Showing titles in Weapons & Warfare

Brought to you by Penguin. The remarkable story of the Real 'Dad's Army', from the bestselling historian of The Secret Life of Bletchley Park With the threat of invasion from Hitler's forces looming large in 1940, men of all ages and backgrounds assembled under the banner of the Home Guard. A...

In this compelling new study, Paull Hill reveals what documentary records and the growing body of archaeological evidence can tell us about war and combat in the age of the great Anglo-Saxon kings. The violent centuries before the Norman Conquest come to life in this detailed account of how and why the Anglo-Saxons fought, how their warriors were armed and trained, how their armies were organized, and much more.

This one-volume anthology provides a comprehensive analysis of the role that air power has played in military conflicts over the past century. Comprising 16 essays penned by a global cadre of leading military experts, A History of Air Warfare chronologically examines the utility of air power from World War I to the second Lebanon war, campaign by campaign.

Discover the definitive history of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, in this Pulitzer Prize finalist from the author of the New York Times bestseller Area 51.No one has ever written the history of the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful, and most controversial...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Goliath written by Sean McFate, read by Joe Knezevich. Everything you think you know about war is wrong. War is timeless. Some things change - weapons, tactics, leadership - but our desire to go into battle does not. We are in the midst of an age of...

The modern tank is essentially the same concept as the tanks that fought at the beginning of World War II – an armoured vehicle that can take a large gun to where it is most needed and support infantry. However, the technology that they now use is a blend between those things that would have been recognizable 80 years ago – the gun, armour, and tracks – and things that would have been entirely unimaginable, like the 1 million lines of code in an Ajax reconnaissance vehicle, or the uncrewed turret of the T-14 Armata.

Adolf Hitler's plan to break British morale during the months after the D-Day landings in June 1944 involved the invention and implementation of the world's first rocket-delivered warhead – the V1, or 'Doodle Bug' as it was christened by Londoners. As the launch sites for the V1 were captured by Allied forces advancing through Belgium and into the Netherlands, a new, more terrifying rocket now hit London in mid-September, seemingly out of thin air – the V2.

The following is the audio track for the 1945 propaganda film released by the US Army Air Forces discussing the development of Boeing B-29 bomber, an American four-engined propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. The B-29 was designed for high-altitude strategic bombing, but also excelled in low-altitude night incendiary bombing and in dropping naval mines to blockade Japan. B-29s dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the only aircraft ever to drop nuclear weapons in combat.

J.L. McWilliams and R. J. Steel uncover this horrifying battle from beginning to end and explore what it was like the for the French Algerians who first witnessed the gas clouds approaching them, how the Canadians stubbornly refused to retreat in the face of gas, what the British and Indians hoped to achieve with their tragic counterattacks, and ultimately why the German offensive failed.

This Very Short Introduction looks at the science of nuclear weapons and how they differ from conventional weapons. Tracing the story of the nuclear bomb, Joseph Siracusa chronicles the race to acquire the H-bomb, a thermonuclear weapon with revolutionary implications; and the history of early arms control, nuclear deterrence, and nonproliferation. He also tracks the development of nuclear weapons from the origins of the Cold War in 1945 to the end of Moscow-dominated Communism in 1991, and examines the promise and prospect of missile defense.

Here, for the first time, in a brilliant, panoramic portrait by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, is the definitive, often shocking story of the politics and the science behind the development of the hydrogen bomb and the birth of the Cold War. Based on secret...

The INSTANT New York Times bestseller Instant Los Angeles Times bestseller Finalist, Dayton Literary Peace Prize One of NPR's Books We Love One of Newsweek Staffers' Favorite Books of the Year Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize “In Nuclear War: A Scenario, Annie Jacobsen gives us a...

Few raids of the Second World War have captured the public imagination like Operation Chastise. Here is the full story—not the familiar headlines, but the unexpected details that reveal how ingenuity, improvisation, and human courage combined to pull off one of history’s most audacious bombing missions.

The culminating volume in Richard Rhodes’s monumental and prizewinning history of nuclear weapons, offering the first comprehensive narrative of the challenges faced in a post–Cold War age. The past twenty years have transformed our relationship with nuclear weapons drastically. With...

Breaking the German Enigma codes was not only about brilliant mathematicians and professors at Bletchley Park. There is another aspect of the story which it is only now possible to tell. It takes in the exploits of spies, naval officers and ordinary British seamen who risked, and in some cases lost, their lives snatching the vital Enigma codebooks from under the noses of Nazi officials and from sinking German ships and submarines. This book tells the whole Enigma story.

The inside story of how America's enemies launched a cyber war against us-and how we've learned to fight back With each passing year, the internet-linked attacks on America's interests have grown in both frequency and severity. Overmatched by our military, countries like North Korea, China, Iran...

Painstakingly researched, the story behind the decision to send the Enola Gay to bomb Hiroshima is told through firsthand sources. From diplomatic moves behind the scenes to Japanese actions and the US Army Air Force's call to action, no detail is left untold. Touching on the early days of the Manhattan Project and the first inkling of an atomic bomb, investigative journalist Gordon Thomas and his writing partner Max Morgan-Witts, take WWII enthusiasts through the training of the crew of the Enola Gay and the challenges faced by pilot Paul Tibbets.

Nazi Germany was driven by a desire to dominate the world and create a new master race. Every aspect of life in the Third Reich was focused on the goal of Aryan supremacy, and science and technology were no exception. Under the Nazis, conventional science and a range of fringes sciences were legitimate areas for research and development.

Oliphant's brilliance was not limited to atomic science, he was also central to the development of radar, which saved Britain from Nazi invasion. After the war, Oliphant's push against US nuclear dominance drew suspicion from the CIA. Based on his interviews with Oliphant, bestselling author Perry traces his life from his humble beginnings in Adelaide, his early triumphs alongside Sir Ernest Rutherford, and his breakthrough work on radar and the Manhattan Project, through to his key role in establishing the Australian National University and his controversial governorship of South Australia.

Brought to you by Penguin. When the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945, killing 100,000 men, women and children, it was the beginning of a terrifying new episode in human history. Written only a year after the disaster, John Hersey brought the event vividly alive with this...