The Bold Bull of Scapa Flow

Late on the night of Friday, October 13, 1939, Kapitänleutnant Günther Prien surfaced his 218-foot-long submarine, U-47, and guided it through the protected, shallow, narrow channel at Kirk Sound. Read more

Mussolini’s Fall from Power

At 10:30 on the night of May 9, 1936, as 400,000 people stood crowded together on Rome’s Palazzo Venezia underneath the most famous balcony in the world, Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini, 52, the leader of the country’s ruling Fascist Party, strode forward and began to speak to the silent masses below him. Read more

Ireland’s Quixotic Neutrality

Ireland’s refusal to take part in World War II agitated Winston Churchill during the war’s first months. Read more

The Brandenburgers: Seeing Without Being Seen

It was in the early hours of the German invasion of Holland, May 10, 1940, and a Wehrmacht doctor was tending to a soldier wounded during the capture of the key Gennep border bridge. Read more

Admiral Satan

French Admiral Pierre-Andre de Suffren de Saint Tropez did not fit the image of a dashing naval officer. Read more

Hitler’s Masters of Murder

“I must tell you something…. I took part in a mass killing the day before yesterday.

[When we shot the Jews brought by] the first truck, my hand trembled somewhat during the shooting, but one gets used to it. Read more

Standing on Hallowed Ground, 75 Years Later

This past June I once again had the honor of guiding a group of 30 Smithsonian guests to the hallowed ground of Normandy, France, to visit the sites. Read more

Holding Hosingen At All Costs

Ordered to “hold at all costs,” 300 American soldiers defended the small Luxembourg town of Hosingen during the first three days of the Battle of the Bulge. Read more

Foxhole [Game Preview]

In most war games, players are either in control of one unit or a very specific assortment of units. Read more

Rommel vs Monty

The famous retreat of the “Desert Fox” Erwin Rommel across North Africa following his defeat at the Second Battle of El Alamein in 1942 was less a retreat than a series of stubborn battles to hold ground. Read more

Boer General Jacobus De La Rey

In the early weeks of the Second Boer War, General Jacobus Hercules De La Rey suggested a way to overhaul the tactics of his fellow Boers in a way that would prove devastating to his British opponents. Read more

A Death in San Pietro

After sweeping through Sicily in the summer of 1943, Allied forces invaded Italy in September. The American Fifth Army landed at Salerno and moved up the peninsula through Naples that fall. Read more

Preview: Gary Grigsby’s War in the East 2

What kind of war game player do you consider yourself to be? Do you fall on the side of the more arcade-style shooter entries, or do you long for your games to be as realistic and historically dense as possible? Read more

Hidden & Dangerous 2: Courage Under Fire

While we’re on the topic of classic games, we thought we’d take a moment in this issue to turn back the clock and put the spotlight on one of our older favorites. Read more

The Last Days Of General Patton

Fearless, demanding, and inspirational, General George Smith Patton, JR., was generally recognized as the U.S. Army’s outstanding field commander by the end of World War II.  Read more

Curt Prufer’s German Espionage in the Near East

By Kevin Morrow

Robert Mors was in serious trouble. Immigration officials had stopped him for questioning upon his arrival at the port of Alexandria, Egypt, from Istanbul, and they immediately became suspicious. Read more

Banzai

By Colonel Dick Camp (USMC, Ret.)

In the summer of 1944, the 5th Amphibious Corps under Marine Lt. Gen. Holland M. Read more

Alone at Sea

The American military presence in China, which stretched back to the 1850s, came to an abrupt end in November 1941. Read more

Konstantin Rokossovsky: Marshal of Two Historic Enemies

The year was 1944, and the embattled Soviet Union’s top-level field commanders were meeting in conclave to discuss Operation Bagration, an upcoming offensive against the retreating German Army. Read more

Broken Arrow Preview

In the world of strategy games, there are those geared more toward casual play and those for long-time tactical players with a keen eye for complexity. Read more