The jeep was the most famous military vehicle of World War II, and its name has become synonymous with a whole class of military and civilian all-terrain vehicles. The jeep originated in a prewar US Army requirement for a simple, inexpensive, and robust vehicle for basic utility chores. Its simple d[...]

As the Allies attempted to break out of Normandy, it quickly became apparent that there would be no easy victory over the Germans, and that every scrap of territory on the way to Berlin would have to be earned through hard fighting. This study concentrates on the ferocious battles between the German[...]

The coastal defenses in Normandy along the D-Day beaches were less thorough than other Atlantic Wall defenses, such as the Pas de Calais, where the Germans expected the main attack. However, they still proved to be formidable obstacles for the Allied invasion force. Rommel stressed the need to defea[...]

The HMMWV has set the world standard for army tactical vehicles, since its introduction into the US Army in the 1980s. The Humvee marks another step in the evolution of small tactical vehicles, first started by the legendary Jeep of World War II. Modern armies have a need for a larger vehicle able t[...]

Germany's Atlantic Wall was the most ambitious military fortification program of World War II. Following its conquest of Western Europe, Germany had to defend some 5,000km of Atlantic coastline from the Spanish border to the Arctic Circle. The United States' entry into the war and the inevitability [...]

"Eisenhower".

Although US and Japanese tank forces first clashed in 1941, it was on in 1944 that tank-vs-tank action became more common as both sides poured larger numbers of tanks into the combat zone. These battles were a means of demonstrating each side's latest tank technology. For the US, the pinnacle of the[...]

Stalin's Red Army entered the Second World War as a relatively untried fighting force. In 1941, with the launch of Operation 'Barbarossa', it joined the battle with Hitler's army, the most powerful in history. After a desperate war of attrition over four years, the Red Army defeated the Nazis on the[...]

* An exploration of the U.S. Army Tank combat that played a vital role in the wining of World War II The tank played a key role in many of the battles of World War II; it was an indispensable weapon that could halt entire armies and wreak havoc on the battlefield. Early in the war it was the German[...]

Poland was the first of the Allied nations to succumb to German aggression in the Second World War, but by the most tortuous of routes her army managed to remain in the field through all five years of bloody fighting. Polish soldiers fought in nearly every major campaign in the European theatre, and[...]

The prevailing Western view of Russia's Cold War strategic nuclear weapons policy is that it resulted from a two-part interplay between the leaders of the Communist Party and the military. Steven J. Zaloga has found that a third contributor--the Russian defense industry--also played a vital role.

The Allies' M10 Tank Destroyer and the Germans' Sturmgeschutz (StuG) lll were the unsung workhorses of the northwest European battlefields of 1944-45. While their mission was not principally fighting one another, their widespread use ensured their frequent encounters, from the Normandy Bocage, to th[...]

The sequel to French Tanks of World War II (1), this title focuses primarily on France's cavalry armored vehicles, including the light reconnaissance tanks such as the AMR and AMC families, the famous Somua S.35 cavalry tanks and the extensive array of armored half-track and armored cars used by the[...]