by RNS | Nov 22, 2022 | Beating Tsundoku
Simon Elliott, Roman Warriors: The Paintings of Graham Sumner (Greenhill, 2022)
Have you ever wondered how Roman soldiers dressed over the whole period of their Empire? If so, you are in for a treat with this collection of prominent military artist Graham Sumner’s authoritative illustrations brought together in a coffee-table style book.
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Before we get into the main body of Sumner’s artwork, Simon Elliott introduces the man himself through a potted biography and appreciation of his work. The illustrations are arranged in chronological order, beginning in the pre-Roman era of the Villanovans and Etruscans and extending into the post-Roman, so-called Dark Ages, and the Byzantine period in the East. Most of the illustrations are of standing soldiers from all points of the Empire, highlighting their clothing, weapons, and armour. Some auxiliaries and enemies are included, the latter in dramatic combat pictures. Sumner deviates at times to showcase Roman installations such as forts, watchtowers, a blacksmith, a bath house, and a street scene in occupied Britain.
The accompanying text by Elliott provides background information on the figures and their context, including the organisation of the army and the campaigns they fought, and many have a description of the colour plates complete with sources. Along the way, Elliott drops in little snippets of Roman army life, such as rates of pay, what soldiers did on their ‘down time’ etc. An epilogue showcases some of Sumner’s latest work that extends outside Rome to other historical eras, and a useful bibliography closes the book.
It almost goes without saying that Sumner’s illustrations are uniformly excellent. Each of them offers a little insight into the world of the Roman soldier, and Elliott’s text complements them well. Sumner bases his artwork in the archaeology, and each figure looks as if they have been lifted from an historical scene. These are not mannequins, however, because Sumner has a particular talent for expression, animating his figures and making the viewer aware of a narrative happening just below the surface. The best coffee-table books have that almost passive educational element to them, and Roman Warriors succeeds admirably in that regard.
by RNS | Nov 8, 2022 | Beating Tsundoku
Sergey Shamenkov, Charles XII’s Karoliners (Helion, 2022)
This is the first volume in what promises to be another outstanding series from Helion & Company. The subject is the Swedish Infantry & Artillery of the Great Northern War 1700-1721, which is a useful place to start when digging into that pivotal 18th Century conflict.
Shamenkov breaks down his survey into seven chapters. The first explains the battle formations and tactics of Charles XII’s infantry, which provides much of the context for Shamenkov’s description of the Swedish king’s army in the field. The soldiers’ weapons and accoutrements follow with photographs of museum pieces, including drums and belts. Then Shamenkov considers uniforms, beginning with the many caps and hats the Swedish soldiers wore, then coats and overcoats as he works his way through their development over the course of the war. He pauses to describe briefly Estonian and Livonian uniforms before moving onto the coat adornments of NCOs, uniforms for musicians, waistcoats, gloves, breeches, cloaks, and footwear. The variations in officers’ uniforms deserve their own chapter, including the surprisingly simple uniform worn by Charles XII. Some officers also wore gorgets and cuirasses, though the latter were for ceremonial purposes. Officers’ weapons receive not much more than a mention, which is curious given the variety of other accoutrements they wore. Shamenkov moves on to the artillery, guiding readers through their uniforms in much the same way he did with the infantry; though here he defers to a classic work on Charles XII’s army by Lars-Eric Höglund, so doesn’t dive into great detail on the subject.
Charles XII’s Karoliners is more than a handy guide to the Swedish army. The text is clean and serviceable, but it is the artwork that lifts this book out of the ordinary. You know those uniform guidebooks that offer a couple of colour plates in the middle and can be frustrating when you need a wee bit more? This book isn’t that. It is full of colour plates of soldiers, each furnished with a suitable description. Photographs of museum pieces and contemporary painting supplement the original artwork, and Shamenkov’s useful bibliography points the way for further research. For wargamers or figure collectors interested in the Swedish army of the Great Northern War, Shamenkov’s book is an excellent starting place and highly recommended.
by RNS | Nov 1, 2022 | Beating Tsundoku
Gioal Canestrelli, Celtic Warfare (Pen & Sword, 2022)
Gioal Canestrelli opens his book on Celtic Warfare with the oft-cited idea of Celtic warriors as wild beasts as seen by their ‘civilized’ enemies. He rejects this view, arguing that Celtic warfare developed over time and through contact with other cultures, peaceful and otherwise. To support that, Canestrelli deploys a multi-disciplinary approach to examine Celtic warfare across its temporal and geographical variances.
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Celtic Warfare is divided into four chronological chapters, beginning in c480 BC and ending in the 1st Century BC, and two geographic chapters covering Alpine and British Celts and the Celts in Iberia. He starts each chronological chapter with a brief background on the period in question and how that affected Celtic warfare. Then he is straight into the archaeological evidence, introducing the panoply: the helmet, armour, shield, pole weapons, swords, knives and daggers, ranged weapons, and the war chariot. Canestrelli follows with a survey of how all this was used in combat, and for the first chapter, how warriors trained. This is an effective scheme, if a bit repetitive, that allows Canestrelli’s readers to follow his evidence quite clearly.
As the chapters progress, Canestrelli introduces new elements, such as new weapons and the cavalry for the La Tene B1 period from 400-320 BC, and greater unit specialization from 320 to 180 BC. There are also more archaeological finds and written sources, particularly Roman, for Canestrelli to build his analysis. In Chapter 5, Canestrelli notes that the British Celts were outliers maintaining archaic structures. which he proceeds to analyse using the same scheme as the chronological chapters. That applies to the Alpine Celts too, though they receive only a cursory survey. The final chapter examines the Iberian Celts as a particular group and Canestrelli makes his case quite comfortably. A brief overview of siege warfare concludes Canestrelli’s study.
By refusing to lump together the phases of Celtic warfare as some surveys do, Canestrelli has produced a more nuanced picture of a culture that had obvious developmental similarities but also significant geographical differences. He also firmly embeds this in the archaeological and written sources and is supported by illuminating monochrome illustrations and colour plates. While I wouldn’t go so far to argue that Canestrelli’s work is definitive, he certainly makes a good case for a continuing development of Celtic warfare far removed from the ‘hairy, savage barbarians’ popular image of these resolute and tactically adept warriors.
by RNS | Oct 29, 2022 | Beating Tsundoku
Kerry Jang, Victory 100-Gun First Rate 1765 (Seaforth, 2022)
She is perhaps the most famous warship ever to fly the British flag, and she has been modelled in many scales and mediums since she first took to the high seas. HMS Victory was Nelson’s flagship, a 100 gun behemoth of her day capable of taking on the finest France or Spain had to offer. In Kerry Jang’s slim, magazine style book in the Shipcraft series, he surveys HMS Victory and offers advice on how to model this once mighty ship.
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Jang begins with the design and construction, which is a bit more than the expected dry specifications of the warship and includes technical drawings and a model of Chatham dockyard where she was built in the 1760s. The he gets into Victory’s long career. And what a career that was, culminating, of course, in the Battle of Trafalgar in October1805. After being paid off and deteriorating, though still in dock at Portsmouth, Victory was restored and opened to the public in 1928 where she sits today, the perfect modellers reference.
Speaking of which, Jang devotes the rest of his guide to modelling, beginning with the problems likely to be encountered, most notably the rigging. Jang surveys some of the kits on the market for Victory from 1/1200 scale through 1/700 to Heller’s 1/100 scale in plastic, then the wooden kits, which to this potato-fingered modeller look mind-boggling. Up next is a photographic tour of Etsuro Tsuboi’s stunning scratch-built 1/300 scale Victory; Kazunobu Shirai’s magnificent 1/48 scale rendering; and Daniel Fischer’s jaw dropping construction of the Heller kit complete with crew! Jang goes on to survey how Victory has been modelled over the centuries since she was launched, allowing us to compare different appearances and modifications. Serious modellers will enjoy the section on how Victory has been painted – again, not as dry a subject as you might think. That is followed by some graphic design style illustrations for Victory. A useful little bibliography concludes Jang’s book.
I enjoyed everything about this book, from the background information and bibliography for further reading to the colour photographs of stunning models with details that make you exclaim “How did he do that?” Jang’s text is informative and well-written, but it is the modelling genius on display that captures the imagination in this excellent homage to an incredible ship.
by RNS | Oct 26, 2022 | Beating Tsundoku
Tim Moreman, Japanese Conquest of Burma 1942 (Osprey, 2022)
The longest campaign of World War II took place in Burma. It occurred over three years in two main phases: a Japanese invasion and an Allied counter-invasion. It has long been known as ‘The Forgotten War’, but there is no need for that status now with many books on the Burma campaign recently published. For those late to the show, Tim Moreman’s engaging narrative takes you through the first phase of that incredible war within a war.
Nearly all traditional campaign narratives begin with the situation before the forces start moving. This one is no different. We find out how big Burma was and how poorly it was defended before the War broke out. Allied concerns grew, however, over the defence of the main road through Burma into Nationalist China. The Japanese were determined to cut it while seizing Burma in the process. British hubris over the strength of Singapore as a guard for their Far East possessions did not help matters, and they underestimated the Japanese at an almost fatal cost. Moreman considers the Allied commanders and forces and finds them wanting in almost all departments. The Japanese, on the other hand, were well organized and well led, and they had the superior air force.
It follows that the subsequent campaign was mostly one way traffic. Moreman guides us through this, from the initial Japanese invasion in December 1941 through the various battles that exhausted the Allies and sent them headlong in flight towards India. Along the way, he pauses to describe the Battle of the Sittang Bridge, the fall of Rangoon, the breakout from Yenangyaung, then the final withdrawal into India. Moreman then assesses the whole campaign from both sides and notes that while the campaign was a disaster for the Allies, they learned significant lessons that would prove useful in their counter-attack. But that’s a different story. A brief but poignant survey of the battlefield today closes Moreman’s book.
Tim Moreman’s neat and tidy but brief narrative of the opening stages of the Burma campaign is an enjoyable and informative read. But as with all ‘Ospreys’, it is the combination of text, photographs, lucid maps, and excellent colour illustrations that makes Moreman’s book an admirable foundation for students of World War II to satisfy their need to know while providing a useful platform for further research. You cannot really ask for more than that in this format.
by RNS | Oct 25, 2022 | Beating Tsundoku
M.C. Bishop, Roman Plate Armour (Osprey, 2022)
Pardon my ignorance, but I approached M.C. Bishop’s Roman Plate Armour with some scepticism: sixty pages on pointing out the obvious on something any casual observer of the Roman army would know about surely awaited. I was wrong! There is more to this iconic metal, personal defence system than meets the eye in this engaging and wonderfully illustrated little book.
Bishop opens with the often fallacious efforts to reconstruct Roman armour from Trajan’s Column in Rome. Therefore, much of what we thought we knew, we didn’t really, but that has now been rectified by archaeological finds in recent years. Bishop continues with a survey of armour from the Regal period, through the Republican era, and then into the Imperial period where we encounter the most famous of all Roman armour: the lorica segmentata with its familiar bands of metal attached at the back. Here too, however, there are variations in the segmentata, and Bishop walks us through the different types over three chapters. The first is the Kalkriese-type discovered as recently as 2018. Bishop describes the armour and its history, and he follows that method for the Corbridge-type and the Newstead-type. Bishop moves onto other forms of Roman plate armour, which are the hybrid forms; articulated armguards; muscled cuirasses worn by officers; greaves, worn singly on the leg advanced to the enemy; and chamfrons used to protect horses’ heads. How the Romans manufactured, decorated, and maintained their plate armour is our next destination, while the vital question of how this armour was used rounds off Bishop’s survey. He closes by returning to the continuing influence of Trajan’s Column on the legacy of Roman plate armour.
I won’t make any claims that Roman Plate Armour is a riveting read, but it is more interesting than the plain title promises. Bishop explains the nuances of this armour clearly, without disappearing into technical jargon, and his text is accompanied by Osprey’s usual excellent artwork, mostly showing the armour as worn in combat. There are also many photographs of archaeological finds and reconstructions based on them. Students of the Roman army, keen to delve a wee bit deeper into the armour Roman soldiers wore, will get a lot out of Bishop’s book, but even those with a casual interest will find some surprises while enhancing their knowledge and dispelling some myths.
