Tag archives for History - Page 10
Book Review – Blitzkrieg Legend
"In the West (Western campaign).- Panzer II and Panzer I in the woods; KBK Lw Kompanie Luftwaffe, "Luftwaffe war-reporting company" 4" (Photo credit: Wikipedia) The Blitzkrieg Legend: The Campaign in the West, 1940 by Karl-Heinz Frieser My rating: 5 of 5 stars As part of the planning for the megagame War in the West I bought myself a copy of Blitzkrieg Legend because it is the German Army’s official history (although it didn't get written until the 1990s). From reading the first couple of chapters and looking through the maps you can see the evolution of the German plan. You can see why the directive was written the way that it was in October 1939. The most interesting thing for me is that there is no concept of a lightning war, the general staffs & high command all believe that…
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Inspiration
Image via Wikipedia Today has been an unusually inspiring day, I had two separate ideas for games both of which I reckon could be pulled off in the space of a couple of days basic research and writing briefings etc. Tracy & I both woke up early and we got a couple of hours to do things before Alexander surfaced at the rather late (for him) 9am. In that time I unusually got to watch some TV of my own choice. The first idea came from a programme on the freeview channel 'Yesterday' about the Glencoe Massacre (or more accurately the events leading up to it and the aftermath. This is the follow on to the two games I've done about the revolution in 1689-90 in Scotland. There was a meeting between Albany and the Highland Chiefs where two secret…
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Improper Ganda!
A fantastic collection of propaganda posters that have been photoshopped to change the message. Very funny, especially the re-enactment one, and the Cthulhu poster. Worth a few minutes of browsing past in my opinion.
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Absolute Friends
This is John Le Carre's latest book, a post-cold war spy novel about two of the cold warriors just over a decade on in the wake of 9/11. This is just a fantastic story, incredibly detailed and well researched (where it follows the historical/factual stuff). It starts off as a fairly normal story, told by flashbacks from 2003-4ish, about a chap who gets caught up in the 68-69 student protest movement in Berlin. After a gap of about ten years he eventually settles down and gets a job with the British Council. This draws him into a meeting with his old student protest chum who is now an East German security type. There follows a cold war double agent story, which in itself is excellent. The falling of the Berlin Wall brings an end to that episode and our protagonist…
St.Valery: The Impossible Odds by Bill Innes
This is a collection of first hand accounts, mainly posthumously published from three men who were ordinary soldiers in the 51st Highland Division in 1940. None of them were officers (although one was commissioned after his escape and return home). The main part of the book is a personal account originally published in Gaelic and subsequently translated into english as "A Cameron Never Can Yield". This forms just over half the book and tells the story from the start of the German attack on 10 May 1940 through surrender at St Valery on 12th June 1940, escape on the march into Germany and then life in Marseilles in the winter of 1940-41 followed by a winter crossing of the Pyrenees and time spent in Spanish prison camps before returning to the UK. The other two stories are relatively similar, although…