Featured battle : Langport

Part of The Civil Wars of the Three Kingdoms

Date : 10 July 1645

The Royalists under Lord Goring attempted to fight a delaying action to allow his baggage and some artillery to withdraw. He placed his 7000 men astride a road with boggy ground covering most of their front. The road he protected with cannon. The 10,000 Parliamentarians under Fairfax had little option but to attack along the line of the road. Fairfax first used his cannon to silence the Royalist cannon and then sent his cavalry closely followed by infantry along the narrow front. The Royalist troops broke and fled and although few were killed in the battle many were made prisoner. Unusually for battles of this period cannon played a decisive role.

Naval Battles of the Second World War

Leo Marriott
This is a really good read. Together with a companion volume every major naval action of the Second World war is covered. Necessarily the coverage is brief for example the battle of the Atlantic has five pages of text, but every entry is supported with photographs and a map. The author’s intention was to produce a basic guide and in this he has succeeded superbly. For those whose appetites have been whetted the selected bibliography guides them to more extensive descriptions of the battles.
This is a perfect introduction for anyone new to this field but the ‘old hands’ can still get a lot from it. We highly recommend Leo Marriott’s book.

Pen & Sword Maritime, 2022