Anthony Tucker-Jones

The Kalashnikov assault rifle, generically known as the AK-47, is the most famous small arm ever made. This weapon has transcended its Soviet designer and country of origin to become the most prolifically produced and iconic weapon in the world and it has become a brand that has been used to sell everything from T-shirts to vodka. Although it first appeared in the late 1940s, it did not make its decisive presence felt on the battlefield until the...

The selection of over 150 rare wartime photographs in this volume in Pen & Swords Images of War series offers a graphic visual record of the dramatic and bloody battles fought for the Crimea during the Second World War. They show every grim aspect of the fighting and reflect in many ways the ruthless character of the struggle across the entire Eastern Front. The German-led Axis forces took eight months to conquer the Crimea in 1941-2 the Soviet...

Two years earlier the Dieppe Raid had ended in disaster – despite their meticulous planning the Allies feared Operation Overlord might go the same way. Instead D-Day proved an incredible success; however, what followed was marred by serious mistakes on both sides resulting in three months of bitter fighting. Established military historian Anthony Tucker-Jones brings his expert eye to bear on the D-Day landings and subsequent Normandy campaign, using...

Along with the Tiger, Sherman and T-34, the Panther ranks as one of the most famous tanks of the Second World War. Anthony Tucker-Jones, in this comprehensive new study of a remarkable fighting vehicle, uses over 100 archive photographs, along with a selection of colour profiles, to describe its design, development and operational record. On the Eastern Front the German army needed to counter the Red Armys robust and utilitarian T-34 which began...

When the world held its breath It is 25 years since the end of the Cold War, now a generation old. It began over 75 years ago, in 1944long before the last shots of the Second World War had echoed across the wastelands of Eastern Europe with the brutal Greek Civil War. The battle lines are no longer drawn, but they linger on, unwittingly or not, in conflict zones such as Iraq, Somalia and Ukraine. In an era of mass-produced AK-47s and ICBMs, one such...

The Iraq War is a visual record of the American-led Operation Iraqi Freedom of 2003, which resulted in the dramatic overthrow of dictator Saddam Hussein. In a striking sequence of photographs Anthony Tucker-Jones shows how this was achieved by the American and British armed forces in a lightning campaign of just two weeks. But the photographs also show the disastrous aftermath when the swift victory was undermined by the outbreak of the Iraqi insurgency...

German, American and British tanks come to mind first whenever the military vehicles of the Second World War are considered they get all the historical attention. The tanks, self-propelled guns and armored cars built and deployed by the secondary nations in the conflict, in particular by Hitler’s Axis allies, have been almost forgotten. The rarity of these armored fighting vehicles makes them especially interesting, and that is why Anthony Tucker-Jones’s...

The Battle of the Bulge took the Allied armies by surprise in 1944. It was a result of the extraordinary recovery of Hitlers panzer divisions following crushing defeats on the Eastern and Western fronts. In a daring offensive he hoped his panzers would unhinge the American and British push on the Rhine by charging through the Schnee Eifel, thereby prolonging the war. The consequence was one of the best-known battles of the entire conflict, and Anthony...

In the summer of 1944 the Red Army crushed Army Group Centre in one of the largest offensives in military history. Operation Bagration - launched almost exactly three years after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union - was Stalin's retribution for Hitler's Operation Barbarossa. Earlier battles at Stalingrad and Kursk paved the way for Soviet victory, but as Anthony Tucker-Jones demonstrates in this fascinating study, Bagration ensured that the Germans...

The Panzerkampfwagen Mk IV proved to be the one constant in Hitler's Panzerwaffe throughout the Second World War - the German equivalent of the American Sherman and the Soviet T-34. In this companion volume to his best-selling visual histories of the Tiger and Panther tanks, Anthony Tucker-Jones provides a concise account of the Mk IV's design, development and performance in combat. The Mk IV served on every major front, in France, the Balkans, North...