Osprey Publishing imprint: 2000 books

World War I is often deemed to have been 'a war of artillery', and British heavy artillery played a vital part in destroying the German trenches and providing invaluable cover for advancing troops on the Western Front. This book details the huge guns of the Royal Garrison Artillery, including the...

This book tells the story of Germany's strategic air offensive against Britain, and how it came to be neutralized. The first Zeppelin attack on London came in May 1915 – and with it came the birth of a new arena of warfare, the 'home front'. German airships attempted to raid London on 26 separate...

The border between East and West Germany was closed on 26 May 1953. On 13 August 1961 crude fences and walls were erected around West Berlin: the Berlin Wall had been created. The Wall encircled West Berlin for a distance of 155km, and its barriers and surveillance systems evolved over the years into...

Jagdgeschwader 52 (JG 52) was the most successful and highest-scoring fighter unit, not just in Germany's World War 2 Luftwaffe, but in the entire annals of aviation history. No other fighter group has ever come close to matching its staggering total of around 9000 enemy aircraft shot down in combat....

The perfect Christmas gift, this beautiful book explains how the bearded, red clad, big bellied, reindeer driving jovial gent came to be the face of Christmas, and reveals the historical origins of Saint Nicholas over seventeen hundred years ago in the Eastern Roman Empire. In a winding, magical tale...

Born in the dark days of the great crusades, the warrior monks of the Knights Templar vowed to defend pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land. Yet strangely, there are few historical records of the Templars ever fulfilling this task. Instead, their history is one of bloodshed and conquest, wealth and...

Originally published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the battle of Waterloo, this experlty researched volume looks at all the different aspects of the 100-day campaign which has become synonymous with the Napoleonic Wars and saw the eventual defeat of Napoleon's French forces. Ten articles...

After the recapture of Constantinople, Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos was determined to bring glory back to the Byzantine Empire. To achieve this, he established an Imperial Fleet and raised new regiments of elite marine troops. This work provides a comprehensive, illustrated guide to the unit history...

Few centuries in world history have had such a profound and long-lasting impact as the first hundred years of Islamic history. In this book, David Nicolle examines the extensive Islamic conquests between AD 632 and 750. These years saw the religion and culture of Islam erupt from the Arabian Peninsula...

Born amid immense suffering and bloodshed, the Kingdom of Jerusalem remained a battlefield for almost 200 years. The Crusades gave rise to the Military Orders of the Templars and Hospitallers, and were a backdrop to the careers of some of history's most famous leaders including Richard 'The Lionheart'...

The Islamic world drew upon a myriad of pre-existing styles of fortification, taking Romano-Byzantine, Indian and Chinese ideas to create a highly effective and sophisticated hybrid fortification that was both new and distinctive. This book examines early Saracen fortifications, covering their historical...

Throughout history cities have been at the center of warfare, from sieges to street-fighting, from peace-keeping to coups de mains. Sun Tzu admonished his readers of The Art of War that the lowest realization of warfare was to attack a fortified city. Indeed, although strategists have advised against...

Israel assumes in advance that defeat in war means an end to the Jewish nation, and it wages war accordingly. This fact influences the Israeli approach to its army and to the strategy, tactics, training and conduct of war. Surrounded by hostile nations, Israel has fought six victorious wars between...

At 1345hrs on 6 October 1973, Israeli spotters in the observation post atop Mount Hermon saw Syrian gunners below them removing the camouflage nets from their guns. Ten minutes later shells began to rain down on Israeli positions all along the Golan Heights – The Yom Kippur War had begun. The shock...