Author Archives: James - Page 131
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Blue Fires, Gary Hyland
"Gary Hyland owns a successful company that produces original sculptures. He has a long-held fascination for the Nazis' development of new technologies during the Second World War." Do I need to add any more? Synopsis This is one series of speculations about how the nazis might have invented (and built prototype) flying discs at the end of the second world war. There are parts that come across as well researched, particularly when describing the problems of the nazi era for scientists. However there is absolutely no evidence cited for what is contained in the book and even where it introduces things as speculative it then goes on later to treat them as if they were hard fact. However it does have a high entertainment value. That and I discovered that someone has rcently built a small flying disc out of…
Battle of the Hills, 21 January 1943
Image via Wikipedia This is a short article about the advance of the 51st Highland Division in Tunisia in the follow up from El Alamein. I wrote this to be played as a tabletop wargame using Command Decision. Ground The coast road between Homs & Corradini in Tunisia. On the right (from the perspective of the British advance) is the sea. The coast road lies a few miles inland at places. There is a steep coastal ridge on the left flank of the battle area with desert to the south. Within all this there are a large number of steep sided, but small, wadis running from the hills to the sea. There are also one or two significant hills that sit astride or on the road. To quote Captain Watt (OC B Company 5th Seaforths). “At the Assembly Area we…
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Making A Killing, James Ashcroft
Making a Killing: The Explosive Story of a Hired Gun in Iraq The author is a former British Infantry officer who subsequently became a private security contractor and worked in Iraq for eighteen months from the end of 2003 to the beginning of 2005. It was co-written with a professional author. Synopsis An insider's account of life as a private security contractor in Iraq. In September 2003 the author arrived in Iraq at the start of an 18-month journey into chaos. In "Making a Killing", Ashcroft provides a first-hand view of the world of private security where ex-soldiers employed to protect US and British interests can make up to $1000 a day. But he also reveals a new kind of warfare where the rules are still being written. Although hostilities are officially over, the fighting goes on. Scores of US…
Book Review – Field of Fire: Diary of a Gunner Officer by Jack Swaab
Field of Fire: Diary of a Gunner Officer by Jack Swaab My rating: 5 of 5 stars I read the hardback version very shortly after it came out. I collect first hand accounts of the WW2 and unit histories of the 51st Highland Division in particular, so this one was a must buy. That said it is one of the best first hand accounts that I have read, and certainly the best from a gunner (it comparies favourably to George Blackburn's Guns of War series - he was also a Forward Observation Officer). You can have no doubt about the hardships of war, what the conditions were like for both the gunners on the gun line and the infantry on the front line. The book is very descriptive without becoming flowery and it avoids glossing over some of the less…
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The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb
subtitle: The Impact of the Highly Improbable I heard the author on Radio 4 and was intrigued with his central premise that there are wholly unpredictable random events which throw a spaner in the works and about how we often infer things that we ought not to. So I bought the book. The author has a website where you can find out more about him if you are interested. Synopsis This book is all about Black Swans: the random events that underly our lives, from bestsellers to world disasters. Their impact is huge; they're nearly impossible to predict; yet after they happen we always try to rationalise them. A rallying cry to ignore the 'experts', the Black Swan shows us how to stop trying to predict everything and take advantage of uncertainty. ISBN 9780141034591 Related articles A Conversation with Nassim Taleb