Military (455)

SAAFs Border War (Africa@War 43)

ISBN: 9781912866885

Author: Peter Baxter    Publisher: Helion & Company

South African Mirages and Cuban MiG-21s dogfighting over Cuito Cuanavale, the largest tank battle on African soil since El Alamein; Puma troopships shot out of ...


South African Mirages and Cuban MiG-21s dogfighting over Cuito Cuanavale, the largest tank battle on African soil since El Alamein; Puma troopships shot out of the skies by Strela missiles and RPG-7 rockets; Alouette III gunships hovering menacingly above Koevoet tracker-combat teams as they close in for the kill; Hercules and Transall transports disgorging their loads of Parabats over Cassinga; suicidal helicopter hot-extractions of Recce operators deep in enemy territory; and a lone Alouette pilot who disobeyed orders and under intense ground fire evacuated a critically wounded soldier ... such is the story of the South African Air Force, the SAAF, over the 23-year period 1966-1989, the period of conflict that became known as the 'Border War'. Set against the backdrop of the Cold War, the SAAF was effectively South Africa's first line of defence against Soviet expansionism in southern Africa. That the Soviets, through their surrogates - the Cuban military, Angola's FAPLA and Namibia's SWAPO - sought a communist regime in South Africa is indisputable, as too was the SAAF's skill, quality, determination and capability to defeat the best Soviet air defences of the time. This account covers all the major operations that the SAAF was involved in, from Operation Blouwildebees, the opening salvo of the conflict at Omgulumbashe, South West Africa in 1966 to the final curtain, Operation Merlyn, the so-called April Fool's Day 'war' of 1989 when the SAAF and Koevoet, almost alone, frustrated SWAPO's last throw of the dice with its illegal invasion of South West Africa. In this account, highlighting such operations as Reindeer, Bootlace/Uric, Sceptic, Protea, Daisy, Askari, Moduler, Hooper and Packer, among many, as well as the ongoing methodological operations like Lunar, Maanskyn, Donkermaan and Butterfly, Baxter examines and brings to life the squadrons and aviators that fought in both counter-insurgency and conventional warfare roles. Besides an extensive selection of rare photographs, the book features a comprehensive section on camouflage and markings and 11 pages of colour aircraft profiles and insignia by noted SAAF authority William Marshall, making this title especially useful for modelers.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 72


Dimensions: 210 x 297 mm


Publication Date: 30-11-2019


Tags: Military   History
$49.99
Biafra (Africa@War 45)

ISBN: 9781912866892

Author: Peter Baxter    Publisher: Helion & Company

Nigeria was a unique concept in the formation of modern Africa. It began life as a highly lucrative if climatically challenging holding of the Royal Niger Compa...


Nigeria was a unique concept in the formation of modern Africa. It began life as a highly lucrative if climatically challenging holding of the Royal Niger Company, a British Chartered Company under the control of Victorian capitalist Sir George Taubman Goldie. It was handed over to indigenous rule in 1960 with the best of intentions and a profound hope on the part of the British Crown that it would become the poster child of successful political transition in Africa. It did not. One of the signature failures of imperial strategists at the turn of the 19th century was to take little if any account of the traditional demographics of the territories and societies that were subdivided, and often joined together, into spheres of foreign influence, later evolving into colonies, and finally into nation states. Many of the signature crises in post-colonial Africa have owed their origins to this very phenomenon: incompatible and mutually antagonistic tribal and ethnic groupings forced to cohabit within the indivisible precincts of political geography. Congo, Rwanda/Burundi, Sudan and many others have suffered ongoing attrition within their borders as historic enmities surge and boil in restless and ongoing violence. Such was the case with Nigeria in the post-independence period. The traditions and practices of the Islamic north and the Christian/Animist south, and even within the multiplicity of ethnic division in the south itself, proved to be impossible to reconcile. The result was an immediate centrifuge away from the centre, complicated by the vast infusion of oil revenues and the inevitable explosion of corruption that followed. All of this created the alchemy of civil war and genocide, which erupted into violence in 1967 as the eastern region of Nigeria attempted to secede. The war that followed shocked the conscience of the world, and revealed for the first time the true depth of incompatibility of the four partners in the Nigerian federation. This book traces the early history of Nigeria from inception to civil war, and the complex events that defined the conflict in Biafra, revealing how and why this awful event played out, and the scars that it has since left on the psyche of the disunited federation that has continued to exist in the aftermath.


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Pages: 72


Dimensions: 210 x 297 mm


Publication Date: 31-12-2019


Tags: Military   History
$49.99
Hot Skies of the Cold War (Europe@War 2)

ISBN: 9781912866915

Author: Alexander Mladenov    Publisher: Helion & Company

After the end of the Second World War, Bulgaria fell in total dependency upon the Soviet Union as a direct result of the 1944 Yalta agreement on the 'spheres of...


After the end of the Second World War, Bulgaria fell in total dependency upon the Soviet Union as a direct result of the 1944 Yalta agreement on the 'spheres of influence' division of Europe. The Bulgarian Air Force was radically reformed in the Soviet style and rapidly re-equipped with huge numbers of front-line aircraft. The strengthening of the Bulgarian air arm became a high priority as the Cold War in the Balkans gathered speed, and small incidents near the southern and western borders of the country began to occur with increasing frequency. The extensive 'Sovietisation' of the Bulgarian air arm led to the eventual change of its official title in late 1949, becoming identical to its Soviet counterpart, the Voennovazdushni Sily (VVS), featuring a structure identical to that of a Soviet front-line air army. In April 1951, the Bulgarian Air Force entered the jet era with the delivery of the first batch of Yak-23 fighters, followed not after long by the MiG-15.


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Pages: 96


Dimensions: 210 x 297 mm


Publication Date: 10-02-2020


Tags: Military   History
$55.00
The Iran-Iraq War Volume 1 (Middle East@War 23)

ISBN: 9781913118525

Author: E R Hooton    Publisher: Helion & Company

The Iran-Iraq War was one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th century and accidentally created the current nightmare of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. The...


The Iran-Iraq War was one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th century and accidentally created the current nightmare of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. There have been many books on the conflict, but this is the first detailed military history using materials from both sides, as well as materials obtained from US intelligence circles and British governmental archives. It provides a unique insight into a war which began through miscalculation and rapidly escalated into the longest conventional conflict in the post-Second World War era. The first volume looks at the background and describes in detail how Saddam Hussein decided to invade, but hamstrung, the Iraqi Army to restrict its greatest success to a narrow strip of territory in Iran's southern province of Khuzestan. This left the Iraqis unable to either advance or withdraw, and exposed them to ever greater and more successful Iranian counter-strokes which drove them out in May 1982 in the ferocious Battle of Khorramshahr.


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Pages: 88


Dimensions: 210 x 297 mm


Publication Date: 15-11-2019


Tags: Military   History
$55.00
The Battle of Cuito Cuanavale (Africa@War 48)

ISBN: 9781913336073

Author: Leopold Scholtz    Publisher: Helion & Company

In the broad history of the Cold War, the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale was the climax of a far-off, but nonetheless important African war. It was waged between the...


In the broad history of the Cold War, the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale was the climax of a far-off, but nonetheless important African war. It was waged between the apartheid South African Defence Force (SADF) and the armed forces of the communist MPLA government in Angola and the People's Republic of Cuba. Led by Soviet generals, the MPLA embarked on a grand offensive in order to knock out the pro-Western rebel movement UNITA in southeastern Angola. As UNITA's survival was crucial to South Africa's military strategy in fighting its own counter-insurgency war against the South West African rebel movement SWAPO, the SADF stepped in with a single mechanised brigade and broke the back of the overwhelming MPLA offensive. The MPLA forces were subsequently driven back over a hundred kilometres, before the SADF advance was finally stopped just short of the town of Cuito Cuanavale. Since then, a hot war of words have been waged about who actually won. In this book, a South African military historian and retired journalist examines the campaign, the adversaries, and their achievements on the basis of his research in SADF archives. His scrupulous attempt at objectivity results in interesting conclusions. While the MPLA lost hands down, he posits a draw between the Cubans and the SADF. Although having been a South African reservist officer himself, he has critical words for the SADF leadership. Many misunderstandings, some of which were purposefully created by Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, are put to rest. While not sharing Castro's political beliefs, he acknowledges Castro's military acumen and political savvy in extricating his country from an unwinnable war while smelling of roses. The analysis contains many lessons about mechanised warfare in the African context from which both laymen and military professionals alike may learn.


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Pages: 72


Dimensions: 210 x 297 mm


Publication Date: 10-02-2020


Tags: History   Military
$49.99
Ripe for Rebellion (Africa@War 51)

ISBN: 9781913336233

Author: Stephen Rookes    Publisher: Helion & Company

After many years of political struggle, the Belgian Congo was finally granted its independence in June 1960. Becoming the Republic of the Congo and later the D...


After many years of political struggle, the Belgian Congo was finally granted its independence in June 1960. Becoming the Republic of the Congo and later the Democratic Republic of the Congo, what was supposed to be a momentous occasion in the country's history was rapidly transformed into a bitter internecine political battle which would tear the Congo apart. Within weeks, two Congolese provinces had declared their own independence putting the Congo's economic future in jeopardy. Recruiting hundreds of white mercenaries to sustain its secession, mineral-rich Katanga then attempted to fight off all attempts to bring it back into the fold. By early 1963 the mercenaries had been forced to leave by the UN, but other major outbreaks of armed protest against the Congolese government were taking place. The most significant of these were the Stanleyville, Kindu and Kivu Rebellions led by supporters of Patrice Lumumba, the former Prime Minister assassinated in January 1961. With the Soviet Union, the Republic of China and radical African governments all aiding rebel movements, what was a series of localized conflicts became a proxy war between the East and the West. Not wishing to see the Congo fall under what it perceived as 'communist domination', the United States then began to provide its own form of military assistance to government forces. Ripe for Rebellion is the first of two volumes examining the so-called 'Congo Crisis'. Based on extensive research in multiple official archives, it throws entirely new light upon developments in a country which many US citizens of the time believed would become the next major battlefield. Richly illustrated, it provides a detailed account of the global political dynamics which led to civil war and encouraged so many to take up arms, and an intricate reconstruction of the military role played by the United States from 1964. The story told in Ripe for Rebellion will be continued in For God and the CIA, though each volume stands alone.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 88


Dimensions: 210 x 297 mm


Publication Date: 28-12-2020


Tags: Military   History
$49.99
For God and the CIA (Africa@War 52)

ISBN: 9781913336240

Author: Stephen Rookes    Publisher: Helion & Company

As United Nations armed forces found themselves struggling to quell a series of armed rebellions, towards the end of 1962 the United States increased its milita...


As United Nations armed forces found themselves struggling to quell a series of armed rebellions, towards the end of 1962 the United States increased its military role in the Congo Crisis by providing the Congolese government with a small air force. Unarmed, and used firstly as a show of strength, this air force grew rapidly in size and power and provided air cover to government forces in operations against anti-government forces up to 1967. Recognizing that a threat existed in the east of the Congo with weapons and supplies being transported across Lake Tanganyika, the Central Intelligence Agency then put in place a naval force to patrol Congolese waters and to prepare areas for attacks made by mercenaries. The presence of this navy proved to be crucial in limiting supplies and persuaded Ernesto 'Che' Guevara that his attempt to provoke widespread communist revolution in Central Africa was forlorn. The mission in the Congo was not the first operation against Communist forces for those who made up the air and naval forces. Some had taken part in operations in Guatemala, many had participated at the Bay of Pigs, and many had continued their fight against Fidel Castro's Cuba in operations launched from Nicaragua. Should it not be understood who these men were, they were not US citizens and neither was their battle with the Congolese: these men were Cuban exiles fighting for an ideology and for the CIA. The story which will unfold in this volume is of the men whose hatred of Communism and Fidel Castro inspired them to volunteer for covert missions in Cuba and in the Congo. It relies on their personal testimonies, on government archives, on declassified documents, and on piecing together a series of events to form them into a plausible and well-documented whole. Detailing how over 150 Cuban exiles known as the Makasi were recruited for missions in the Congo this volume will shed light on CIA covert operations which are widely unknown to the general public and to military historians alike. Starting with an examination of the CIA's covert warfare apparatus and its early operations, this volume takes us on a journey across two continents. All the while, it attempts to demonstrate how important Cuban exiles were in the CIA's fight to uphold the tenets of the Domino Theory. For God and the CIA continues the story begun with Ripe for Rebellion, though each volume stands alone.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 88


Dimensions: 210 x 297 mm


Publication Date: 28-12-2020


Tags: Military   History
$49.99
Operation Deliberate Force (Europe@War 8)

ISBN: 9781913336301

Author: Aleksandar Radic    Publisher: Helion & Company

During the early 1990s, a series of savage wars was fought in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Jugoslavia (SFRJ). The third of the conflicts in question...


During the early 1990s, a series of savage wars was fought in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Jugoslavia (SFRJ). The third of the conflicts in question, the war in Bosnia, was in its third year as of 1995. Already internationalized by multiple domestic and foreign actors, it was about to reach its peak and result in a major showdown. The war in Bosnia was foremost fought between Bosnian Serbs, supported by Belgrade; Bosnian Croats, supported by Zagreb; and Bosnian Muslims. It was characterized by widespread atrocities against civilians, which prompted hundreds of thousands to flee. The United Nations' attempts at finding a negotiated settlement proved fruitless, despite the deployment of a sizable contingent of peacekeepers. On the contrary, the Bosnian Muslims began receiving ever larger amounts of clandestine support from Iran, and also from Saudi Arabia and several other allied countries in the Middle East, while the USA began supporting the Croats. Upon constantly increasing popular pressure, the United Nations requested the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to intervene.


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Pages: 96


Dimensions: 210 x 297 mm


Publication Date: 28-03-2021


Tags: Military   History
$49.99
Tsar Bomba (Europe@War 10)

ISBN: 9781913336318

Author: Krzysztof Dabrowski    Publisher: Helion & Company

On 30 October 1961, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR/Soviet Union) conducted a live test of the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created. Codename...


On 30 October 1961, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR/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 an 8-kilometer/5-mile-wide fireball and then a mushroom that peaked at an altitude of 95 kilometers (59 miles). The shockwave created by the RDS-202 eradicated a village 55 kilometers (34 miles) from ground zero, caused widespread damage to nature to a radius of dozens of kilometers further away, and created a heat wave felt as far as 270 kilometers (170 miles) distant. And still, this was just one of 45 tests of nuclear weapons conducted in the USSR in October 1961 alone. Between 1949 and 1962, the Soviets set off 214 nuclear bombs in the open air. Dozens of these were released from aircraft operated by specialized test units. Equipped with the full range of bombers - from the Tupolev Tu-4, Tupolev Tu-16, to the gigantic Tu-95 - the units in question were staffed by men colloquially known as the 'deaf-and-dumb' people sworn to utmost secrecy, living and serving in isolation from the rest of the world. Frequently operating at the edge of the envelope of their specially modified machines while test-releasing weapons with unimaginable destructive potential, several of them only narrowly avoided catastrophe. Richly illustrated with authentic photographs and custom-drawn color profiles, Tsar Bomba is the story of the aircrews involved and their aircraft, all of which were carefully hidden not only by the Iron Curtain, but by a thick veil of secrecy for more than half a century.


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Pages: 72


Dimensions: 210 x 297 mm


Publication Date: 05-04-2021


Tags: Military   History
$49.99
Air Power and the Arab World 1909-1955: Volume 3 (Middle East@War 30)

ISBN: 9781913336325

Author: David Nicolle    Publisher: Helion & Company

Much of the Arab World remains ravaged by war or threatened by war. Meanwhile, the decades old Arab-Israeli conflict remains fundamentally unresolved. Consequen...


Much of the Arab World remains ravaged by war or threatened by war. Meanwhile, the decades old Arab-Israeli conflict remains fundamentally unresolved. Consequently, even the Arab air forces and other Arab armed forces remain either at war or on a virtual war footing, or at least in a state of continuous vigilance. The earliest of the Arab air forces to be established trace their histories back to the 1920s and 30s when the overwhelming majority of Arab countries, and an even larger majority of the Arabic-speaking people, were ruled or dominated by four European powers. Based on decades of consistent research and newly available sources in both Arabic and various European languages, richly illustrated with a wide range of authentic photography, Volume 3 of the Air Power and the Arab World, 1909-1955 mini-series continues the story of the men and machines of the first half century of military aviation in the Arab World. It describes the role, organizational structure and activities of the air forces of Britain, France, Italy, and Spain which were sent to the Arab countries. It also looks at the early years of two neighboring air forces, those of the Persian (Iranian) and Ethiopian Empires whose early emergence was viewed jealousy in some Arab capitals. Volume 3 continues this story by describing operations of the British, French, Italian and Spanish air forces in the Arab world after the First World War, but also the emergence of the first Arab air forces in the shadow of the substantial European air force units stationed in that area.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 96


Dimensions: 210 x 297 mm


Publication Date: 05-02-2021


Tags: History   Military
$49.99
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