Monday 22 April 2013

Naval warfare from Alexander to Actium

Hellenistic and Roman Naval Warfare 336BC-31BC

This will serve to give me some additional background to the wars of the Successors, the Punic Wars and those of the later Republic of Rome

There are few pleasures in life to be the acquisition of a new book. So it was this morning when, by virtue of the finance gained by some selective eBay disposals, a newly acquired title dropped through the letter box and added a degree of lustre to the day. The above book fits in quite tidily with my small but nicely formed library on ancient naval warfare and will provide some additional background to the era covered. I quite fancy the idea of the Punic Wars afloat and so will look to tackle something for that period in due course - in conjunction with Command and Colours Ancients.

The aforementioned eBay disposals have also funded an Osprey Vanguard title that should be arriving in a couple of days as well as the last of the Stonewall Figures 1/2400th scale models I need for the four fleets I am working on. There is also suffcient change from the disposals to enable me to acquire the last ships I need to complete the Greek and Persian fleets so it has not been a bad few days - it serves to deaden the effect of the ongoing unemployment saga anyway!

6 comments:

El Grego said...

I have that one on my wish list - hopefully you can, in due time, give us a bit more information on the contents. It does sounds intriguing!

Paul O'G said...

'A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition' - Rudyard Kipling

"I quite fancy the idea of the Punic Wars afloat" - you are not alone my friend. You must read the Ship of Rome series by John Stack!

Unknown said...

There's nothing like the slight crack of the spine on a brand new book when you first open it.

Have you had problems on eBay and making a decent amount with the new shipping fees in both the US and the UK? A couple of my buddies took a bath on some of their sales over the past week due to postage increases.

David Crook said...

Hi EG,

I will certainly do so! There is a review on the Pen and Sword website but I will post something in due course.

All the best,

DC

David Crook said...

Hi Paul,

Love the Kipling! The big attraction for me with ancient naval is the old boarding vs ramming scenario and the Punic Wars is a good example. I will get to it at some point but the Greeks and Persians are my first port of call.

I will check out the titles you suggested as well....;-)

All the best,

DC

David Crook said...

Hi Anne,

I wholeheartedly agree with the first and have fallen foul of the second. I tend to base my postage on a total basis when I sell on aBay - I calculate the total requested for all the items and then see how close I actually got to it. For this batch I was under overall but only because I had gotten some items totally wrong and overstated the postage (I usually refund some of the difference).

Lessons learned though!

All the best,

DC