Том Купер – лучшие книги

In June 1967 Israel, which seemed on the verge of being annihilated by its Arab neighbours, took six days to redraw the Middle Eastern strategic map in one of the most dramatic reversals of fortune in modern times. The success was over a decade in the making following the Suez Crisis, with the Israeli forces being radically changed to create an army and air force upon which the country would rely when it became obvious the international community would take no action to implement guarantees made after the events of 1956. The Israeli forces were honed in low level clashes during the 1960s, notably the Water Wars which the Israelis did…

On 24 February 2022, eight years after invading the Crimean Peninsula of Ukraine and organising an illegal referendum in support of a subsequent Russian annexation, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Both Western and Russian intelligence services expected the invasion to quickly topple the democratically elected government in Kyiv and, with the help of collaborators, to overrun the Ukrainian armed forces in a matter of between 3 and 14 days.

Early on 24 February, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (VSRF) launched a series of missile and artillery strikes on the main air bases and dozens of other military facilities in Ukraine. Immediately afterwards, the VSRF launched a ground invasion, with its forces advancing on Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Mariupol, Melitopol, and Kherson. Although following a build-up that had begun in April 2021, and expected by many, the onslaught still came as a major surprise for the Ukrainian government, the Ukrainian armed forces, and the majority of its allies in the West, and also for the mass of officers and other ranks of the VSRF, many of whom believed that they were only to participate in exercises.

However, the deeper the Russians rolled into Ukraine, the more resistance they encountered: while some Russian units performed as expected, elsewhere whole armies began falling apart when ordered to advance at maximum possible speed without the necessary firepower and logistic support. After suffering catastrophic losses while failing to reach downtown Kyiv, and failing to reach and enter Chernihiv and Kharkiv, the war in northern and north-eastern Ukraine quickly settled down into a bloody stalemate. In the south, the Russians initially advanced at an astonishing rate, securing Melitopol during the second day of their invasion, and Kherson only a few days later. It was only once President Putin attempted to accelerate the rate of advance through ordering heliborne operations deeper into Ukraine that the VSRF suffered a severe blow in the fighting for Voznesensk and Mykolaiv, and its advance in this part of the country also came to an end.

Richly illustrated with colour photography and full colour artworks, and providing a detailed study of the organisation and order of battle of the armed forces involved on both sides, Volume 2 of War in Ukraine provides the first detailed account of the first two weeks of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Through late 1987 and early 1988, the battlefields of southern Angola moved ever further away from the border with South West Africa/Namibia, until the showdown between the Soviet and Cuban-supported government in Luanda and South African-supported insurgency of UNITA culminated in the controversial and still much disputed Battle of Cuito Cuanavale.

During this period, Angolan and Cuban airpower slowly grew to a point where it outmatched the SAAF, in turn limiting the freedom of movement of the SADF and UNITA ground forces, and reducing their operations to attritional battles, with little chance of achieving major victories on terms acceptable to the government in Pretoria.

As the changing political climate between East and West, and in Africa began to bring about and end to the South African intervention in Angola and the occupation of South West Africa/Namibia, the government of Angola was able to switch its attentions to dealing with UNITA.

Volume 5 of War of Intervention in Angola examines in detail this final period of Cuban involvement in the long and tragic civil war that ruined Angola between 1975 and 1992. While the emphasis is upon the operations of the Angolan and Cuban air forces, it also details how these impacted upon the ground operations of all parties. This volume is richly illustrated with original photographs of the forces involved, specially commissioned maps of the ground operations, and a range of full colour artworks.

The ‘Cyprus Problem’ – also known as the Cyprus dispute, Cyprus issue, Cyprus question or Cyprus conflict – is an ongoing dispute between Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Greece and Turkey. It has bedevilled not only their relations, but also those within the European Union, NATO and the United Nations, for more than 60 years.

Following a long insurgency against British colonial rule, Cyprus gained independence in 1960. Almost immediately, high tension emerged between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots. A complex set of constitutional provisions and international treaties designed to safeguard the new state and countless attempts to resolve the conflict through diplomacy failed, and in 1963-1964 fighting erupted between the communities in Nicosia that would soon spread across the rest of the island.

Ripped Apart Volume 1 provides an even-handed and richly illustrated account of the military history of Cyprus between independence from Britain and the events of 1964. Describing the tensions that emerged between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots through the 1960s, Ripped Apart helps to provide a better understanding of a conflict that remains highly controversial. Volume 1 examines the local military build-up and a series of armed clashes that shook the island in 1964, and lays much of the background to the events that would follow in the 1970s.

Always at the forefront of Arab states when it came to the development of its armed forces and armament industry, during the 1970s Iraq embarked on an ambitious program of becoming self-sufficient in production of almost all equipment and ammunition necessary for its armed forces. Indeed, during the following decade, many of the related projects became a necessity because of the lengthy and costly war with Iran. The most ambitious – and probably the best-known – such projects were related to the production of ballistic missiles: the efforts resulted in the construction of a factory for production of rocket propellant at Hillah and another…

Following years of growing tensions, in June 1982 Israel launched an all-out invasion of Lebanon. Following initial advances on Palestinian-controlled Tyre and Sidon, Beaufort Castle, and the amphibious landing at Awali, on 8 June 1982 the Israeli Defence Force initiated operations against the Syrian armed forces deployed in southern-central Lebanon. What were initially minor firefights for Jezzine and Ein Zehalta developed into major armour battles in which Syrian Gazelle helicopters took a heavy toll of Israeli armour. The following battles of Ein el-Hilweh, Khalde, and Kfar Sil are remembered by participants from all parties for their…

Officially established on 22 April 1931, around a core of 5 pilots and 32 aircraft mechanics, the Royal Iraqi Air Force was the first military flying service in any Arab country.

Wings of Iraq, Volume 2 tells the story of the Iraqi Air Force between 1970 and 1980. In doing so it examines the air force’s involvement in the October 1973 Arab-Israeli War, and then the showdown with the Iranian-supported Kurdish insurgency in northern Iraq in 1974-1975. These two affairs taught the Iraqis that numbers alone did not make an air force. Correspondingly, during the second half of the 1970s, Baghdad embarked on a project based on full technology transfer from France, which was intended to result in preparing the IrAF for the twenty-first century.

This process hardly began when the new ruler in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein at-Tikriti, led his country into an invasion of neighbouring Iran, embroiling it in a ruinous, eight-year-long war. This volume details the events leading up to the beginning of that war and its opening moves in the air.

Although virtually ‘born in battle’, collecting precious combat experience and playing an important role in so many internal and external conflicts, the Iraqi Air Force remains one of the least known and most misinterpreted military services in the Middle East. Richly illustrated, Wings of Iraq, Volume 2, provides a uniquely compact yet comprehensive guide to its operational history, its crucial officers and aircraft, and its major operations between 1970 and 1980.

In August 2015, the government of the Russian Federation embarked its military forces on an intervention in Syria. Ever since, there has been no end of discussion about Russian military capabilities and intentions – in Syria and beyond. To many, the performance of the Russian military – and especially the Russian Air-Space Force (VKS) – in this war was a clear demonstration of advanced technology, improved training, fearsome firepower, and great mobility. To others, the military operation only experienced limited success and exposed a number of weaknesses. Prominent amongst the latter were aircraft ill-suited to the necessities of expeditionary warfare, and a gross lack of advanced weaponry and equipment.

While the military component of their intervention can only be described as having provided clear evidence that the Russian military was in no condition to directly challenge NATO’s eastern frontiers, it cannot be denied that through this action Moscow effected a turning point in the Syrian Civil War, and indeed one on geostrategic level. Organised and conducted in cooperation with very diverse allies – ranging from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran (IRGC), Hezbollah of Lebanon, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and a myriad of local warlords and their armed militias – through the combination of intentional bombardment of insurgent-controlled parts of Syria, and indirect protection for the IRGC’s own military intervention in the country from a possible counter-intervention of the West, the Russians succeeded in saving the regime of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Moscow’s Game of Poker provides a unique overview and analysis of Moscow’s political aims, strategy, doctrine, target selection process, military technology and tactics, day-by-day operations, and the way the Russian Federation cooperated with local allies. This story is told in combination with exclusive insight into the similar campaign run by what was left of the Syrian Arab Air Force.

This revised edition of Moscow’s Game of Poker now includes over 130 full colour photographs, maps and specially commissioned colour artworks of vehicles, aircraft and combatants.

The Syrian Civil War experienced an entirely unexpected transformation during its first two years. It started as unrest and a series of mass demonstrations within the Syrian population in the context of wider protest movements in the Middle East and North Africa in 2011, known as the Arab Spring. Unlike events in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen, where oppressive governments were toppled by the end of that year, the government of Syria deployed the full force of its military, its intelligence apparatus, and paramilitary groups, launching an unprecedented crackdown that resulted in the arrest, detention and killing of many thousands. Despite its brutality, this effort backfired: it provoked mass desertions of the Syrian military and then an armed uprising.

The emerging insurgency was generally successful through 2012, although failing to capture Damascus, it secured more than half of Aleppo and Homs, the provincial capital of Raqqa, and nearly all of north-eastern and north-western Syria under its control. Although propped-up by economic and military support from the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russian Federation, the government of Syria was nearing the brink of collapse during the first half of 2013 when, prompted by Tehran, Hezbollah – a Shi’a Islamic militant group and political party from Lebanon – entered the conflict on its side. Soon after, Hezbollah was reinforced by significant contingents of Iranian-sponsored Shi’a from Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere, followed by volunteers from Iran, including crack units of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Meanwhile, already split along the lines of Syria’s complex demography, much of the insurgency transformed from a secular and non-sectarian movement into proxies of various foreign powers, foremost Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but also Turkey and Kuwait. Furthermore, foreign Jihadists motivated by al-Qaida joined the fray, aiming to establish an Islamist state and clandestinely cooperating with the government, they fell upon the insurgency.

Thus, an extremely complex conflict – which then not only spilled over the border into Lebanon, but had a major impact upon Iranian-Saudi relations, and relations between the West, Iran and a number of Arab countries – came into being, the outcome of which was anything but predictable.

This revised edition of Syrian Conflagration draws on extensive research, including first-hand accounts, and provides a compelling overview of the first three years of the ongoing conflict in Syria. The book features 120 full-colour photographs, 27 full-colour artworks and four colour maps.

Nominally at least, the bloody and ruinous eight-year war fought between Iran and Iraq was a confrontation dominated by operations on land. The traditional impression is that the resources devoted to naval warfare were minute in comparison to those of its major land battlefields. As so often, the reality is almost diametrically opposite. Certainly enough, the horrendous casualties incurred in major land offensives make the Iran-Iraq War one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th century. It escaped public attention that the mass of what was happening on these battlefields was decided by naval warfare and that indeed, the consequences of…

Following years of growing tensions, in June 1982 Israel launched an all-out invasion of Lebanon. During the night from 5 to 6 June 1982, four armoured divisions of the Israeli Defence Force moved into starting positions near the border with Lebanon, while a full paratrooper division was embarked on amphibious assault ships. Looking forward to engaging the enemy, the Israelis then crossed the border late on the morning of 6 June, and promptly became involved in the bitter battle of Tyre, landings at Awali, and the highly-symbolic assault on Beaufort Castle. The next day saw a further intensification of combat, with the Israelis securing…

The Iran-Iraq War was one of the bloodiest and longest conventional conflicts of the twentieth century – and one that, accidentally, created the current nightmare of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. There have been many books on the conflict, but Helion’s Iran–Iraq War mini-series was the first detailed military history using materials from both sides, as well as materials obtained from US intelligence circles and British Governmental archives. It provided a unique insight into a war which began through miscalculation and rapidly escalated into the longest conventional conflict in the post-Second World War era. Combining the four @War…

Early in the morning of 2 August 1990, aircraft of the Iraqi Air Force bombed Kuwaiti air bases, and then the Iraqi Republican Guards stormed into the country. Thus began what would be called the ‘Gulf War’ – or the ‘II Gulf War’ or ‘II Persian Gulf War’ – fought between January and March 1991.

Although encountering some problems, the Iraqi forces occupied Kuwait in a matter of a few days. However, when President Saddam Hussein of Iraq unleashed his military upon Kuwait, little did he know what kind of reaction he would provoke from the Western superpowers, and what kind of devastation his country would suffer in return.

Concerned about the possibility of Iraq continuing its advance into Saudi Arabia, the USA – in coordination with Great Britain, France, and several local allies – reacted by deploying large contingents of their air, land and naval forces to the Middle East. Months of fruitless negotiations and the continuous military build-up – Operation Desert Shield – followed, as tensions continued to increase. Determined to retain Kuwait, and despite multiple warnings from his own generals, Saddam Hussein rejected all demands to withdraw. The USA and its allies, ‘the Coalition’, were equally as determined to drive out the invader and restore Kuwaiti independence. Gradually, they agreed this would have to be by force.

Following an authorisation from the United Nations, the Coalition launched the Operation Desert Storm, on 17 January 1991, opening one of the most intensive air campaigns in history. The last conventional war of the 20th Century saw the large, but essentially traditional, Iraqi Army overwhelmed by forces trained and equipped to exploit the latest technologies.

Desert Storm reveals the whole war fought between Iraq and an international coalition, from the start of this campaign to its very end. Largely based on data released from official archives, spiced with numerous interviews, and illustrated with The authors ensure a high level of the work by offering an excellent level examination, which despite the complexity of the events allows the reader to understand every salient phase of the fighting on both sides. numerous photographs, colour profiles and maps, it offers a refreshing insight into this unique conflict.

Volume 2 of Desert Storm tells the story of the air campaign, naval operations, the 100 hours of the land war, and the aftermath of this conflict.

Equipped with well-balanced air wings, huge aircraft carriers have formed the backbone of the United States Navy’s doctrine and strategy since the Second World War. Packing an enormous punch, their purpose is to exercise control over enormous portions of airspace – in the offence or defence. From the mid-1970s until the mid-2000s, the spear tip of the USN air wings was the famous Grumman F-14 Tomcat – widely considered one of the finest air superiority systems in the world. Originally designed as a fast, manoeuvrable and well-armed fighter, the Tomcat entered service as the ultimate long-range fleet defender and became the biggest, most…

Once known as the ‘Switzerland of the Middle East’, an island of economic stability and social progress, Lebanon was shattered by a civil war that raged from 1975 until 1990. While Volume 1 of this mini-series concentrated on the conflict pitting the central government against different factions and alliances of Christians, Sunni and Shi’a Moslems, leftists, and the Israeli and Syrian armed forces from its beginning in 1975 until the Israeli Operation Stone of Wisdom (or Operation Litani) in 1978, Volume 2 continues with the period from 1978 until 1981.

With its armed forces of a size comparable to that of the strength of the active components of the contemporary US Army and led by politicians pursuing aggressive intentions towards its northern neighbour, Israel gradually established itself in control over much of southern Lebanon and all of Lebanese airspace. In turn, Syria found itself facing not only a growing insurgency and unrest at home, but also strong opposition inside Lebanon. Moreover, a seemingly endless series of air battles with the Israeli air force exposed a growing technological gap with its primary opponent, forcing it to deploy ever larger contingents of its air defences into Lebanon. After almost culminating in a major war in 1981, the situation was defused through international pressure: nominally at least, a relatively quiet period was to follow before the next storm.

Focusing on military-related developments, and containing much exclusive detail and specially commissioned illustrations, Volume 2 of Lebanese Civil War dissects the military forces of Israel, Syria and the many Lebanese militias, their equipment, intentions and capabilities, and provides a detailed, blow-by-blow account of combat operations into 1981.

When Egypt and Czechoslovakia signed the so-called ‘Czechoslovak Arms Deal’ in the mid-1950s, thy initiated a unique era of close cooperation between major Arab military powers, the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics and its allies. Within few years, the air forces of Egypt, followed by those of (in chronological order) Syria and Iraq, were all equipped with dozens and then hundreds of Soviet-made fi ghters designed by the Mikoyan i Gurevich Design Bureau – the same swept-wing jets that had taken the Western powers by surprise during the Korean War.

While the first generation of MiG jet fighters – the MiG-15 – saw only a relatively brief service in Egypt, its more efficient and uprated successor, the MiG-17F, entered service in bigger numbers, and then formed the backbone of all three air forces. In similar fashion, Egypt, followed by Syria and Iraq, purchased large numbers of Ilyushin Il-28 light bombers, while the MIG-17PF became their first radar-equipped combat aircraft, and the MiG-19 became their first supersonic fighter. Unsurprisingly, MiG-15s, MiG-17s and MiG-19s thus served with many different units and wore a wide range of very different, and often very colourful unit insignia and other markings. These aircraft saw extensive combat service in the wars with Israel, internal coups and many crises, often flown by pilots who would go on to play crucial roles in the future of their nations.

Based on original documentation and extensive interviews with veterans, and richly illustrated, MiGs in the Middle East, Volume 1 is a unique source of reference on the operational history of Il-28, MiG-15, MiG-17, and MiG-19 jet aircraft in Egypt, Iraq, and Syria from 1955 until 1963.

War of Intervention in Angola, Volume 4, continues the coverage of the operational history of the Angolan Air Force and Air Defence Force (FAPA/DAA) as told by Angolan and Cuban sources, in the period 1985-1987.

Many accounts of this conflict – better known in the West as the ‘Border War’ or the ‘Bush War’, as named by its South African participants – consider the operations of the FAPA/DAA barely worth commentary. At most, they mention a few air combats involving Mirage F.1 interceptors of the South African Air Force (SAAF) in 1987 and 1988, and perhaps a little about the activity of the FAPA/DAA’s MiG-23s. However, a closer study of Angolan and Cuban sources reveals an entirely different image of the air war over Angola in the 1980s: indeed, it reveals the extent to which the flow of the entire war was dictated by the availability – or the lack – of air power. These issues strongly influenced the planning and conduct of operations by the commanders of the Angolan and Cuban forces.

Based on extensive research with the help of Angolan and Cuban sources, War of Intervention in Angola, Volume 4, traces the Angolan and Cuban application of air power between 1985-1987 – during which it came of age – and the capabilities, intentions, and the combat operations of the air forces in support of the major ground operations Second Congress and Salute to October.

The volume is illustrated with over 80 rarely seen photographs, 5 original maps and 21 colour profiles, and provides a unique source of reference on this subject.

Hundreds of fighter-bombers of Soviet design and manufacture served in the air forces of multiple frontline Arab states during the first half of the 1960s. Not only older Mikoyan i Gurevich MiG-15s and MiG-17s, but also newer types such as the MiG-19 and MiG-21 were acquired in continuously increasing numbers, concurrently with Ilyushin Il-28- and Tupolev Tu-16 bombers, transport types such as the Antonov An-12 and Ilyushin Il-14, and trainers designed by Yakovlev. Nowhere else did they – and their pilots – play as important a role for the future of the local air forces – or entire nations – as in Egypt and Syria from 1963 until 1967. Whilst the period in question is still frequently described as a ‘peaceful decade’ in Israel and the West, they saw almost uninterrupted action: in Egypt, in Syria, as well as in Yemen, and especially in continuous incidents with Israel.

Based on official documentation and extensive interviews with dozens of veterans, and richly illustrated with exclusive photography and colour profiles, MiGs in the Middle East Volume 2 is a uniquely compact yet comprehensive guide to the build-up and operational history of Soviet-made aircraft in Egypt and Syria during this period. Prepared by authors that have established themselves as top authorities on the Arab air forces, and supported by custom-drawn colour profiles and detailed maps, it provides an exclusive, in-depth study and a single point of reference for the operational history of the Egyptian and Syrian air forces, their organisation and markings of the mid-1960s.

“A riotous journey into the heart of insanity also known as the State of Florida. Bravo!”—Gary Shteyngart, author of Lake Success

Florida, circa 1980. Reed Crowe, the eponymous Florida Man, is a middle-aged beach bum, beleaguered and disenfranchised, living on ill-gotten gains deep in the jungly heart of Florida. When sinkholes start opening on Emerald Island, not only are Reed Crowe's seedy businesses—a moribund motel and a shabby amusement park—endangered, but so are his secrets. Crowe, amateur spelunker, begins uncovering artifacts that change his understanding of the island’s history, as well as his understanding of his family’s birthright as pioneering homesteaders.

Meanwhile, there are other Florida men with whom Crowe must contend. Hector “Catface” Morales, a Cuban refugee, trained assassin, and crack-addicted Marielito, is seeking revenge on Reed for stealing his stash of drugs and leaving him for dead (unbeknownst to Reed) in the wreckage of a plane crash in the Everglades decades ago. Loner and misanthrope Henry Yahchilane, a Seminole native, has something to hide on the island. So does irascible and pervy Wayne Wade, Reed Crowe’s childhood friend turned bad penny. Then there are the Florida women, including Heidi Karavas, Reed Crowe’s ex-wife, now a globe-trekking art curator, and Nina Arango, a Cuban refugee and fiercely protective woman with whom Reed Crowe falls in love. There are curses. There are sea monsters. There are biblical storms. There’s something called the Jupiter Effect.

Ultimately, "Florida Man" is a generation-spanning story about how a man decides to live his life, and how despite staying landlocked and stubbornly in one place, the world nevertheless comes to him.

Most accounts of the conflict known in the West as the ‘Border War’ barely mention the operations by the FAPA/DAA. A handful of published histories mention two MiG-21s claimed as shot down by Dassault Mirage F.1 interceptors of the South African Air Force in 1981 and 1982, and perhaps something of the activities of its MiG-23 interceptors during the battles of the 1987-1988 period.

The story told by Angolan and Cuban sources reveals an entirely different image of the air war over Angola in the 1980s: indeed, it reveals to what degree this conflict was dictated by the availability – or the lack – of air power and shows that this issue dictated the way that the commanders of the Cuban contingents in Angola – whether as advisors or as combat troops – planned and conducted their operations.

The first contingent of Cuban troops deployed to Angola during Operation Carlota, in late 1975, included a sizeable group of pilots and ground personnel who subsequently helped build-up the FAPA/DAA from virtually nothing. They continued that work over the following 14 years – sometimes with the cooperation of Soviet advisors and others from East European countries – eventually establishing an Angolan air force that by 1988 maintained what South African military intelligence and the media subsequently described as the ‘most advanced air defence system in Africa’. The air defence system and aircraft ultimately managed a unique feat in contemporary military history: they enabled an air force equipped with Soviet-made aircraft and trained under Soviet doctrine to establish at least a semblance of aerial superiority over an air force equipped with Western-made aircraft and operating under Western doctrine.

Based on extensive research with the help of Angolan and Cuban sources, War of Intervention in Angola, Volume 3, traces the military build-up of the FAPA/DAA in the period 1975-1985, its capabilities and its intentions. Moreover, it provides a unique, blow-by-blow account of its combat operations and experiences. The volume is illustrated with rare photographs, and maps and colour profiles, and provides a unique source of reference on this topic.