Helion and Company, 2015. — 82 p. Best known in the USA as a former colony and exotic tourist location, the Republic of the Philippines has seen civil unrest, insurgencies and separatism movements ever since independence in 1946. Endemic corruption, human rights violations, ethnic strife and a shaky economy have fuelled wars that have been raging on and off for almost 70 years....
Helion and Company, 2015. — 74 p. On 30 March 1972 the South Vietnamese positions along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separated the North from South Vietnam were suddenly shelled by hundreds of heavy guns and multiple rocket launchers. Caught in a series of outposts of what was the former ‘McNamara Line’, the shocked defenders had just enough time to emerge from their...
Helion and Company, 2015. — 74 p. On 30 March 1972 the South Vietnamese positions along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separated the North from South Vietnam were suddenly shelled by hundreds of heavy guns and multiple rocket launchers. Caught in a series of outposts of what was the former ‘McNamara Line’, the shocked defenders had just enough time to emerge from their...
Helion and Company, 2015. — 74 p. On 30 March 1972, while peace negotiations had been dragging on for four years in Paris, the North Vietnamese launched a wide scale offensive in order to break the stalemate. At that date, practically no American ground forces remained in South Vietnam where a limited offensive was expected in the Central Highlands area. But nobody imagined the...
Helion and Company, 2015. — 74 p. On 30 March 1972, while peace negotiations had been dragging on for four years in Paris, the North Vietnamese launched a wide scale offensive in order to break the stalemate. At that date, practically no American ground forces remained in South Vietnam where a limited offensive was expected in the Central Highlands area. But nobody imagined the...
Helion and Company, 2017. — 88 p. After 27 years of conflict it seemed that peace would finally settle on the Indochina peninsula on 27 January 1973 with the signing of a peace accord in Paris. The North Vietnamese had previously launched their greatest offensive against South Vietnam but fell short of their objectives, the destruction of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam...
Helion and Company, 2018. — 88 p. When released into independence from Great Britain in 1948, the stunningly beautiful island of Ceylon, renamed Sri Lanka in 1972, was expected to become a sort of ‘South Asian Singapore.' However, stable political order and bright economic prospects proved insufficient to maintain peace. A host of unsolved ethnic conflicts and social...
Helion and Company, 2018. — 88 p. When released into independence from Great Britain in 1948, the stunningly beautiful island of Ceylon, renamed Sri Lanka in 1972, was expected to become a sort of ‘South Asian Singapore.' However, stable political order and bright economic prospects proved insufficient to maintain peace. A host of unsolved ethnic conflicts and social...
Helion and Company, 2019. — 98 p. It was almost exactly 15.00 hours local time, on 25 June 1950, when nine Yakovlev Yak-9P fighters of the North Korea’s ‘Korean People’s Air Force’ (KPAF) simultaneously attacked Seoul International Airport and the Kimpo Airfield outside Seoul, the capitol of South Korea. In the course of their attacks, the Yaks shot up ground installations and...
Helion and Company, 2019. — 68 p. Upon achieving independence from Great Britain in 1948, the stunningly beautiful island of Ceylon, re-named Sri Lanka in 1972, was expected to become a sort of ‘South Asian Singapore’. However, stable political order and bright economic prospects proved insufficient to maintain peace. A host of unsolved ethnic conflicts and social inequalities...
Helion and Company, 2019. — 68 p. Upon achieving independence from Great Britain in 1948, the stunningly beautiful island of Ceylon, re-named Sri Lanka in 1972, was expected to become a sort of ‘South Asian Singapore’. However, stable political order and bright economic prospects proved insufficient to maintain peace. A host of unsolved ethnic conflicts and social inequalities...
Helion and Company, 2019. — 96 p. At the Forward Edge of Battle is the first ever illustrated history of the Pakistan Armoured Corps. The Pakistan Armoured Corps is based on a unique blend of values and traditions inherited from its predecessors, with those of the post-Independence national army. Origins of this force can be traced back to the times the cavalry units of the...
Helion and Company, 2020. — 138 p. At the Forward Edge of Battle is the first ever illustrated history of the Pakistan Armoured Corps. The Pakistan Armoured Corps is based on a unique blend of values and traditions inherited from its predecessors, and those of the post-Independence national army. The origins of this force can be traced back to the time when the cavalry units of...
Helion and Company, 2020. — 98 p. The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 was a major military confrontation between India and Pakistan. Fought on two fronts of the Indian sub-continent between 3 and 17 December 1971, it pitted two major conventional armed forces in an all-out war over the fate of the former East Pakistan, and resulted in the emergence of a new, independent nation of...
Helion and Company, 2020. — 90 p. In 1999, less than one year after both countries tested nuclear weapons, India and Pakistan found themselves locked in another armed conflict. In spite of a ray of hope for peace in February 1999, when the Indian Prime Minister, A.B. Vajpayee, visited Pakistan and signed the Lahore declaration, by April 1999, the two countries were effectively...
Helion and Company, 2020. — 72 p. This is the story of nine diverse air forces, their aircraft, and air warfare over Afghanistan in the period between the Soviet withdrawal of 1989, and the US-led Western intervention in 2001. Afghanistan is widely considered one of the World’s most primitive and hostile environments. The terrain is rugged and the climate harsh; in many parts...
Helion and Company, 2020. — 104 p. Drawing on a wide range of Vietnamese-language sources, the author presents a detailed account of the continuing efforts of North Vietnam to invade the South, enlivened by a large number of previously unpublished photographs, and color profiles for modelers. A year after the Paris peace accord had been signed, on 17 January 1973, peace had not...
Helion and Company, 2020. — 80 p. In June 1990, a mere three months after the Indian Peace Keeping Force withdrawal from Sri Lanka, the war between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan government resumed and was to continue unabated until another cease-fire in early 1995. This period of the protracted Sri Lankan civil war, known as Eelam War II, saw...
Helion and Company, 2020. — 80 p. In June 1990, a mere three months after the Indian Peace Keeping Force withdrawal from Sri Lanka, the war between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan government resumed and was to continue unabated until another cease-fire in early 1995. This period of the protracted Sri Lankan civil war, known as Eelam War II, saw...
Helion and Company, 2020. — 84 p. In 1947, India and Pakistan were partitioned by their former colonial ruler, Great Britain. A job that should have taken ten-years was done in a few months. Britain, drained by two world wars in 40-years, no longer had the will or the money to guide the subcontinent to a peaceful partition by consensus. More importantly, the subcontinent was...
Helion and Company, 2021. — 88 p. In early October 1966, the fresh and inexperienced 196th Light Infantry Brigade of the US Army was conducting a series of routine patrols in War Zone C. A lucky discovery of a rice cache led to the uncovering of a planned base area being established by the Viet Cong insurgents of South Vietnam (NLF) southeast of Tay Ninh City. What followed was...
Helion and Company, 2021. — 70 p. In 1984, the Indian Army carried out a stunning operation that captured the Siachen Glacier in the northernmost regions of what is now the Union Territory of Ladakh. Since that time, a full brigade of Indian troops has faced off against a similar number of Pakistani soldiers in the highest battlefield on earth. Sustained by a combination of...
Helion and Company, 2021. — 78 p. The victory of the communists in the Chinese Civil War resulted in the formation of a new socialist state in Asia – the People’s Republic of China – soon recognised and assisted by the Soviet Union. After Stalin’s death, however, relations between Moscow and Beijing began to rapidly deteriorate. With the beginning of the so-called ‘cultural...
Helion and Company, 2021. — 82 p. During the first half of the 20th century, Czarist Russia and then the successor Soviet Union, fought a series of undeclared wars against the Empire of Japan in the Far East. The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 was fought over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and Korea and ended in a Japanese victory that would leave the Imperial Japanese...
Helion and Company, 2021. — 78 p. The communist victory in the Chinese civil war resulted in the formation of a new socialist state – the People’s Republic of China. The Soviets were the first to recognise the PRC, and subsequently provided China with considerable assistance. After Stalin’s death, however, relations rapidly deteriorated over disagreements regarding Stalin’s...
Helion and Company, 2021. — 64 p. During a National Security Council meeting in March 1971, Henry Kissinger commented to those around the table, "When the CIA reaches the point of having the largest army in Southeast Asia, we better review the program!" He was referring to the secret war brewing in Laos, where the Central Intelligence Agency was training, funding, and leading...
Helion and Company, 2021. — 86 p. Since the 1998 nuclear tests and the publication of India’s Nuclear Doctrine, India has continued to face endemic security challenges from both China and Pakistan. The latter, through the apparent induction of tactical nuclear weapons into the equation and a rapid expansion of its fissile material production capacity has introduced an...
Helion and Company, 2021. — 70 p. In 1988, the Indian Army and Air Force, ably supported by the Indian Navy, carried out a daring intervention in the Maldives. The government of the Maldives, led by Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, facing an attempted coup by PLOTE, a renegade group of Tamil insurgents from Sri Lanka, sent out a request for help, to which India responded. Operation Cactus...
Helion and Company, 2022. — 82 p. During the first half of the 20th century, the Empire of Japan fought a series of undeclared wars in the Far East against Tsarist Russia and the successor Soviet Union. The first of these, fought in 1904-1905 over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and Korea, ended in a clear-cut Japanese victory. Following the Japanese occupation of...
Helion and Company, 2022. — 78 p. During a closed-door meeting of Washington policy makers on 31 March 1971, a senior CIA officer informed National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger that the agency was controlling up to 8 divisions of indigenous troops in Laos. “When the CIA reaches the point of having the largest army in Southeast Asia,” retorted Kissinger, “we better review...
Helion and Company, 2022. — 80 p. The idea of an anti-ship ballistic missile has taken root in China’s military planning. The country is not only building more of its first version of such a weapon, the DF-21D, but has developed an anti-ship warhead for another such missile, the more-numerous DF-26, billed as having a 2,500-mile range — more than enough to hit Guam from several...
Helion and Company, 2022. — 80 p. The Indian Air Force was formed on 8 October 1932. Tested in the Second World War and in subsequent India-Pakistan conflicts, the force enters its 90th year as one of the largest air forces in the world. However, it also faces enhanced challenges in the region as it seeks to replace legacy systems, upgrade its combat and support assets and to...
Helion and Company, 2022. — 82 p. The third volume of the Target Saigon mini-series describes the opening stages of the final communist offensive against South Vietnam. The decision of President Nguyen Van Thieu to evacuate the Central Highlands was part of a wider scheme that envisaged an extensive redeployment of South Vietnamese forces and led to the abandonment of nearly...
Helion and Company, 2022. — 98 p. The early 1960s are considered to be a period of failure in the fight against the Viet Cong. However, new research reveals that the VC came very close to being defeated. They were – in their own words – being ‘cut up’. Hunting the Viet Cong: Counterinsurgency in South Vietnam 1961–1963 presents a new perspective on the early stages of the...
Helion and Company, 2022. — 84 p. CIA Paramilitary Operations in Tibet is the story of how the US government – primarily through the CIA and often in cooperation with India – came to harness, nurture, and encourage Tibetan defiance in one of the most extreme covert campaigns of the Cold War. In particular, it details an important chapter in the CIA’s paramilitary history. In...
Helion and Company, 2022. — 88 p. After two protracted years of fighting that wore down the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), the North Vietnamese decided to launch their final offensives in January 1975. The president of South Vietnam, Nguyen Van Thieu, decided upon a wide range of strategic withdrawals to consolidate his forces that saw the northern half of the country...
Helion and Company, 2022. — 84 p. Best known by their French acronym for Forces Armées du Royaume – FAR – the Royal Lao Armed Forces were the official defence force of the Kingdom of Laos – what is now the Lao People’s Democratic Republic – from 1949 until 1975. Founded in 1947, when King Sisavang Vong declared Laos an independent nation (and a Kingdom from 1949), the FAR...
Helion and Company, 2022. — 78 p. To say that the Pakistan Air Force has an eventful history would not be an overstatement. From its very inception it was involved in the support of ground troops in Kashmir while trying to stand on its own feet in the immediate aftermath of the partition of British India. Two major wars ensued in which it performed well against the numerically...
Helion and Company, 2023. — 104 p. Eagles of Destiny Volume 2 is a detailed account of the transformation of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) with the help of the first US assistance program, and how its leadership utilised this opportunity to create a modern air force. It provides detailed coverage of the PAF's participation in the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War, based on official...
Helion and Company, 2023. — 90 p. In February 2019, the Indian Air Force struck at targets in Pakistan in retaliation for a terrorist attack on a convoy of the Indian Central Reserve Police Force in Kashmir. The next day, Pakistan retaliated in an inconclusive air battle. These were the most recent actions in a conflict between the two nuclear powers. Terror and Response...
Helion and Company, 2023. — 98 p. In the early 1960s, the American-backed South Vietnamese government began an aggressive counterinsurgency programme aimed at eliminating the Viet Cong. The policy – known as the Strategic Hamlet Programme – seriously hurt and ‘cut up’ the VC. The second volume in this series, Hunting the Viet Cong: The Fall of Diem and the Collapse of the...
Helion and Company, 2023. — 82р. Rooks in Afghanistan tells the story of the aircraft and crews of units of the Soviet Air Force equipped with the Sukhoi Su-25 attack aircraft. Between 1978 and 1989, a total of 582 single-seat Su-25s were manufactured for the Soviet Air Force – all at Factory 31 at Tbilisi, in the Soviet Republic of Georgia. Although 180 went for export, the...
Helion and Company, 2023. — 108 p. The famed American Volunteer Group (AVG) created in August 1941, under the command of Claire Lee Chennault set an example of heroism for the American public opinion at the onset of the Second World War. This band of volunteer aviators serving under the Chinese Government tried to stem the tide of the Japanese onslaught throughout Southeast...
Helion and Company, 2023. — 64 p. The aftermath of the Second World War saw many colonial empires in a state of upheaval. In South East Asia, what had been armed resistance against the Japanese invaders and occupiers was now often turned into national liberation movements seeking independence from the European empires. The Second World War may have ended but this was anything...
Helion and Company, 2023. — 90 p. Undoubtedly, America's attempt to push back communism in Vietnam is the most well-known war fought in Asia since 1945. However, it was preceded by a conflict between French and Vietnamese forces that resulted in the deaths of over 75,000 members of France's armed forces from December 1946 to July 1954. The First Indochina War was a particularly...
Helion and Company, 2023. — 84 p. Thailand is often thought of in the West as a tropical paradise and a holiday destination, indeed, it is sometimes referred to as 'The Land of Smiles'. In practice however, Thailand – a deeply conservative nation holding its monarchy in great esteem – is a country beset by security problems and very deep internal political divisions. Between...
Helion and Company, 2023. — 88 p. In 1947, India and Pakistan were partitioned by their former colonial ruler, Great Britain. A job that should have taken ten-years was done in a few months. Britain, drained by two world wars in 40-years no longer had the will or the money to guide the subcontinent to a peaceful partition by consensus. More importantly, the subcontinent was...
Helion and Company, 2023. — 88 p. In March 1969 the two giants of the Communist world – the People’s Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics – came to blows over the control of a remote and uninhabited island on their mutual border in a conflict that risked barely controlled escalation, and in which the USSR gave consideration to the use of nuclear...
Helion and Company, 2023. — 108 p. At the beginning of June 1942, in the wake of the enormous Japanese struggle to bring a conclusive victory in the Pacific War, the Imperial Japanese Navy commenced Operation AL (AL Sakusen). Among the objectives of this bold plan was the 2nd Kidō Butai’s carrier-borne strike on the American military base at Dutch Harbor and seizing part of the...
Helion and Company, 2023. — 98 p. In December 1979 the USSR’s 40th Army crossed the border into Afghanistan. Special forces troops – the infamous GRU Spetsnaz – and KGB agents had already entered the country and in a fierce gun battle assassinated Afghanistan’s President Hafizullah Amin in Tajbeg Palace so that he could be replaced by rival Babrak Karmal. The official...
Helion and Company, 2024. — 60 p. The utilisation of air power by the Communist regime in Russia during the revolutionary period and civil war to control its territories in Central Asia is an intriguing aspect of military history often overlooked in Western narratives. The region, which bordered Iran, Afghanistan, and China, and included the ancient cities of Samarkand and...
Helion and Company, 2024. — 128 p. In Last War of the Superfortresses the authors provide a detailed history of the confrontation between Soviet fighters and the United States Far East Air Force’s B-29 ‘Superfortress’ bombers during the Korean War of 1950–1953, drawing on Military documents in the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation in Podolsk...
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