Sturmgeschutz III was originally designed as an assault weapon but as war progressed it was increasingly used in a defensive role & evolved into an assault gun & tank destroyer. By 1943 its main role was providing anti-tank support to the units in its area of operation. This consequently led to many Stu Gs being destroyed in battle. Nonetheless they were very successful as tank killers & destroyed among others many bunkers pillboxes & other defences. The Stu G was not considered to be a true tank because it lacked a turret. The gun was mounded directly in the hull in a casemate-style fashion with a low profile to reduce vehicle heights & had a limited lateral traverse of a few degrees in either direction. Thus the entire vehicle had to be turned in order to acquire targets. Omitting the turret made production much simpler & less costly enabling greater numbers to be built. Its significantly shorter vertical profile as compared to contemporary tanks made the Stu G more difficult to hit. Most assault guns were mounted on the chassis of a Panzer III or Panzer IV with the resultant model being called either a Stu G III or Stu G IV respectively. The Stu G was one of the most effective tracked vehicles of World War II & over 10 000 of them were eventually produced. During the course of the war Stu G III assault guns were issued to Sturmartillerie Batteries Sturmgeschutz Abteilungen Sturmgeschutz Brigades Sturmartillerie Batteries Ersatz (Reserve) Abteilungen & Funklenk (Remote Control) Companies. Stu G III assault guns served on all fronts of WWII until the end of the war. ...

Otto & Leni have escaped to England from Nazi Germany. They thought they were safe but now the British want them to go back. Dropped behind enemy lines they embark on a secret operation codenamed Wolfsangel. Their mission is to find & kidnap a girl who could bring down Hitler & so begins their bravest journey yet. ...

By the end of the Second World War there were soldiers of more than 30 nationalities fighting in the 38 combat division of the Waffen SS; Reich Germans were in the minority. How did a regime founded upon notions of its own racial superiority come to welcome hundreds of thousands of foreigners into its military elite
- & what motivated these men? Following the sell-out success of his first volume in this series Hitler's Gauls the author examines in depth the Langemarck division composed entirely of fighters drawn from the Flemish lands of Northern Belgium. Motivated by a powerful anti-communist zeal & a desire to escape forever the interference of their traditional enemy France these men fought at Stalingrad & in the encircling battles of the Volkhov pocket. They fought the bitter campaign in the Ukraine in 1943-44 then in Estonia at the Narva. The Division was destroyed by the Russian juggernaut in 1945. Illustrated with rare photographs many previously unpublished & with close analysis of the key figures such as Flemish Knight's Cross winner Remy Schrijnen this is a fascinating study of fanatical courage.
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The divisions of the Waffen-SS were among the elite of Hitler's armies in the Second World War. But alongside the Germans in the Waffen-SS fought an astonishingly high number of volunteers from other countries. By the end of the Second World War these foreign volunteers comprised half of all Hitler's Waffen-SS & filled the ranks of over twenty-four of the nominal thirty-eight Waffen-SS divisions. So during the most brutal war that mankind has ever known hundreds of thousands of men flocked to fight for a country that was not theirs & for a cause that was one of the most monstrous & barbaric in history. Who were these men & why did they fight? Hitler's Gauls" is an in-depth examination of one of these legions of foreign volunteers the Charlemagne division who were recruited entirely from conquered France. The men in Charlemagne often motivated by an extreme anti-communist zeal fought hard on the Eastern Front including battles of near annihilation in the snows of Pomerania & the final stand in the ruins of Berlin. This definitive history illustrated with rare photographs explores the background training key figures & full combat record of one of Hitler's lesser known foreign units of the Second World War." ...

Reinhard Heydrich is widely recognized as one of the great iconic villains of the twentieth century an appalling figure even within the context of the Nazi leadership. Chief of the Nazi Criminal Police the SS Security Service & the Gestapo ruthless overlord of Nazi-occupied Bohemia & Moravia & leading planner of the ' Final Solution' Heydrich played a central role in Hitler's Germany. He shouldered a major share of responsibility for some of the worst Nazi atrocities & up to his assassination in Prague in 1942 he was widely seen as one of the most dangerous men in Nazi Germany. Yet Heydrich has received remarkably modest attention in the extensive literature of the Third Reich. Robert Gerwarth weaves together little-known stories of Heydrich's private life with his deeds as head of the Nazi Reich Security Main Office. Fully exploring Heydrich's progression from a privileged middle-class youth to a rapacious mass murderer Gerwarth sheds new light on the complexity of Heydrich's adult character his motivations the incremental steps that led to unimaginable atrocities & the consequences of his murderous efforts toward recreating the entire ethnic makeup of Europe. ...

What if the Second World War had started in 1938? The two sides of the Spanish civil war are still locked in a blood-soaked stalemate. Stalin's purge of the Red Army is barely underway. & Neville Chamberlain
- sickened by the arrogance & duplicity of the Germans- does not return from Munich waving the piece of paper that would give the Czech arms factories to Hitler & postpone the war until 1939. On October 1 German tanks cross the Czech frontier touching off declarations of war from France from England from the USSR. Poland fearing the Russians more than Hitler declares war on the German side. Soon Fascist Spain attacks Gibraltar the Japanese army crosses the Manchurian frontier into Siberia.. .and the British Army sets off for France which has launched a pre-emptive attack on the Rhinel&. The war we know as World War II has begun
- a year early in an entirely different way.

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Amazingly detailed & meticulously crafted.. . Hitman will stand the test of time as one of the definitive wrestling biographies
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This latest collection of HITMAN tales all collected for the first time begins when Tommy Monaghan heads to Ireland to learn dark truth about his past
- & why his parents abandoned him. Then its a plague of the undead as Tommy & his killer sidekicks tackle what seems to be a kidnapping but ends up being a bloodbath. And Tommy goes toe-to-toe with his rival assassin Ringo Chen whos now dating Tommys old girlfriend. Petty jealousy quickly turns to violence between these two hitmen. Plus when Lobo stops off at Tommy Monaghans favorite bar for a quick brew trouble quickly turns into mayhem! Will the troubled super-team known as Section Eight be able to save the day? Probably not. Collects HITMAN 35-42 & HITMAN/LOBO 1.
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Agent 47 might be the best assassin the Agency has ever had but hell need all of his skill cunning & ruthlessness if he is to survive his toughest assignment yet. Since the devastating conclusion of Hitman: Blood Money Agent 47 has been MIA. Now fans awaiting the return of the blockbuster video-game & film phenomenon can pinpoint the location of the worlds most brutal & effective killer-for-hire before he re-emerges in Hitman: Absolution. When the Agency lures him back with a mission that will require every last ounce of his stealth strength & undercover tactics they grossly underestimate the silent assassins own agenda. Because this time Agent 47 isnt just going to bite the hand that feeds him.. .hes going to tear it off & annihilate anyone who stands in his way. ...

Doug is still in the netherworld. Hes working a cleaning job in the Hives stinking hallways trying to ignore the screams & reading romance comics to the breeders. But as the stories unravel on the page frame by frame mirrored memories plunge him back into his waking life. & thats where the real nightmare is. In Burns trademark hard-edged style The Hive" is horrifying & completely absorbing: an incredible new installment from one of the most exciting artists in the comics world." ...