infighting, Churchill declared that a British Pacific Fleet would be formed and sent to aid...

This book is in Osprey’s Dogfight series and the emphasis is on the action. Chapter headings include ‘In Battle’, ‘Art of War’, ‘Combat’. The author was a long-serving Foreign Service officer in the Pacific Islands and South-East, formerly resident in Papua New Guinea; fluent in Japanese and...

This book from Osprey is the story of the 1993 operation to capture Mohammed Aideed, a Somali warlord, from the teeming streets of the Somali capital Mogadishu. The author served with 3 Ranger Battalion, as part of the force sent in to give perimeter security alongside the Delta Force squad who...

The Hydaspes was the last major battle fought by Alexander the Great in 326 BC. It was essentially a forced river crossing over the river Jhelum in what is now known as the Indus valley. Alexander won through tactical guile and cunning plus his usual inspiring leadership but the cost was high...

The book will be released on 23rd November 2023, and is currently reduced from £12.99 to £11.95 for preorders on Amazon. This is another very short book from Osprey running at just under 50 pages, However, when you take out the full-page illustrations, the full page of further reading, 4 pages...

This title is part of the Osprey Combat series. These focus on a pair of combatants in a particular campaign and follow a set formula. Each book is 80 pages long with a set number of two tone and colour spreads every couple of pages. This work is a readable account of the organisation and...

Histories of WW2 armour can gravitate to the view that all allied tanks were inferior to German models. Perhaps comparing German tanks of 1943 to allied tanks of 1940. In fact, the situation was more nuanced. In the years leading up to 1939 France was a major tank producer and the BEF was more...

Another in the Osprey 'Combat' series, and as with the others this is more of a glossy brouchure than a book. Filled with excellent art work, Photographs and maps. With a very good primary source available, the detail is staggering, but even then open to interpretation which the author is not...

I wasn't there and so I have very little knowledge of the whole affair, but I'm not sure that there is much of anything new to say about Operation Iraqui Freedom. That's the American name for it. This book is very similar to many books that are written by Very Senior officers, it contains a...

Leningrad has always seemed to me to be a poor relation to Stalingrad in terms of suffering and clash of arms; this book does its best to redress that balance. The author has decided to concentrate on the first year of the siege which commenced on 22 Sep ’41 through to the autumn of ’42...

This concise but extremely well written book is by Anne Curry, an author I would recommend to anybody interested in the period. Running to 144 pages it is of course a very brief overview of this period of history. But nonetheless it's extremely informative, well detailed and illustrated...

The Ancient Assyrians Empire and Army 883 - 612 BC by Mark Healy. A book of two parts with eleven chapters. Part One - The Empire Chapter 1 - Introduction Chapter 2 - Assyria 934 -745 BC Chapter 3 - Assyria 745 - 720 BC Chapter 4 - Sargon II 721 - 705 BC Chapter 5 - Sennacherib 704 - 681...

For some reason I was a little sceptical when I opened this book to review. I suppose at one point there was a glut of books on the market surfing the “Special Forces” interest wave. I was more than pleasantly surprised however. ARRSE does have a tradition of mockingly referencing the fabled...