Mark Lardas: 31 books
Shenandoah 1864
Sheridan’s valley campaign
Language: English
Release Date: October 20, 2014
For three years of war the Union and the Confederacy had battled over the picturesque Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Nestled between the Blue Ridge Mountains to the east and the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians to the west, the valley served as the granary for the Army of Northern Virginia. It provided...
Roughshod Through Dixie
Grierson’s Raid 1863
Language: English
Release Date: January 20, 2012
On April 17, 1863 Benjamin Grierson led a force of 1,700 Union cavalrymen across enemy lines into Confederate-held Tennessee in a bold diversionary raid. Over the next seventeen days, Grierson's horsemen caused havoc by destroying railroad lines, attacking outposts, burning military stores and fighting...
Bonhomme Richard vs Serapis
Flamborough Head 1779
Language: English
Release Date: July 20, 2012
The clash between the American Bonhomme Richard and the British HMS Serapis during the American Revolutionary War is perhaps the most famous single-ship duel in history. This epic battle between two very similar ships – and crews – off the coast of Britain in September 1779 created two naval heroes:...
Rabaul 1943–44
Reducing Japan's great island fortress
Language: English
Release Date: January 25, 2018
In 1942, the massive Japanese naval base and airfield at Rabaul was a fortress standing in the Allies' path to Tokyo. It was impossible to seize Rabaul, or starve the 100,000-strong garrison out. Instead the US began an innovative, hard-fought two-year air campaign to draw its teeth, and allow them...
by Mark Lardas
Language: English
Release Date: November 11, 2013
Language: English
Release Date: November 11, 2013
To reach the Port of Houston's Turning Basin, a ship must travel 50 miles along a narrow and twisting channel that passes through Galveston Bay, the San Jacinto River, and Buffalo Bayou. Despite this improbable location, Houston has the world's largest landlocked port. Measured by annual tonnage shipped,...
by Mark Lardas
Language: English
Release Date: March 20, 2012
Language: English
Release Date: March 20, 2012
When war broke out in 1812, neither the United States Navy nor the Royal Navy had more than a token force on the Great Lakes. However, once the shooting started, it sparked a ship-building arms race that continued throughout the war. This book examines the design and development of the warships built...
US Flush-Deck Destroyers 1916–45
Caldwell, Wickes, and Clemson classes
Language: English
Release Date: August 28, 2018
Four pipes and flush decks – these ships were a distinctively American destroyer design. Devised immediately prior to and during the United States' involvement in World War I they dominated the US Navy's destroyer forces all the way through to World War II.
They were deployed on North Atlantic...
by Mark Lardas
Language: English
Release Date: April 11, 2016
Language: English
Release Date: April 11, 2016
The Texas coastline and offshore waters are flat, shallow, featureless, and filled with shoals. Texas waters are subjected to extreme weather, not just hurricanes and tropical storms but also northers and seasonal gales. This, combined with two centuries of naval warfare off Texas waters, produced many...
South American Battleships 1908–59
Brazil, Argentina, and Chile's great dreadnought race
Language: English
Release Date: December 27, 2018
In 1908 the most incredible naval arms race in history began. Flush with cash from rubber and coffee, Brazil decided to order three of the latest, greatest category of warship available – the dreadnought battleship. One Brazilian dreadnought by itself could defeat the combined gunnery of every other...
Tsushima 1905
Death of a Russian Fleet
Language: English
Release Date: November 29, 2018
Japan was closed to the world until 1854 and its technology then was literally medieval. Great Britain, France and Russia divided the globe in the nineteenth century, but Japan was catching up. Its army and navy were retrained by Western powers and equipped with the latest weapons and ships. Japan...
Japan 1944–45
LeMay’s B-29 strategic bombing campaign
Language: English
Release Date: February 21, 2019
The air campaign that incinerated Japan's cities was the first and only time that independent air power has won a war.
As the United States pushed Imperial Japan back towards Tokyo Bay, the US Army Air Force deployed the first of a new bomber to the theater. The B-29 Superfortress was complex,...
USS Lawrence vs HMS Detroit
The War of 1812 on the Great Lakes
Language: English
Release Date: May 18, 2017
The most critical naval fighting during the War of 1812 took place, not on the high seas, but on the inland lakes of North America: the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain. Carrying between 12 and 22 cannon, the British and American sloops-of-war were ship-rigged, brig-rigged or schooner-rigged vessels....
Chattanooga 1863
Grant and Bragg in Central Tennessee
Language: English
Release Date: June 16, 2016
Following the disastrous defeat at Chickamauga, Union forces were in disarray and the tactically vital Chattanooga was under siege and on the brink of falling. Secretary of War William Stanton ordered Ulysses Grant to send the Army of Tennessee to reinforce Chattanooga. Grant had already reacted.
The...
by Mark Lardas
Language: English
Release Date: October 31, 2019
Language: English
Release Date: October 31, 2019
As 1794 opened, Revolutionary France stood on a knife's edge of failure. Its army and navy had been shaken by the revolution, with civil war and famine taking its toll on their resources. Seeking to bring a revitalizing supply of food from its Caribbean colonies and the United States, the French government...