Steven J. Zaloga – författare

An illustrated study of the big guns of Hitler's army – the Wehrmacht's field artillery, its capabilities and its role in German fighting units of World War II. Often overshadowed in military history by the tanks and aircraft of Blitzkrieg, Germany’s artillery was key to its methods of waging war throughout World War II. Field artillery remained the primary killer on the battlefield, often responsible for three-quarters of combat casualties inflicted.Redressing the balance, this book surveys the major Wehrmacht guns of the war, and the basic organizational structure of the German field artillery. Its primary focus is on the divisional field guns, especially the lFH 18 10.5cm field howitzer and the 15cm sFH 18 field howitzer that formed the backbone of German artillery. A brief survey is also made of the infantry guns used at the regimental level, and of corps-level heavy artillery. The issue of the use of"Beutewaffen,” captured war-booty field guns, is also looked at, as is the Nebelwerfer and schwere Wurfgerät rocket artillery. With archive photos and meticulously detailed new illustrations, this book provides a concise study of the German Army’s big guns of World War II, how they were organized and how they were used, both on the Eastern and Western fronts.

Through World War II the US Army worked on projects for new heavy tanks, which are charted in this illustrated study of the M6 and the never-built T14, T28, and Pershing-derived designs.In this book, world-renowned armour expert Steven J. Zaloga examines the US Army's efforts to field a heavy tank in World War II. The first design was the M6, which never saw combat use despite being type classified. The heavy T14 assault tank, earmarked for the British under Lend-Lease, was also developed, while the M4A3E2 assault tank went into production as a stopgap for the 1944 campaign in France. The most outrageous US tank project of the war was the T28/T95 superheavy tank, which was so large that it required four sets of suspension bogies instead of the usual two. The M26 Pershing medium tank program also spawned a number of heavy tank projects, such as the T29, T30 and T34, which are also examined. Although production of these was envisioned in 1945–46, the end of the war put an end to any possibility of serial manufacture. Nevertheless, these tanks were heavily influenced by World War II lessons and their development and technical features are examined. Illustrated with rarely seen archive photos and meticulously illustrated new profiles of the key designs, this book traces the US Army’s efforts to develop heavy tanks comparable to the German Tigers, and the reasons why such monstrous machines were never required.

A detailed look at the various defensive structures and preparations that Germany constructed for the defense of the Rhine.The Rhine River represented the last natural defensive barrier for the Third Reich in the autumn of 1944. Although Hitler had been reluctant to allow the construction of tactical defence lines in France, the final defense of the Reich was another matter. As a result, construction of a Rhine defence line began in September 1944.Steven J. Zaloga examines the multiple phases of construction undertaken to strengthen the Westwall (Siegfried Line), to fortify many of the border villages, and finally to prepare for the demolition of the Rhine bridges. Using detailed maps, colour artwork, and expert analysis, this book is a thorough examinations of Germany's last line of defence.

An expert guide to the tanks that fought for the Axis in the Italian Campaign between 1943 and 1945, the least-known armoured campaign of World War II.World War II came to Italian soil in 1943 with the landings in Sicily, which the Wehrmacht tried to crush using substantial Panzer offensives. Over the next two years the Allies fought their way north, through some of the most difficult terrain of the war, until the final battles in the Po Valley in the spring of 1945. In this book, world armour expert Steven J. Zaloga offers a unique survey of Axis armour in the campaign, including the many types of tanks used, their roles and battlefield performance. The Italians deployed a variety of tanks on Sicily in 1943 including war-booty Renault R 35 tanks as well as their best tank destroyer, the Semovente 90/53, while a little-known rump Italian fascist army remained in combat until 1945, equipped in some cases with German tanks. Meanwhile Germany began its campaign equipped with leftovers from North Africa, but later deployed a much more substantial Panzer force. After the armistice Italy's industries continued to manufacture tanks for the Wehrmacht, giving it an exotic selection of both German and Italian tank types. Illustrated with superb new profiles and including many previously unpublished photos, this book is an essential guide to the tanks that fought the Axis’ least-known armoured campaigns.

Overshadowed by the dramatic British failure at Arnhem, the US 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions were a vital component of Operation Market-Garden and succeeded in capturing their objectives at Eindhoven and Nijmegen.In the summer of 1944, plans began for a complex operation to seize a Rhine river bridge at Arnhem in the Netherlands. The American portion of the airborne mission was to employ two divisions of the US XVIII Airborne Corps to seize key terrain features that otherwise might delay the advance of British tanks towards the bridge.The 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions succeeded in their tasks of capturing the vital bridges at Eindhoven at Nijmegen in the face of fierce German resistance. However, the delays caused to the British armored advance, combined with stronger than expected fighting at Arnhem led to the withdrawal of the remnants of the British 1st Airborne Division in one of the Western Allies’ most costly defeats of World War II.Contemporary photographs, maps and detailed color artwork complement extensive archival research that reveals the successes of those American airborne missions, largely overshadowed by the failure of the operation as a whole.

A highly illustrated and detailed study of the Utah Beach & the US Airborne Landings.On their western flank, the Allied landings on D-Day combined a parachute drop by the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions with an amphibious assault on “Utah” Beach by the US 4th Infantry Division. The landings came ashore in the wrong place but met weaker German resistance as a result. The heaviest fighting took place inland where the badly scattered paratroopers gradually gathered in small groups and made for their objectives.This book traces the story of D-Day on Utah beach, revealing how the infantry pushed inland and linked up with the Airborne troops in a beachhead five miles deep. Now the battle to break out and seize the key port of Cherbourg could begin.

A highly illustrated and detailed study of the Omaha Beach landings. The D-Day landings of 6 June 1944 were the largest amphibious military operation ever mounted. The greatest armada the world had ever seen was assembled to transport the Allied invasion force across the Channel and open the long-awaited second front against Hitler’s Third Reich. Of the landings on the five assault beaches, Omaha Beach was the only one ever in doubtWithin moments of the first wave landing a third of the assault troops were casualties. Yet by the end of D-Day the Atlantic Wall had been breached and the US Army’s V Corps was firmly entrenched on French soil.

A rigorous and absorbing study of the first major Allied operation in Normandy after the D-Day landings.Blending expert analysis, specially commissioned artwork and illustrative maps, this book tells the story of the bitter struggle to capture this vital point. Cherbourg was recognized by both the German and Allied High commands as crucial to the Allied foothold in Normandy – it was the nearest major port and was desperately needed by the Allies for major logistical operations to support their forces on long stretches of open beach. Hitler, on the other hand, declared Cherbourg to be a 'Festung' (fortress), a designation everyone knew to mean that its defenders were to fight to the last man.After a grueling struggle that involved several distinct tactical phases to overcome the different elements of Cherbourg's defence, the campaign resulted in a bittersweet Allied victory, the drama and significance of which are explained in full in this work.

The German A-4 ballistic missile, better known by its propaganda name of V-2, was the world's first successful ballistic missile, breaking through the atmosphere to reach its target quicker.It was a forerunner of Cold War ballistic missiles and its combat use in 1944-45 set the pattern for the use of Scud ballistic missiles in recent decades. The V-2 offensive lasted from September 1944 until March 1945 with over 3,000 rockets being launched.This book examines the combat record of the V-2 in World War II, with a special focus on how a German missile battalion actually prepared and fired its missiles.

A highly illustrated account of the many and complex operations in the final months of World War II in Europe, detailing the behind-the-scenes political machinations.As the final month of fighting in Europe in 1945 dawned the Allies embarked upon a series of mopping up operations, destroying the last centres of German resistance as the essentially defeated Wehrmacht fought on in increasingly desperate conditions, driven on by the explicit no surrender order issued by Hitler.Yet at the same time, the Allied alliance was already on shaky ground, as German resistance was crushed the Allies began to eye each other nervously across a battletorn Europe, with the politically driven military decisions to have a huge impact on the future of the continent.This book traces the final operations of the war, from the liberation of Denmark, the Allied drive towards the Baltic straits, incursions in Yugoslavia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and engagements in Eastern and Western Germany, whilst also analyzing how the Allied strategies in the final days of the war were a hint of the future difficulties that would drive the Cold War.

The gripping tale of the Battle of Remagen, where the Allies' dramatic capture of the last standing bridge over the Rhine in 1945 changed the course of World War II—illustrated with vivid artwork that brings the tension and triumph to life.In the aftermath of the Battle of the Bulge in February 1945, the Allies embarked upon the final assault of Germany. The long-delayed US thrust over the Roer River eventually took place in February, leaving the Rhine as the last major geographical barrier to the Allied advance into Germany.This book describes how the US Army, in the face of furious last-ditch German resistance, captured the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen – securing the last surviving major crossing over the Rhine and setting the stage for the defeat of the German Army in the West.

An in-depth examination of one of the most frustrating and costly efforts by the US Army in the European Theater of Operations.The Allies first encountered the Siegfried Line (Westwall) fortifications in September 1944, having pursued the retreating Wehrmacht through Belgium and the Netherlands. The border area around Aachen had been fortified with a double line of bunkers, and both the terrain and the weather made things difficult for the Allies.With illustrations throughout, this book focuses on the involvement of the US First and Ninth armies in the six-month fighting, including the hellish fighting for the Hürtgen forest.

The last great assault by the German Army in the West.Operation Nordwind is one of the lesser known campaigns of World War II yet one of the more intriguing. Largely overshadowed by the Battle of the Bulge further north, Nordwind was the last great operation by the Waffen-SS Panzer divisions in the west, and the last time the Wehrmacht was on the offensive in the West. The campaign also highlights the difficulties of inter-Allied cooperation between the Americans and the French.Though extensively treated in German and French accounts, the campaign has not been well covered in English until now. Alongside detailed illustrations and maps, Steven J. Zaloga unpacks the story of one of Hitler's final battles.

A complete examination of Patton's campaign to take the fortified city of Metz.General George Patton's most controversial campaign was the series of battles in autumn 1944 battles along the German frontier which centered on the fortified city of Metz. In part, the problem was logistics. As was the case with the rest of the Allied forces in the European Theatre, supplies were limited until the port of Antwerp could finally be cleared. Also problematic was the weather. The autumn of 1944 was one of the wettest on record, and hardly conducive to the type of mechanized warfare for which Patton was so famous.However at the heart of the problem was the accretion of sophisticated fortifications. Metz had been fortified since ancient times, heavily rebuilt by France in the post-Napoleonic period, modernized by Germany in 1870–1914, and modernized by France during the Maginot effort in 1935–40. The Germans hoped to hold Metz with a thin screen of second-rate troops, counting on the impregnable fortifications.This book covers the entire campaign from beginning to end, offering an unbiased assessment of the success and failures of both the Allied and Axis efforts.

A study of the US infantry's struggle to wrest control of Normandy, the Siegfried Line and the Ardennes from their German opponents, offering a glimpse into close-quarters infantry combat of World War 2.The Allied airborne and amphibious landings on D-Day opened up the long-awaited Second Front against Nazi Germany, but after overcoming the German coastal defenses at Utah and “Bloody Omaha,” the US Army found itself having to contest every hedgerow and street in a nightmarish battle of attrition.It was the humble infantrymen of both sides who would play a vital role in taking and holding key objectives. Battles across Europe tested both sides to the limit, from the close-quarters warfare around Cherbourg in June 1944 to the struggle for the Scharnhorst Line in October and the brutal cold-weather fighting in the Ardennes that December.Featuring full-color artwork, specially drawn maps, and archive photographs, this study offers key insights into the tactics, leadership, and combat performance of the US and German infantrymen pitched into three pivotal actions at the height of World War II.

Polish soldiers fought in nearly every major campaign in the European theatre, and their tale is a complicated and tragic one. Poland was the first of the Allied nations to succumb to German aggression in the Second World War, but by the most tortuous of routes her army managed to remain in the field through all five years of bloody fighting.This richly detailed text by Steven Zaloga relates the story of the Polish Army during the Second World War, from the first wave of Stukas in 1939 to its eventual conclusion.

An in-depth study of the ground campaign led by the US and Coalition forces against Iraq in the Gulf War.In 1980, Iraq invaded Iran, precipitating an eight-year war. By the end of the 1980s, Iraq was bankrupt, having amassed enormous debts, and oil-rich neighboring Kuwait, which Iraq had long claimed was rightly part of greater Iraq, seemed like the perfect solution. Saddam Hussein's invasion in August 1990 pitted one of the largest Arab armies against the smallest and Kuwait fell in a few days. Upset at this turn of events and worried about Hussein's military power, Saudi Arabia began negotiations with the US, UK and France to create a coalition to oust Iraq from Kuwait. More than 30 countries joined the coalition force. Operation Desert Shield had begun.With contemporary images, maps, diagrams and stunning artwork, this book by expert historian Steven J. Zaloga dives into the response from the forces of the Coalition to help liberate Kuwait following the month-long air campaign to weaken the Iraqi forces. While Iraq was defeated, the war did not unseat Hussein and the conflict would resume a decade later. This detailed study brings the ground campaign of the Gulf War to life.

Allied success in invading Fortress Europe (the area of Continental Europe occupied by Nazi Germany) depended on getting armor onto the beaches as fast as possible.This book explains how the Allies developed the specialist tanks it needed, their qualities, deployment and numbers, and how they performed on the two crucial days when France was invaded, firstly in Normandy and then in Provence. Steven J Zaloga focuses in on the specialized tanks developed for the Operation Neptune amphibious landings including the Duplex Drive amphibious Sherman tanks used on both the US and British/Canadian beaches. He also covers the specialized engineer tanks called ”Armoured Funnies” of the British 79th Armoured Division and addresses the popular myth that US Army refusal to employ the Armoured Funnies was a principal cause for the high casualties at Omaha Beach. There is also coverage of Operation Overlord’s “Forgotten D-Day”, the amphibious landings of Operation Dragoon. This book addresses why there were so few Panzers opposing the landings from the German perspective as well as detailing the extent of German tank/assault gun activity on D-Day.

In this riveting book, Steven Zaloga describes how American foot soldiers faced down Hitler’s elite armored spearhead—the Hitler Youth Panzer Division—in the snowy Ardennes forest during one of World War II’s biggest battles, the Battle of the Bulge. The Hitler Youth division was assigned the mission of the Führer’s Ardennes offensive: capture the main highway to the primary objective, Antwerp, whose seizure Hitler believed would end the war. Had the Germans taken the Belgian port, it would have cut off the Americans from the British and perhaps led to a second, more devastating Dunkirk. In Zaloga’s careful reconstruction, a succession of American infantry units—the 99th Division, the 2nd Division, and the 1st Division (the famous Big Red One)—fought a series of battles that denied Hitler the best roads to Antwerp and doomed his offensive. American G.I.s—some of them seeing combat for the very first time—had stymied Hitler’s panzers and grand plans.

The elite forces of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies in the mid-1980s were undoubtedly the largest in the world, and among the least known.The Soviet elite formations alone had a total strength comparable to that of the entire British armed forces. Besides the conventional military elite formations such as airborne and marine forces, most Warsaw Pact armies also possessed special, 'political' elite, which were used for internal security.Backed by numerous photographs and illustrations, this book uncovers the history, organization and equipment of both the conventional Soviet elite formations and the often ignored security units.

For a young Soviet man in the 1980s, the chances were high that he would be obliged to serve for at least two years in the Soviet Armed Forces.At this time Soviet society was far more militarized than most other European countries; by the time they turned 18, most Soviet boys were far more familiar with military life than their Western European and American counterparts. Focusing on the daily experiences of a young recruit in the Soviet Army of the late 1980s, this book examines the history, organization, appearance and equipment of the Soviet forces, from pre-service indoctrination to uniforms and leadership.

In the late 1980s, with the Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty in effect, public attention turned to discussions of conventional weapons in Europe, particularly tanks.Though the importance of tanks had diminished since their heyday in the Second World War, on the modern battlefield they remained the dominant weapon. This text, enhanced by colour plates and photographs, examines the NATO and Warsaw Pact tank forces of that era, focusing on tank firepower and crew training, and speculates as to the possible outcome had a conventional land war been fought between them.

The German invasion in 1941 led to a series of staggering defeats for the Russians.In the first five months of fighting, the Soviets lost about four million men, amounting to 80 per cent of the total strength of the ground forces at the time of the outbreak of the war. Yet the Red Army managed to hold on. The Soviets had been steadily growing throughout in capability and effectiveness, and after the smashing of the German offensive at the battle of the Kursk salient, they were never again seriously checked, advancing to the ruins of Berlin itself.This concise volume examines the organisation, equipment and uniforms of the Red Army of the Great Patriotic War.

The armored divisions were the shock force of the US Army''s combat formations during the fighting in Northwest Europe in the final year of the war.Of the 16 such divisions formed during the war, all but one served in the European Theater of Operations. This book examines the organizational structure, operational doctrine and combat mission of these divisions from D-Day onwards, describing how doctrines and tactics were changed as the divisions were forced to adapt to the battlefield realities of combat against an experienced foe.The lessons drawn by the armored divisions from the bitter fighting in Northwest Europe from 1944 to 1945, as Steven J Zaloga outlines here, strongly shaped postwar US Army doctrine.

Overshadowed by the United States Army''s armored divisions, the separate tank and tank destroyer battalions had the difficult mission of providing armored support for US infantry divisions in the 1944–45 campaigns.This book details the organizational structures and deployment of these units: the standard tank battalions, tank battalions (light), tank battalions (mine exploder) and tank battalions (special), self-propelled and towed tank destroyer battalions. It also covers the tactics used by these units in their attempts to assist the infantry, as well as providing a listing of all the battalions that took part in the Northwest Europe campaign.

After the success of the D-Day landings, the Allied forces were bogged down in a bloody stalemate in Normandy. On 25 July 1944, General Bradley launched Operation Cobra to break the deadlock.What followed was one of the most decisive months of World War II, as US forces punched a hole in the German frontline and began a spectacular advance. As Patton''s Third Army poured into Brittany and raced south to the Loire, the German army was threatened with encirclement. By the end of August German forces in Normandy were utterly destroyed, and the remaining German units in central and southern France were in headlong retreat to the German frontier. In this concise, illustrated account, Steven J. Zaloga explains how the breakout from Normandy came about.

The Battle of the Bulge was the largest and most costly battle fought by the US Army in World War II.The Ardennes fighting was Hitler''s last gamble on the Western Front, crippling the Wehrmacht for the remainder of the war. In the first of two volumes on the Ardennes campaign Steven Zaloga details the fighting in the northern sector around St Vith and the Elsenborn Ridge. The Sixth Panzer Army, containing the bulk of German Panzer strength, was expected to achieve the breakthrough here.It was the failure around St Vith that forced the Germans to look south towards Bastogne.

The Ardennes offensive in December 1944, known to history as the ''Battle of the Bulge'', was the decisive campaign of the war in North-West Europe.When the attack in the north by 6th Panzer Army failed, Hitler switched the focus of the offensive to General Manteuffel''s 5th Panzer Army farther south. Overwhelming the green US 106th Division, German Panzers flooded towards the River Meuse.Barring their way was the crossroads town of Bastogne, reinforced at the last minute by the paratroopers of the 101st Airborne, the ''Screaming Eagles''. The stage was set for one of the epic struggles of the war – the battle for Bastogne.

A highly illustrated account of The North African campaign of November 1942-May 1943 during World War II.This campaign was a baptism of fire for the US Army. After relatively straightforward landings, the US II Corps advanced into Tunisia to support operations by the British 8th Army. Rommel, worried by the prospect of an attack, decided to exploit the inexperience of the US Army and strike a blow against their overextended positions around the Kasserine Pass.However, the Germans were unable to exploit their initial success, and later attacks were bloodily repulsed. The fighting in Tunisia taught the green US Army vital combat lessons, and brought to the fore senior commanders such as Eisenhower, Patton, and Bradley.