In a continuation of the tactics mini-series, this book analyzes the physical tactics of the close-quarter fighting that took place in ruined cities during World War II. Street-to-street fighting in cities was not a new development, but the bombed-out shells of cities and advances in weaponry meant that World War II took such strategies to a new level of savagery and violence. Packed with eye-witness accounts, tutorials from original training manuals, maps, and full-colour artwork, this is an eye-opening insight into the tactics and experiences of infantry fighting their way through ruined cities in the face of heavy casualty rates and vicious resistance.

Word Bird experiences hot soup, cold snow, and wet clothes on a snowy winter day.

This book describes and illustrates, in fascinating detail, the slow and painful learning curve followed by the Allies in the mid-war years as they attempted to end the Japanese stranglehold on Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Based on the actual wartime training documents and front-line memoirs, it shows how the British, Australian and US armies transformed their tactics, attitudes and equipment to master the art of jungle warfare. In 1944-45 the Allies finally conquered the jungle environment, exploiting their new strengths and their enemy's weaknesses, to win crushing victories in Burma and on the Pacific islands.

Little has been published on US armored infantry units and tactics over the years. However, their contribution to the war effort was hugely important. There were a total of 57 armored infantry battalions and two regiments that served throughout the war and in all theaters. Equipped with halftracks, they fought as part of combined arms teams and combat commands alongside tanks, tank destroyers and artillery battalions. Significantly, they were not simply standard infantry battalions provided with halftracks. Their company and platoon organization was very different from the standard infantry unit and these highly mobile, heavily armed battalions fought in an entirely different manner. Using period training manuals and combat reports this book provides an exclusive look at the unique tactics developed by US armored infantry units including movement formations and battle drills.

Osprey's study of air battle tactics of World War II (1939-1945). The delivery of entire divisions to battlefields behind enemy lines by parachute and glider played a significant part in the European campaigns of World War II. Despite notable successes, the costs and difficulties of this wholly new form of warfare have prevented airborne operations on a comparable scale since 1945. This book - by an airborne veteran of a later generation - explains in detail their advantages and drawbacks, developing techniques and equipment, with reference to specific German, US, British, Soviet and Japanese operations. The text is illustrated with period photographs, colour artwork and operation maps.

In this book, expert author and tactician Gordon L Rottman provides the first English-language study of Japanese Army and Navy tank units, their tactics and how they were deployed in action. The Japanese army made extensive use of its tanks in the campaigns in China in the 1930s, and it was in these early successes that the Japanese began to develop their own unique style of tank tactics. From the steam-rolling success of the Japanese as they invaded Manchuria until the eventual Japanese defeat, Rottman provides a battle history of the Japanese tank units as they faced the Chinese, the Russians, the British and the Americans.

The US armed forces pioneered amphibious warfare in the Pacific and by the time of the D-day landings they had perfected the special equipment and tactics necessary for this extraordinarily difficult and risky form of warfare. This fact-packed study details the doctrine, equipment and tactics that evolved between the North African landings of November 1942 and those in the South of France in August 1944, and illustrates many aspects of the physical realities of assault landings through the use of photos, diagrams and color plates.