A big leap forward

A couple of weeks ago I and some of the other rejects went to the Cavalier wargames show in Tonbridge Kent. Like pretty much every other blogger that went I posted a load of pictures but I also showed off some of the hobby loot I came home with. One of my best acquisitions was a collection of books on North Africa that I got from David Crook (check out his blog A Wargaming Odyssey). Now that I have had a chance to look through them in detail I feel I should shout out an even BIGGER thank you to him than I did at the time because they are proving to be really really useful. 

My book haul

The two books by Ken Ford (the Gazala and El Alamein Osprey books) are particularly relevant as they cover the specific period I am working on. The Tobruk and Libya books also help set the scene and fill in my knowledge of the campaign up to this period. As you'd expect from Osprey's they have plenty of colour plates and maps and are very clear and well written. The best of the bunch though has to be the Desert Adversaries book by George Forty and Chris Ellis. This looks at the 21st Panzer and 7th Amoured Division in some detail from their origins, through the desert battles and through to the end of the war. Each 'half' of the book comes with a really good bibliography and even a list of useful Internet sources.

All these books have plenty of period photo's and its these and the sections on vehicle markings that have proved most useful so far. Google Search is a very useful tool, but sometimes nothing quite beats just grabbing a reference book and looking at original period photographs. Another thing in these books that I have found really interesting was their references to the extensive use of minefields by both sides. This was something that I already knew about but hadn't really appreciated the scale of their employment or how valuable they were tactically... this is definitely something that needs to be worked into future games!