Review Villers-Bocage by Henri Marie

Villers-Bocage, Normandy 1944 by Henri Marie
Copyright 2010 (2nd Edition)(1st Edition 2003)
Heimdal

Although Henri refers to this as an a battle unknown to many, I'm sure that is certainly not the case with avid WWII gamers or especially those that play Battlefront's Flames of War, since they dedicated one of their Normandy books to it. Henri uses his original 1993 book as the springboard for this one. I don't have that book ("Tigers in Battle", 1993) but this new one builds from that original work.

Henri is a resident of Villers and has a pretty unique perspective on this particular battle and it is his goal to get as close to the historical truth as possible. I believe that he has pretty much succeeded in that endeavor. The covers the battle as a whole from the original clash in June through the eventual taking of the town from the retreating Germans in August, 1944. It is presented in both French and English usually side by side on the same page. Once you get used to skipping a column of text its pretty easy to read and the translation is excellent.

He does a good job of stripping through the propaganda and getting to the historical facts surrounding the battle in general and Michael Wittman's attack on "A" Squadron 4 CLY of the 22nd Armored Brigade and "A" company of the First Rifle Brigade on June 13th, 1944. Overall he treats this as an element of the battle but most of his focus is really getting to the heart of this particular attack and its affect on future events. I do feel that there is definite desire to discredit Wittman something that definitely comes up in the conclusions at the end of the book. He also contradicts himself in a couple of places. In the end decisions have to be made on the spot by the men on the ground, with 20/20 hindsight its easy to discredit some of those decisions now.

At the end he puts forth a number of conclusive statements, some I agree with some I disagree with and a couple I think are flat out wrong. As the reader that is my prerogative after all. The book has a fair number of eye witness accounts. In fact this book is the result of visiting British soldiers on the 50th anniversary of D-Day. It is filled with pictures from the battle itself (many of which I have seen before) as well as pictures form both before the battle and what some of those sites look like today. There are a whole series of excellent maps that show all kinds of interesting details.

This is really an excellent book and I highly recommend it.

Hunted down some minis

I have finally had a bit of success finding some elusive items to fill out some of my forces. I scored two boxes of  Dragon Models HMMWV M1114 off Ebay over the last couple of days at only $10 a box, that will give me the four HMMWVs I need for my modern USMC force. In addition a GW LoTR Erkenbrand model showed up on eBay at a reasonable price and I was able to grab that as well. It was listed as new but it has been primed black and the shields are missing all of which can be dealt with. Right now that means that my Rohan force for September is just missing Eomer to complete and he seems relatively easy to find on a regular basis.

Dragon Coming Home

I have been going through a bit of a painting block, nothing seems to be coming out the way I want it. So the Rohan Helmingas that I started still only have a skintone on them and there are no pictures yet since I'm currently unhappy with them. However, today the Dragon capsule was swung away from the International Space Station and is headed home to Earth. Assuming everything goes well on the recovery side this will complete the first commercial delivery of supplies to the International Space Station and hopefully opens up a new era for man's presence in space. Space exploration is the one area I have a serious problem with the way the current administration is handling it. I don't have much hope that it will be any better handled by the next administration. After leading the way with landings on the moon and the development of the space shuttle the US space program has been pretty darn stagnant. I'm hoping that this will be the kick in the pants that the administration needs to get our space program back into shape. Anyway here are a couple of images of the Dragon capsule at the International space station.

Dragon being prepped

May 22, 2012 Dragon on the Falcon 9 Launches (Quite the birthday present)

 Dragon after being captured by the International Space Station's robotic arm

Dragon Docked At Dawn

Dragon being released today for return to Earth.

The Dragon has landed, May 31, 2012 off of Baja California

Here there be Dragons

The Dragon capsule approaching the International Space Station. My sister-in-law is so cool.

Dragon's thermal imager sees the space station about 820 feet away.

Review - Armored Thunderbolt by Steven Zaloga

Armored Thunderbolt by Steven Zaloga
Stackpole Books, 2008

First off this is not a detailed discussion of the technical aspects of the Sherman tank. Hunnicutt's book is still the bible as far as Sherman technical detail is concerned. However, this is an excellent book on the history of the Sherman and how it was shaped by the lessons learned (or ignored) early in the war and by internal army politics. This looks at the Sherman from both the American and British point of view. How it was used, how it evolved as the war moved forward as well as dispelling some myths and verifying others. There are plenty of pictures (although not nearly as many as in his other two books Armored Victory and Armored Attack) including old favorites and many new ones (at least to me). The focus is primarily on the ETO although there is a chapter on the Pacific theater and during the Cold War. If you are Sherman enthusiast or just a tank enthusiast in general this is a must have book. The retail price is $34.95 but I was able to find a really good used copy on Amazon for about $20.