Fall 2021

Volume 23, No. 4

Cover: A soldier of the 21st Ohio Volunteer Infantry, armed with Colt’s revolving rifle, at the Battle of Chickamauga. The unit fought with troops under General George Thomas defending Snodgrass Hill.
Painting © Don Troiani, www.DonTroiani.com

A Tiger tank of Waffen SS division Das Reich goes into action against Soviet forces in the southern part of the Kursk salient. Its 88mm gun could penetrate the armor of a Soviet T-34 at 1,800 yards.

Military Heritage

Last Lunge in the East

By Victor Kamenir

Soviet machine-gunner Mykhailo Petrik and his platoon comrades lay in their makeshift bunker on the open steppe land 30 miles northwest of Belgorod awaiting the enemy’s advance on the first day of the titanic clash at Kursk. Read more

Prussian grenadiers advance at Leuthen. After his victory at Rossbach, Frederick the Great sought to drive the Austrians from Silesia.

Military Heritage

Covered in Glory at Leuthen

By Joshua Shepherd

In the early afternoon of December 5, 1757, the men of Prussia’s 26th Infantry Regiment were drawn up in assault formation just south of the Silesian village of Leuthen. Read more

Military Heritage

We Will Hold It or die Here!

By David A. Norris

Amid the fog of powder smoke in the north-Georgia forest, the frayed remnants of the Union’s Army of the Cumberland faced determined Confederate troops who sensed an impending victory. Read more

A supersonic Air Force F-111 Aardvark destroys a North Vietnamese ordnance bunker in March in 1968 in a painting by Jack Fellows.

Military Heritage

To Hell And Back

By William E. Welsh

An armada of U.S. Air Force strike aircraft roared through the sky toward the North Vietnamese ammunition storage depot at Xom Bang, 10 miles north of the DMZ, on March 2, 1965. Read more

English longbowmen shower the French with arrows from a forecastle at Sluys. The longbow, with its rapid rate of fire and superior range, proved more valuable than the French crossbow at Sluys.

Military Heritage

Bloody Revenge at Sluys

By Eric Niderost

It was late afternoon on June 24, 1340, when the English fleet arrived off the Flanders coast, just short of the Zwin estuary, reputed to be the finest harbor in Europe. Read more

Military Heritage

Zenobia’s Bloody War of Independence

By Glenn Barnett

The pages of history tend to dwell on the men who created empires. No matter how ephemeral may be the famed exploits of an Alexander, Caesar or Napoleon, historians have written volumes on their behalf. Read more

Marines manning a fighting top on the USS Bonhomme Richard fire on British seamen while another prepares to hurl a grenade at the Serapis.

Military Heritage

Triumph Off Flamborough Head

By Eric Niderost

Standing on the quarterdeck of his flagship Bonhomme Richard, Commodore John Paul Jones took his telescope and trained it northwards, sweeping the instrument to the left and right to see what his lookouts were reporting at midafternoon on September 23, 1779. Read more

Russian infantry advance behind T-34 tanks during the counterattack that began on July 12, one day before Hitler called off the attack. From that point on, the strategic initiative shifted irreversibly to the Soviet Union, and by the end of the year they had liberated the Ukrainian capital of Kiev.

Military Heritage, Editorial

After Kursk, Soviets Favored Broad-Front Offensives to Retake Territory

“The big defeat at the Kursk bulge was the beginning of a fatal crisis for the German army,” said Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevsky, the Soviet Chief of the General Staff. Read more

The 9th-century Oseberg ship in the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo was excavated in the early 20th century from a burial mound in southern Norway. The karve-style, clinker-built ship with its broad hull is made almost entirely from oak.

Military Heritage, Weapons

The Viking Longship

By John Spindler

In the first week of October 844, Emir Abd ar-Rahman II of Cordoba learned disturbing news: Vikings had captured Seville. Read more

Military Heritage, Uniform

17th century Ottoman Janissary Musketeer

The Ottoman janissary corps was recruited from military slaves. These slaves were either prisoners captured by Ottoman armies during the course of war or boys and young men conscripted from occupied Christian populations. Read more

U.S. Marines endure heavy fire from North Vietnamese in well-concealed positions in Hue's 19th-century citadel.

Military Heritage, Valor

First Sergeant John L. Canley’s Marines at Hue

By William E. Welsh

The crackle of small-arms fire on the night of January 30-31, 1968, alerted the South Vietnamese troops at an outpost three miles south of Hue City that the enemy was nearby. Read more

U.S. troops fire on Chinese during Battle of Chipyong-Ni, which marked the high tide of the Chinese counteroffensive in the Korean War. The Chinese attacked at night to take full advantage of their superb infiltration tactics.

Military Heritage, Soldiers

Matthew Ridgway’s Eighth Army at Seoul

By John Walker

As Lt. Gen. Matthew Ridgway boarded a flight to Tokyo, Japan, on December 23, 1950, on his way to a meeting with General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, he was not fully aware of the depth of the crisis still unfolding on the frozen Korean peninsula, where American-led United Nations forces and their South Korean allies, who were seemingly on the verge of complete victory in North Korea, were now suddenly on the brink of collapse and perhaps outright defeat. Read more

Military Heritage, Books

Paratroopers of the 101st Airborne fought a grueling battle against the North Vietnamese for four weeks in 1969 at Tam Ky.

By Christopher Miskimon

On May 21, 1969, while much of the 101st Airborne Division’s 1st Battalion, 501st Infantry, is engaging the enemy, Lieutenant Ed Sherwood’s Third Platoon, Delta Company, is guarding rucksacks. Read more

Military Heritage

Military Games of Fall 2021

By Joseph Luster

The future of Battlefield is upon us with Battlefield 2042, but the main game itself isn’t the most interesting part of the package. Read more

Fall 2021

From Around the Network

The Spear, Axe & Sword: Viking Weapons

Women in the Civil War: Enlisting With the Men

How the Men of the USS West Virginia Died During Pearl Harbor

Blue and Gray at Omaha Beach