Updated to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, D-Day Overlord tells the full story of the invasion, with detailed accounts of each of the five landing zones on June 6, 1944, the airborne assault and the Normandy campaign that followed.It was the most ambitious military operation in history - the invasion of Nazi-occupied France by sea. A fleet larger than any ever seen before was assembled and launched under conditions of utmost secrecy to catch the defenders of Adolf Hitler's formidable Atlantic Wall by surprise.At H-Hour on D-Day, British, American and Canadian soldiers landed on beaches whose codenames have since become a byword for heroism - Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah. Men waded ashore into a hail of machine gun fire and fought their way through a tangle of concrete bunkers and armored emplacements.More ferocious combat followed as fanatical Waffen-SS divisions armed with terrifying new weapons such as the King Tiger tank battled to the death to contain the Allied advance.D-Day Overlord: The Great Invasion and the Battle for Normandy tells the story of the most important battle of the Second World War and remembers the men whose extraordinary courage and sacrifice brought about the liberation of Europe and put an end to Hitler's tyranny.

D-Day Overlord: The Great Invasion and the Battle for Normandy - 75th Anniversary

History

Europe

Gallantry

The stunning success of Adolf Hitler's ground offensives during the first year of the Second World War was due in no small part to the new tanks fielded by his armies. The Panzer III and IV were well-armed, relatively fast and equipped to work closely with motorized infantry. However, when Germany's armies invaded the Soviet Union they were shocked to encounter the revolutionary T-34 with its long-barrelled gun and sloped armor. Early battles against this machine sparked an arms race that would result in some of the Second World War's most powerful armored fighting vehicles - the Tiger I, Panther and Tiger II. Also entering the fray were deadly tank destroyers such as the Jagdpanther, the StuG III and the monstrous Jagdtiger. All these vehicles and more are depicted in glorious detail by legendary profiles artist Claes Sundin in Panzer: German WW2 Designs.

Panzer: German WW2 Designs: German WW2 Designs by Claes Sundin

By the end of the day on December 6, 1941, the American Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor lay shattered. In a single devastating surprise attack the Imperial Japanese Navy had demonstrated the awesome striking power of a combined carrier fleet - before proceeding to rampage across the Pacific, seizing territory from the Aleutians to Singapore. With the highly maneuverable Zero fighter and 'Val' dive-bomber, flown by experienced crews, the Japanese were able to overwhelm even the best Allied resistance. But within a year of Pearl Harbor, the tide had turned. The US Navy's successful Guadalcanal campaign marked the beginning of a remarkable fight-back. Fast new fleet carriers such as the Essex and Independence class warships were introduced and the ruggedly powerful Grumman F6F Hellcat fighter gave the US a clear advantage in the air. In a series of epic naval battles and running skirmishes, the US Navy's Fast Carrier Task Force inflicted massive damage on the Japanese fleet before a new threat began to appear - the kamikaze. Unable to score hits by conventional means, the Japanese took to crashing bomb-laden aircraft directly into American vessels. Yet despite such fanatical tactics, the US Navy's carrier fleet fought its way across the Pacific to launch attacks on the Japanese homeland in 1945. In Carrier Strike: US Naval Air Warfare in the Pacific, historian Donald Nijboer tells the full story of the American carrier fleet during the Second World War - the vessels, the crew, the aircraft and the pilots as well as their British Royal Navy allies and the deadly Imperial Japanese Navy forces they faced in combat

Carrier Strike: US Naval Warfare in the Pacific

HARRISON, Jack

Military

When the German army launched Operation Barbarossa – the invasion of the Soviet Union – on June 22, 1941, it was expecting to face and easily defeat outdated and obsolete tanks and for the most part it did, but it also received a nasty shock when it came up against the T-34. With its powerful gun and sloped armor, the T-34 was more than a match for the best German tanks at that time and the Germans regarded it with awe. German Field Marshal von Kleist, who commanded the latter stages of Barbarossa, called it ‘the finest tank in the world’. Using original wartime documents author and historian Peter Samsonov, creator of the Tank Archives blog, explains how the Soviets came to develop what was arguably the war’s most revolutionary tank design.

Designing the T-34: Genesis of the Revolutionary Soviet Tank

Samsonov, Peter

Product Description 
More than 4000 examples of the famous diesel-fueled M4A2 Sherman tank were sent to the Soviet Union during the Second World War under the Lead-Lease program. These American-built vehicles were operated by Red Army crews against the Germans during some of the bitterest fighting on the Eastern Front – yet despite serving with distinction and being well-liked by their crews, relatively little has been written about these vehicles until now. Tank expert Peter Samsonov looks at the origins of the M4A2 in Soviet service and the machines that were received from the US as well as providing a detailed assessment of how they fared in combat on the front line. 
 Review 
"...an important contribution to the literature on the Sherman in WW2. It is well-written, well-organized and best of all, well-researched."\nAMPS \n"...will be of interest to modelers planning on building a Sherman..."\nAMPS Indianapolis \n"Enjoyed it."\nHistorical Miniatures Gaming Society 
 About the Author 
Peter Samsonov is a Canadian tank historian who runs the renowned Tank Archives blog.

Sherman Tanks of the Red Army

HMS Bristol: In A Class of Her Own

Griffin, Rob

D Day RAF

Rowley, Clive

The first encounter between British armour and the Red Army was not on friendly terms - with the British sending surplus tanks to reinforce the pro-monarchy White Army in the Russian Civil War. When the Reds won, war trophy Mark V heavy tanks as well as medium Mk.A Whippets and Mk.B Hornets entered service with the RKKA. As the political landscape changed during the 1920s, the Red Army assessed British designs available for export and a licensed copy of the Vickers Mk.E entered production in 1931 as the T-26. During the early days of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, armour losses were huge and the Red Army once again looked abroad to acquire new fighting vehicles. A large-scale programme of military aid to the USSR began in August 1941, with the US and Britain offering help under separate terms - though not for free. A deal was struck and Convoy PQ-1 with the first 20 British tanks for the Red Army left for Arkhangelsk on September 29, 1941. These tanks arrived in time to take place in the Battle of Moscow and as shipments continued, British armoured vehicles would remain in service with the Red Army until the conclusion of the Second World War nearly four years later. A wide range of British vehicles served under the Red flag during the war - ranging from Matildas and Valentines to Churchills and even Tetrarch light tanks. In British Tanks of the Red Army, tank expert Peter Samsonov presents a history of British tanks in the Soviet Union and provides a detailed account of their use on the battlefield, including what the Red Army tankers thought of them.

British Tanks of the Red Army

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