Casemate Publishers

Casemate Publishers is a global publisher in the fields of military history, aviation and intelligence studies, covering all aspects of military history, and all periods of conflict – from ancient civilisations to modern warfare.
Their diverse list includes military autobiographies and memoirs, histories of specific events, and a growing list of leadership titles. Casemate Publishers is also the home of the renowned Casemate Illustrated series – loved by general readers, modellers and specialists alike, these books bring visual detail to key elements of military history, from campaigns, units and battles, to aircraft, ships and weapons. Their global team is passionate about the subject and the authors and experts they work with, and in bringing readers the best of military history.

Format: Paperback

Pages: 128

ISBN: 9781636244396

Pub Date: 17 Jan 2025

Imprint: Casemate Publishers

Series: Casemate Illustrated

Illustrations: photographs, maps and artwork

Description:

At the beginning of 1943, the German armed forces were in crisis on the southern front in Russia. The Soviets had launched a series of offensives from November 1942 that pushed the Germans back hundreds of kilometers. The Germans had no more significant reserves available, and enormous breaches had opened between defensive lines. In early January 1943, the Soviets attacked again, with the aim of reconquering the industrial city of Kharkov and destroying the remaining German and Axis troops in southern Ukraine, including the 4. Panzerarmee, 1. Panzerarmee, Armeeabteilung Hollidt and Armeeabteilung Fretter‐Pico.After the encirclement of 6. Armee at Stalingrad and the destruction of the Axis forces there, the loss of these four armies would certainly have led to German defeat on the Eastern Front. Believing victory was near, Stalin and his generals decided to launch their new offensives even before the garrison of Stalingrad surrendered. The main effort fell on Army Group Don, newly formed and with little forces available. Facing a massive offensive, Commander Erich von Manstein was ordered to hold the city at any cost, risking the destruction of two divisions of the Waffen‐SS and the “Grossdeutschland” army division. SS Panzer Corps commander Paul Hausser disobeyed Hitler’s order and ordered the retreat from Kharkov, saving the two SS divisions. This meant that Manstein had at his disposal forces needed to launch his counteroffensive.The subsequent battles for Kharkov saw the three divisions of the Waffen‐SS—Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, Das Reich and Totenkopf— fighting together for the first time. In the first phase of the offensive, the SS Das Reich and Totenkopf marched 100 kilometers south of Kharkov, blocking the Soviet army from capturing the bridges over the Dnieper River, while the Leibstandarte successfully defended the corps supply base in Krasnograd. After protecting the bridges over the Dnepr, the Das Reich and Totenkopf units headed north and regained control of the vital railway network south of Kharkov. The Soviet 3rd Tank Army was forced to abandon its attack against Krasnograd to regroup south of Kharkov and protect the city from Hausser’s divisions. At that point the Leibstandarte joined the other divisions of the corps SS to eliminate Soviet forces and recapture Kharkov. With its reconquest, Southern Ukraine returned firmly under German control.This is a fully illustrated account of the decisive victory attained by the SS Panzer Corps divisions at a time of serious crisis for the Axis forces.

RRP: £24.95

Format: Hardback

Pages: 256

ISBN: 9781636245621

Pub Date: 15 Jan 2025

Imprint: Casemate Publishers

Illustrations: 16 pages of photographs

Description:

A photo in the New York Times on June 10, 1942 depicted a young naval officer, John Duncan Bulkeley, and his wife in the back of an open touring car as they were being treated to a New York ticker tape parade. Hundreds of thousands of people were cheering him in a hero’s welcome not seen since Charles Lindbergh returned from his solo flight across the Atlantic. The 30-year-old Bulkeley was just back from the Philippines, where he had pulled off one of the most spectacular rescues in U.

RRP: £29.95

Format: Paperback

Pages: 128

ISBN: 9781636243733

Pub Date: 15 Nov 2024

Imprint: Casemate Publishers

Series: Casemate Illustrated

Illustrations: 100-120 photographs, artworks and maps

Description:

The 14-month campaign to regain the control of Mississippi River by capturing Vicksburg, Mississippi, stands as the prime example of how the Civil War would be fought and won. The Federal government’s policy of blockading the southern ports and controlling the inland waterways would only be successful with total control of the country’s largest river. Technological advances created by the war itself and used by progressive-thinking Federal and Confederate commanders ensured that this vital Southern supply and logistics base would be the focal point of the war on the western waters.

RRP: £24.95

Format: Paperback

Pages: 128

ISBN: 9781636243900

Pub Date: 15 Nov 2024

Imprint: Casemate Publishers

Series: Casemate Illustrated

Illustrations: 100– illustrations

Description:

By the end of March 1863, Major General Ulysses S. Grant was at a crossroads in his military career. His bold attempts in the late fall 1862 and winter of 1862/63 had all come up fall short of his objective: get his army on high ground north and east of Vicksburg and capture the last major obstacle on the Mississippi River. Grant had been stymied by the difficult region’s swampy bayous as well as Confederate resistance at key locations that thwarted his advances and prolonged his army’s miserable dispositions in the sickly camps of Louisiana bottomland. Confederate Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton had performed well using his interior rail lines and intelligence networks to place blocking forces or obstructions that delayed or derailed Grant’s movements.Realizing his career was on the line, Grant chose the riskiest operation he could have concocted. In a joint military operation, Grant marched two of his army corps down the roads and along the bayous of Louisiana, repairing them as they progressed, while Acting Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter led his ironclad gunboats with transports past the Confederate heavy artillery defending Vicksburg’s riverfront. It was Grant’s hope to get enough boats below the city to enable a crossing of the Mississippi River, a forced march into the state, and arriving at Vicksburg’s doorsteps from the east–west approach. In doing this, Grant would sever his main line of logistics and supply, something his subordinate officers thought was a disastrous mistake. Grant would take the risk in a zero-sum game: he would capture Vicksburg or destroy himself and his army doing so.Realizing his career was on the line, Grant chose the riskiest operation he could have concocted. In a joint military operation, Grant marched two of his army corps down the roads and along the bayous of Louisiana, repairing them as they progressed, while Acting Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter led his ironclad gunboats with transports past the Confederate heavy artillery defending Vicksburg’s riverfront. Grant hoped to get enough boats below the city to enable a crossing of the Mississippi River. Then, he would force a march into the state and arrive at Vicksburg’s back door from the east. In doing this, Grant would sever his main line of logistics and supply, something his subordinate officers thought was a disastrous mistake. Grant would take the risk in a zero-sum game: he would capture Vicksburg or destroy himself and his army doing so.

RRP: £24.95

Format: Hardback

Pages: 320

ISBN: 9781636244983

Pub Date: 15 Nov 2024

Imprint: Casemate Publishers

Illustrations: 20-40 photographs

Description:

The inspiring life story of a young boy stricken with polio who, through sheer grit, the drive to achieve, and love of the military, overcomes childhood paralysis, takes up the physical challenges of an infantry career and joins the elite airborne forces. Bill Matz earns his Ranger Tab and Master Parachute Badge, and rises to the highest levels of achievement in the U.S.

RRP: £32.95

Format: Paperback

Pages: 128

ISBN: 9781636243696

Pub Date: 15 Nov 2024

Imprint: Casemate Publishers

Series: Casemate Illustrated

Illustrations: 100-120 photographs, artworks and maps

Description:

After taking Forts Henry and Donelson, the Union army prepared to try and take the vital rail hub of Corinth, Mississippi. To facilitate this, Major General H. Halleck planned to combine Grant’s Army of West Tennessee with Buell’s Army of the Ohio.

RRP: £24.95

Format: Hardback

Pages: 240

ISBN: 9781636244952

Pub Date: 15 Nov 2024

Imprint: Casemate Publishers

Illustrations: 40 photographs

Description:

Raised on a farm in Montana, Vernon Drake enlisted in the Army Air Corp in the spring of 1942. Assigned to the 493rd Bomb Squadron, 7th Bomb Group of the 10th Air Force stationed in India, he piloted B-24 bombers into Burma in a fight to prevent the Japanese from advancing north to China, then flew C-108 gas-hauling tankers across the formidable Himalayas to support the U.S.

RRP: £29.95

Format: Hardback

Pages: 336

ISBN: 9781636244815

Pub Date: 14 Nov 2024

Imprint: Casemate Publishers

Illustrations: 20–30 colour photographs

Description:

In 2006, the shock and awe campaign of securing the major cities had ended, and the Iraq War had moved into an alien phase for the operators of Black Flag One. With their motto “swift, silent, deadly,” the Marine operators of 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion were trained for unconventional warfare but they were tasked with holding and securing swathes of the country, facing Insurgents who were adapting their tactics to kill as many Coalition soldiers as possible using IEDs. It was a terrifying new phase of the war where every disturbed patch of dirt, every piece of rubbish, every civilian acting oddly could mean instant death.

RRP: £29.95

Format: Hardback

Pages: 360

ISBN: 9781612004921

Pub Date: 31 Oct 2024

Imprint: Casemate Publishers

Illustrations: 40

Description:

The Angolan Civil War lasted over a quarter of a century, from 1975 to 2002. Beginning as a power struggle between two former liberation movements, the MPLA and UNITA, it became a Cold War struggle with involvement from the Soviet Union, Cuba, South Africa and the USA. This book examines the height of the Cuban-South African fighting in Angola in 1987–88, when 3,000 South African soldiers and about 8,000 UNITA guerrilla fighters fought in alliance against the Cubans and the armed forces of the Marxist MPLA government, a force of over 50,000 men.

RRP: £25.00

Format: Hardback

Pages: 336

ISBN: 9781636243573

Pub Date: 29 Oct 2024

Imprint: Casemate Publishers

Illustrations: 35 photographs

Description:

The monumental struggle fought against Imperial Japan in the Asia/Pacific theater during World War II is primarily viewed as an American affair. While the United States did play a dominant role, the British and Commonwealth forces also made major contributions – on land, at sea and in the air – eventually involving over a million men and vast armadas of ships and aircraft. It was a difficult and often desperate conflict fought against a skilled and ruthless enemy that initially saw the British suffer the worst series of defeats ever to befall their armed forces.

RRP: £25.00

Format: Hardback

Pages: 240

ISBN: 9781636242873

Pub Date: 29 Oct 2024

Imprint: Casemate Publishers

Illustrations: 50–60 photographs and maps

Description:

North Africa was one of the richest parts of the Roman Empire, the agricultural powerhouse of the Mediterranean. It was also home to some of the emperor’s biggest imperial estates, and prosperous cities of all kinds. Its loss to the Vandals in the first half of the 5th century AD was the mortal blow which precipitated the fall of the western empire, and set the eastern empire back for decades.

RRP: £29.95

Format: Hardback

Pages: 192

ISBN: 9781612008813

Pub Date: 23 Oct 2024

Imprint: Casemate Publishers

Series: Casemate Illustrated Special

Illustrations: 250 photos, profiles, and diagrams

Description:

World War I witnessed unprecedented growth and innovation in aircraft design, construction, and as the war progressed - mass production. Each country generated its own innovations sometimes in surprising ways - Albatros Fokker, Pfalz, and Junkers in Germany and Nieuport, Spad, Sopwith and Bristol in France and Britain. This book focuses on the British approach to fighter design, construction, and mass production.

RRP: £35.00

The Defeat and Attrition of the 12. SS-Panzerdivision Hitlerjugend Cover

Format: Hardback

Pages: 288

ISBN: 9781636243474

Pub Date: 17 Oct 2024

Imprint: Casemate Publishers

Illustrations: 40 photographs and maps

Description:

Following the Normandy invasion of 6 June, 1944, Heersgruppe B under German Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel rushed reserves to the newly created bridgehead in order to crush it and drive the Allied forces into the sea. One of these armored reserves was the newly created 12. SS-Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend.

RRP: £32.95

Format: Hardback

Pages: 384

ISBN: 9781636244730

Pub Date: 16 Oct 2024

Imprint: Casemate Publishers

Illustrations: 82 photos, charts, drawings

Description:

Although Capa's Falling Soldier image from the Spanish Civil War has been definitively proven to be a staged propaganda fake, no one has applied a similarly critical eye to his later work. This book is the first effort to establish the facts behind the fables surrounding his D-Day adventures and the images he produced during that period. This book examines the fictionalized account Robert Capa penned in his pseudo biography Slightly Out of Focus.

RRP: £34.95

The Revolutionary War in South Carolina Cover

Format: Hardback

Pages: 240

ISBN: 9781636244853

Pub Date: 15 Oct 2024

Imprint: Casemate Publishers

Description:

An examination of the panorama of individuals whose leadership helped make the Patriot cause successful in South Carolina. Historians Steven D. Smith and Kevin Dougherty look beyond the towering figure of Francis Marion to profile significant personalities and actions both on and off the battlefield in this innovative approach to the Revolutionary War in South Carolina.

RRP: £29.95

Format: Paperback

Pages: 541

ISBN: 9781636244877

Pub Date: 14 Oct 2024

Imprint: Casemate Publishers

Illustrations: maps and 24pp black and white photos

Description:

A detailed account of Herbert Otto Gille’s IV SS-Panzerkorps that participated in many of the key battles fought on the Eastern Front during the last year of WWII.During World War Two, the armed or Waffen-SS branch of the Third Reich’s dreaded security service expanded from two divisions in 1940 to 38 divisions by the end of the war, eventually growing to a force of over 900,000 men until Germany’s defeat in May 1945. Not satisfied with allowing his nascent force to be commanded in combat by army headquarters of the Wehrmacht, Heinrich Himmler, chief of the SS, began to create his own SS corps and army headquarters beginning with the SS-Panzerkorps in July 1942.

RRP: £22.50