The History Of Coast Artillery In The British Army

A concise history of Britain's coastal artillery defences from the death of Elizabeth I to the formal disbanding of the Coastal Artillery arm in 1956. The book, therefore, covers the rise and fall of the British Empire, and as such it is as much concerned with the protection of Britain's far-flung colonial outposts such as Gibraltar and Singapore, as it is with the guarding of the island itself. The author, himself a Royal Artillery man, insists that coast artillery is an offensive weapon, since: 'It was the coast defences that made it possible for the Navy to enact its offensive role by sustaining and securing that service in time of war'. With detailed descriptions and tables of personnel, artillery ordnance, and accounts of the actions fought by coastal artillery in the 17th-19th century wars with France and during the two World Wars, this is an interesting work of history as well as a useful addition to the library of the serious artillery specialist. Illustrated with 17 maps.

A concise history of Britain s coastal artillery defences from the death of Elizabeth I to the formal disbanding of the Coastal Artillery arm in 1956. The book, therefore, covers the rise and fall of the British Empire, and as such it is as much concerned with the protection of Britain s far-flung colonial outposts such as Gibraltar and Singapore, as it is with the guarding of the island itself. The author, himself a Royal Artillery man, insists that coast artillery is an offensive weapon, since : It was the coast defences that made it possible for the Navy to enact its offensive role by sustaining and securing that service in time of war . With detailed descriptions and tables of personnel, artillery ordnance, and accounts of the actions fought by coastal artillery in the 17th - 19th century wars with France and during the two World Wars, this is an interesting work of history as well as a useful addition to the library of the serious artillery specialist. Illustrated with 17 maps.

British military historian describes development of this weapon from mortars in the early days of gunpowder through the sophisticated rocket missiles of today.

Far more than an architecture book, Coastal Defences of the British Empire, 1775–1815 is a sweeping reinterpretation of the Martello towers, Grand Redoubts, Royal Military Canal and other new defence infrastructure of the Napoleonic War. Lavishly illustrated with period maps, views, portraits, cartoons and newly commissioned color photographs, it includes not only these structures’ forerunners, and plans that were never executed, but also the grand strategy that informed them. At its best, this saw Britain’s position as a vast land battle, with the deadly threat of the French-held Antwerp navy yards on its own ‘left wing’, and Lisbon as the enemy’s ‘weak left’ to be ‘turned’. The book also takes in the astonishingly inventive, bold and bloody small-boat wars that raged from the Baltic and Channel coast to Chesapeake Bay and Lake Ontario, and provides vivid pen-sketches of the now-obscure and sometimes deeply flawed strategic visionaries, engineers, inventors, and fighting men who held the line as – even after Trafalgar – the forces of an ever more powerful French empire circled like sharks. Along the way, it traces a fundamental change in the nature of war and society: from a ponderous game of fortresses and colonies played by rulers, to murderous ‘foot by foot’ defence of the whole territory of the nation by ‘both sexes and every social type’.

This volume continues the theme of the development of the Royal Artillery during the run-up to the Great War, fifteen years compared with the forty of VoL I, fifteen years devoted to definite preparation in which the developments in Organization, Armament and Training discussed in Vol I were co-ordinated to a common aim. On the other hand the breach between branches was widened by the separation between mounted and dismounted, and the general trend towards spacialization. So, in this volume a different method has been adopted in which the developments of each branch are recorded separately in three parts - The Field Army Artillery, The Siege Artillery and the Coast Artillery. Part V has a couple of chapters on the Auxiliary Artillery which included the Militia, Volunteers, the Special Reserve and the Territorial Force. The final Part VI deals with Regimental Institutions such as the Remount Department, the Riding Establishment, the RA Institution, the Artillery College, Gunnery courses, the RMA, the RA Mess and the Bands. One of the appendices provides a chart showing the distribution of units as on 1 Aug 1914. There is a very comprehensive index

The great siege of Gibraltar was the longest recorded in the annals of the British army. Between 1779 and 1783 a small British force defended the Rock against the Spanish and the French who were determined take this strategically vital point guarding the entrance to the Mediterranean. The tenacity and endurance shown by the attackers and defenders alike, and the sheer ingenuity of the siege operations mounted by both sides, make the episode an epic of military history, and the story gives us a fascinating insight into the realities of siege warfare. In this, the first full study of the siege for over 40 years, James Falkner draws on a wide range of contemporary sources to tell the exciting tale of a huge and complex operation.

During the Second World War, the Germans considered the Royal Artillery to be the most professional arm of the British Army: British gunners were accurate, effective and efficient, and provided fire support for their armoured and infantry colleagues that was better than that in any other army. However, the Royal Artillery delivered much more than field and medium artillery battlefield support. Gunner regiments manned antitank guns on the front line and light anti-aircraft guns in divisional regiments to defend against air attack at home and abroad. The Royal Artillery also helped to protect convoys that brought essential supplies to Britain, and AA gunners had their finest hour when they destroyed the majority of the V-1 flying bombs launched against Britain from June 1944. Richard Doherty delves into the wide-ranging role of the Royal Artillery, examining its state of preparedness in 1939, the many developments that were introduced during the war – including aerial observation and self-propelled artillery – the growth of the regiment and its effectiveness in its many roles. Royal Artillery in the Second World War is a comprehensive account of a British Army regiment that played a vital role in the ensuing Allied victory.