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Anniversaries for today :
Welcome to Clash of Steel!
Featured battle : Sehestadt
Part of The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars
Date : 10 December 1813
The Russo-German commander, Count Wallmoden-Gimborn, attempted to interpose his force between the Danes and their target destination, the fortress of Rendsburg. His force was simply too small and the Danes brushed him aside.
Featured image :
A German Marder III Tank-Hunter
This Marder III Ausf-H is run by the 21st Panzer Division re-enactment group ans is depicted in the desert colours of the Afrika Korps of 1943. It was armed with a 75mm PaK 40/3 anti-tank gun and a Czech 7.92 MG37 machine-gun in the front hull. The variant was different from other Marders as the engine was mounted aft with the fighting compartment further forward but in common with others of it's type, the open top and rear meant the crew was vulnerable to artillery and in urban warfare. It's armour was quite thin but it could destroy most light or medium tanks it was pitted against.
Gallery updated : 2022-04-04 08:33:43
Featured review :
Freeing the Baltic 1918-1920
Bennet, Geoffrey
An interesting and unexpected book about an often overlooked conflict in the Baltic states during the confusion following the 1918 armistice.
It ostensibly follows the Baltic activities of British Navy cruisers and destroyers under the command of Admiral Sir Walter Cowan, but it actually provides a much wider picture of the struggle of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia for independence from Russia. It gives a good overview of the various nationalist forces fighting both the Bolshevik forces and the White Russians under Yudenitch, as well as the ethnic German 'Balts' and the remaining former Imperial German forces under Gen. von der Goltz who himself was attempting to promote German influence in Latvia and it's neighbours. But the main theme of the book is how the Royal Navy, together with some elements of the French attempted to moderate this and stop Bolshevik and German interference.
At times it is quite 'high-level', but this is understandable, given the scope of the subject. It redeems itself with some good first-hand accounts and detailed engagement descriptions, particularly of the 40 foot, shallow draft motorboats C.M.B.'s which could each carry one or two torpedoes. These small, fast boats managed to infiltrate, under cover of night, right into Kronstadt harbour which protected Petrograd (St Petersburg) and sheltered the pride of the Bolshevik navy, and sink much of it!
This is a good update of a work originally published in 1964. It includes well researched appendices and some interesting photos of the people and ships involved but more than that, it highlights that for many people, the fighting definitely did not end on the 11th November 1918.
Pen & Sword Maritime, 2017
Reviewed : 2017-11-10 20:21:32
