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Saturday 8 May 2010

VBCW: The Fall Of The Empire

Having bought the first three of the four Very British Civil War source books that have so far been published whilst I was at Salute 2010, I decided to buy the fourth (The Fall Of The Empire) from Solway Crafts and Miniatures. It arrived on Friday, and I was able to read a large part of the book last night and this morning ... and I was very pleased that I decided to buy this particular source book.

This book deals with events outside the UK, and this fits in rather well with my current interest in the interwar era, the Interbellum. I was particularly interested in the following:
  • The Soviet military expedition to occupy part of Canada
  • Unrest in the British Colonies in the Caribbean and South America
  • The Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands
I see from the back cover of the most recent VBCW source book that there are several more books in preparation, and I shall probably order them as and when they are published. I don't expect to actually fight any VBCW battles ... but the books have already given me some ideas that I might follow up in due course.

5 comments:

  1. Glad you are enjoying it! There is a compendium due out presently, which will contain all the stuff Simon couldn't cram into the other books, or which didn't have a niche within them.

    One of the promised articles will be an overview of British army organisation and equipment in the 30's.

    This promises to be a landmark bit of research as there's virtually nothing available on the topic, the assumption being that the army went to sleep in 1918 and woke up again, reorganised and re-equipped in 1939.

    The author has got hold of army manuals etc from the era, so it should be good stuff!

    It might come across that I'm looking forwards to reading it a bit... :-/

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jim Hale,

    My dissertation (written back in the early 1970s) was about Britain military preparedness in 1938 as compared to 1939. Most of the relevant documents were still embargoed then under the various rules governing state papers and I had to use a very restricted number of published works and released documents to go on.

    My researches showed that the UK was much better prepared for war in 1938 than most people realised WHEN COMPARED TO GERMANY (a big qualifying proviso!) but that by 1939 the Germans were edging ahead. Equipment being produced under the UK's rearmament programme was not due to start coming on stream in large numbers until mid 1940, by which time we were already at war.

    I look forward to reading the new source books when they are published.

    All the best,

    Bob

    ReplyDelete
  3. Bob,

    The other side to the coin of that was German under-preparedness. While the rest of Europe was swallowing propaganda about the invincible machine Hitler had forged, the Wehrmacht was left with a fleet of clapped out transport, and the Luftwaffe was short of aircrew and aircraft machine guns.

    Had Hitler's bluff been called in 1938 it was likely to be a very different war than that starting a year later. In what sense different is another matter.

    Regards

    Jim

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jim Hale,

    I absolutely agree. For example, without the influx of Czech weapons (particularly tanks and motor vehicles) the numbers of Panzer Divisions would have been far less.

    I suspect that a war in 1938 would have been a much harder 'slog' for everyone involved.

    An interesting topic that we could no doubt discuss for a very long time.

    All the best,

    Bob

    ReplyDelete
  5. Bob,

    A very, very long time...

    Regards

    Jim

    ReplyDelete

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