by RNS | Aug 3, 2026 | Beating Tsundoku
Angus Konstam, ABDA Striking Force 1942 (Osprey, 2026)
The American, British, Dutch, and Australian naval task force (ABDA) was formed on 1 January 1942 to combat overwhelming Japanese forces in defence of the Malay Barrier. Any advantages the Allies had could be measured in days as the Japanese swept all before them, but they fought anyway. In this latest volume of Osprey’s Fleet series, Angus Konstam calls the Allied effort a ‘forlorn attempt’, but one incorporating heroism and sacrifice.
Konstam notes that all the Allied fleets in the Far East were woefully unprepared for the Japanese onslaught, with just a few cruisers backed by some destroyers and submarines. The Royal Navy had had two battleships in the region, but they didn’t last long, and their fate symbolised the change from battleship supremacy to air warfare. The Americans had a couple of useful cruisers and submarines in an otherwise obsolete fleet, while the Dutch looked good on paper but lacked support from their defeated homeland. The Japanese deployed a modern fleet that included aircraft carriers and battleships, and Konstam notes, they possessed the lethal Type 93 torpedo. Overall, he concludes, the Allies were outnumbered and outgunned, but they would just have to make do. In his survey of weaponry available to both sides, Konstam highlights the lack of practical air support for the Allies. The sense of the Allies being late to the show is reflected in their failure to adopt a joint command in time to properly prepare for the enemy coming for them – which the Allies knew about from solid intelligence work, though their communications proved somewhat dysfunctional. They also lacked effective logistical support.
Combat operations began well enough for ABDA, with a successful attack on Japanese transport ships at Balikpapan in January 1942, but the ABDA fleet came under sustained aerial attack in the Flores Sea in February, and more losses came off the coast of Banka that same month. Konstam notes that the fall of Singapore in February 1942 marked the end of ABDA’s attempts to hold the Malay barrier. They would now have to try and protect Java and the Dutch East Indies. But Java came under sustained attack, also in February, and ABDA became involved in a confused, losing fight in the Badung Strait. More serious losses for ABDA came off Java in the last week of February, and then the Japanese sunk the last remaining cruisers of ABDA in the Sundai Strait and off Borneo. Only a few destroyers escaped from Java. In his analysis, Konstam reiterates the disadvantages that ABDA operated under in its futile attempt to hold back the Japanese tide.
Konstam provides a useful survey of the doomed ABDA fleet. His narrative of operations is well-handled though tough reading in parts, because despite what Hollywood writers might like, there is very little glory in doomed enterprises such as that of ABDA. Konstam’s survey is well-supported by many photographs and Osprey’s usual evocative artwork. World War II naval history readers, in particular, will enjoy reading this book.
by RNS | Jul 27, 2026 | Beating Tsundoku
Pritt Buttar, Berlin Endgame 1945 (Osprey, 2026)
By 1945, the Second World War had turned inexorably against Germany. Both in the west and east, Allied armies made steady progress, pushing the Germans further into their homeland. The Allied leaders had decided the outcome of the war while the shells were still falling, and for the Soviets, that meant they were tasked with administering the coup-de-grâce by capturing Berlin if the Germans refused to surrender. That suited the Soviets who were intent on revenge for German atrocities in the east, and they pursued the war with fanatical vigour right to the steps of Reichstag. The German soldiers fought hard, but their armies disintegrated and the city fell. Pritt Buttar, a specialist of the Eastern Front, narrates this epic tale of victory and defeat.
Buttar opens with the geopolitical and strategic context of the war and brings us to the crisis facing Germany as 1945 began. The wolves were at the door and defeat seemed almost certain. Then Buttar emphasizes the central importance of Berlin to Germans and particularly Hitler, whose ambitions for his capital city were dashed by a persistent Allied bombing campaign throughout the war. Buttar describes the aerial degradation of Berlin but not its people. With the scene set, Buttar begins his narrative of operations leading to the fall of Berlin.
In January 1945, the Soviets launched their offensive that initially led to a spectacular advance but fell afoul of logistics difficulties, a recurring theme for the next few months. On the other side, a rigid and ideologically orientated command structure retarded German flexibility thus hampering the defence. Nevertheless, the Germans desperately held on to their bank of the Oder river, but the German army was disintegrating, with gaps in the ranks plugged by boys and old men with little training. Dwindling resources did not help. Meanwhile, the Germans prepared defences to cover the roads to Berlin and in the city itself and waited both for the Soviets and, hopefully, reinforcements from the western front. Commanders on the ground, and some in Berlin, knew that the Soviets were on a revenge mission and that they outnumbered the Germans defending Berlin both in manpower and resources.
Buttar works his way through the respective plans for the final battle of Berlin. This would be a massive logistical operation on both sides, but while the Germans could not afford heavy losses in material or men, the Soviets were habituated to mass casualties and were constantly being resupplied. The final battles began on 16 April behind a massive barrage. Buttar describes the battle for the Seelow Heights, Berlin’s last real external defensive position. The Soviets made slow progress against a stout German defence and counterattacks, but that defence was unsustainable against the unrelenting onslaught that Buttar describes as a ‘slow brutal, grind’.
By 20 April, Buttar argues, the battle for Berlin had been decided: the Soviets were on the outskirts of the city, and the German army was in disarray. Command confusion reflected the chaos on the ground against relentless Soviet attacks, and while there was some confusion in Soviet ranks too, they moved forward relentlessly. On 22 April, Hitler conceded that the war was lost. Buttar describes the following days marked by intense street-fighting, the sacrifice of the indoctrinated Hitler Youth, many armed with just panzerfausts, deadly but one-shot weapons, and atrocities against deserters by SS patrols. By 27 April, order in the German army had all but collapsed, and two days later, Hitler authorised a breakout to the west. It was all over in Berlin by 1 May, with sporadic fighting in isolated pockets, but German soldiers still attempted to flee to the ‘safety’ of surrendering to the western Allies.
In his conclusion, Buttar follows the last remnants of the Germany army as they continued to fight the Soviets in the east. He speculates on a hypothetical attack by the Western allies against Berlin, and decides it was probably not worth the losses, though there were some western plans to continue war against Soviets alongside the Germans. He finishes by assessing the Soviet army and the depth of German resistance bolstered by their knowing what defeat might mean for them under Soviet occupation.
Berlin Endgame 1945 is a thorough retelling of the battle that ended World War II in Europe. Buttar considers the campaign from all sides, switching between operational level and the fighting on the ground, and he includes many quotes from those who lived through it all. He is particularly good at highlighting the increasing infighting and confusion amongst Germany’s senior officers and politicians and the raw ambition of the Soviet commanders vying to be first to Berlin’s centre and claim victory. Buttar also does not forget the civilians and ordinary soldiers struggling in the face of disaster. For many readers, Buttar presents an immersive world full of detail and insight; other, more unkind, readers might argue that Buttar needed a more combative editor to sharpen his text and adhere more tightly to his mission. Whichever side they fall on, readers will benefit greatly from reading this illuminating and informative single volume history of Europe’s last epic battle.
by RNS | Jul 6, 2026 | Beating Tsundoku
Phoebus Athanassiou, Armies in North Russia and Siberia 1918-20 (Osprey, 2026)
If you thought the Great War ended in November 1918, you would be right. But, for some of those involved in that conflict, the fighting did not end so neatly. Men from many countries were packed off to a new war, this time helping in the war against the Bolsheviks in Russia. Phoebus Athanassiou describes the context of that war, when a polyglot force of Allied nations, including British, American, French, Italian, and Czech contingents, waged an ideological war in northern Russia, while the Japanese grasped their geo-political opportunity to seize territory from Russia in the Far East. Athanassiou surveys the actions of the heavily outnumbered and under-resourced allies during their two year foray and describes their organisation, weaponry, and uniforms. He is assisted by Osprey’s typically excellent illustrations and photographs of the soldiers. The Allies withdrew in 1920, dooming the cause of the White Russian armies they were there to support, argues Athanassiou, and defining the attitude of Soviet Russia to the West for decades to follow. This is an interesting survey that readers of World War I will enjoy and will be very useful for modellers and wargamers.
by RNS | Jun 27, 2026 | Beating Tsundoku
Mark Lardas, US Liberty Ship vs German Surface Raider (Osprey, 2026)
World War II naval history students will be used to reading about powerful navies competing at sea across the world. Aircraft carriers and battleships dominated major battles. However, in this Duel series edition from Osprey, Mark Lardas highlights a different contest, that between armed German merchant ships and the US freighters maintaining the Allied maritime lifelines.
Lardas traces the concept of arming merchant ships back to the 19th Century, but they came into their own in World War I. As it entered WWII, Germany had a modern merchant navy, some of which the Kreigsmarine thought would be useful in an auxiliary cruiser capacity. The main criteria was their range of operations, and the ships were kitted out with guns and efficient communications. The first of 2,708 United States Liberty ships was launched in September 1941. These were fast and fuel-efficient freighters, Lardas notes, and they were cheap and quick to build at a unique time of crisis. Lardas describes their development and characteristics. He continues his history lesson into the strategic situation entering World War II. The Germans initially did not trust submarine warfare and focused on surface raiders, including auxiliary cruisers. These proved successful at first, but as Allied security tightened, particularly in the north Atlantic and around European coasts, the raiders operated more on marginal trade routes. Lardas moves onto describing the technical specifications for both sides and adds the human factor to his survey with an overview of the respective combatants. Then Lardas narrates combat operations, tracking the German auxiliary cruisers across the seas in early 1942, when they scored numerous victories. He also highlights some individual combats involving US merchant ships. These seem to have been rather one-sided affairs, though the American sailors gave as good as they got for the most part. Ultimately, the U-boats took over the raider role, and the war had swung against the auxiliary cruisers by 1943.
There was a certain intimacy in the cat-and-mouse struggles Mark Lardas describes in this interesting and entertaining survey. This was ship-vs-ship, crew-vs-crew, combat on the high seas, and the stakes could not have been higher. The US ships were on the receiving end for the most part, but you do not have to buy into Lardas’ generalisation of American sailors as ‘scrappers’ to respect their courage under fire. Lardas casts an expert’s eye over the ships and men, and naval history readers will certainly enjoy this book.
by RNS | Jun 20, 2026 | Beating Tsundoku
Angus Konstam, Königgrätz 1866 (Osprey, 2026)
In June 1866, the Austrian Empire still held sway as the most powerful force in Europe. But a former ally was intent on upsetting the Austrian apple cart. Prussia, with Otto von Bismarck at the helm, wanted to flex its growing muscles. In 1864, the Prussians had bullied Denmark into submission, and Austria was next in line. The Austrians were concerned but not worried. However, they were in for a rude awakening in July 1866 at a small town called Königgrätz in an epic battle that would change the European political landscape forever. In this Osprey Campaign series book, prolific historian Angus Konstam tells the story of an epoch changing day.
Konstam glides through the build-up to the war of 1866, explaining briefly the machinations of Bismarck in service of his German unification vision. The Austrians could do little about it diplomatically, and both sides prepared for war. In command of the Austrian defence was Feldzeugmeister Ludwig von Benedek, a general arguably behind the times, and for Prussia, Helmuth, Count von Moltke, a thoroughly modern commander. Konstam highlights how modernity in tactics and weaponry allowed the Prussians to dominate the battlefield. As for the battle, a truly massive affair, Konstam breaks that down into the actions of the three Prussian armies against a formidable Austrian defensive position near Königgrätz in Bohemia. The Prussians won the battle and broke the mould of European geopolitics in the process. Konstam concludes with a visit to the battlefield today, which is very well preserved.
Angus Konstam’s survey of the Battle of Königgrätz is not an in-depth study, but it covers all the necessary information to provide an understanding of what happened and why. There is a sense of inevitability in the grinding Prussian offensive, but no developed explanation of why that was beyond Prussia’s tactical and technological advantages. That quibble aside, Konstam has written a useful and informative guide to this critical 19th century battle that will appeal to military history readers.
