During 12−14
January 1945 the Russian Army broke out from the Vistula
River and headed for the Oder River on the way to Berlin. It
swept away the German defending units, which retreated in
disarray. In an attempt to slow down the Russian assault,
Hitler declared a number of key cities to be Fortresses.
Posen was one of them. This is the account of the month long
siege of the city: its soldiers were to defend it to the
death and its defense lay in the hands of a collection of
15,000 German and Latvian troops, supported by a few
Sturmgeschutze, one Tiger I, two Panthers, one Hetzer, and a
few SPWs. The first Russian units reached Posen on January
22 and cut it off from the rest of the German forces. During
the next month of bitter fighting 36,000 Soviet troops and
supporting units fought through a number of forts and
fortifications that had been constructed in the late 1800’s,
and across the city, until the last German fighters
surrendered on February 23.
New in
illustrated boards - large format, 480pp, 45 maps,
numerous b/w photos
Live Testing
of Soviet Nuclear Bombs, 1949-1962. On 30 October 1961, the
Soviet Union conducted a live test of the most powerful
nuclear weapon ever created. Codenamed ‘Ivan’, and known in
the West as the ‘Tsar Bomba’, the RDS-202 hydrogen bomb was
detonated at the Sukhoy Nos cape of Severny Island, Novaya
Zemla archipelago, in the Barents Sea. The Tsar Bomba
unleashed about 58 megatons of TNT, creating a
8-kilometre/5-mile-wide fireball and then a mushroom that
peaked at an altitude of 95 kilometres (59 miles). The
shockwave created by the RDS-202 eradicated a village 55
kilometres (34 miles) from ground zero, caused widespread
damage to nature to a radius of dozens of kilometres further
away, and created a heat wave felt as far as 270 kilometres
(170 miles) distant. And still, this was just one of 45
tests of nuclear weapons conducted in the USSR in October
1961 alone.
New in card cover
- A4 format, 56pp, numerous b/w photos, maps & colour
photos &profiles
D-Day and the 76 days of bitter fighting in Normandy
that followed have come to be seen as a defining episode in
the Second World War. Its story has been endlessly retold,
and yet it remains a narrative burdened by both myth and
assumed knowledge. In this reexamined history, James Holland
challenges what we think we know. Drawing on unseen archives
and testimonies from around the world, introducing a cast of
eye-witnesses from foot soldiers to bomber crews, sailors,
civilians and resistance fighters.
OSPREY AIRCRAFT OF THE
ACES 116:
ACES OF JAGDGESCHWADER 3 'UDET'
by John Weal
Jg 3 may
not have the same immediate resonance as some of the more
famous Luftwaffe fighter units but it is arguably the
archetypal German fighter formation of World War II. Not
only did it participate in nearly every campaign fought by
the Luftwaffe, but it flew every major variant of the two
legendary German fighters, the Messerschmitt Bf 109 and the
Focke-Wulf Fw 190, and it numbered among its ranks more than
70 Knight's Cross winners. The wealth and variety of detail
afforded by such a background - which includes the historic
battles of Britain, Stalingrad, Kursk, Normandy, the
Ardennes and Berlin - provides an ideal framework upon which
to portray the multitude of stories, exploits and ultimate
fates of the many aces themselves.
New in card cover - A4 format,
96pp, numerous b/w photos, 58 colour profiles
Hitler
created the Sniper Badge on August 20, 1944, to impel
soldiers to train and be used as snipers. Thus the strategic
importance of single combat was stressed in highly stylized
propaganda. Since the soldiers themselves were in sight of
the enemy troops, unlike the members of other service arms,
they experienced the death of their enemies directly. In
this concise history, this badge, as well as the actions of
German snipers, is examined and includes colour images of
badges, weapons, awards, soldbuchs, and war era photos.
New
in illustrated boards - 60pp, 60 + colour & b/w
illustrations
