Part of my agreement to go shopping with DCOS was that I could go into as many book shops as she did soft furnishing shops.
I lucked out and ended up with two Somme 1916 books. The one with the colour photos is a birthday present which I wont see until June but was produced in conjunction with the IWM and from my look through had lots of full trench maps and situation reports. More to follow on that one later.
The other book (the interesting one) is by Duffy and is a look at the Somme battles from the German perspecive again with a fair number of maps but in Black and white but supported with narrative taken from German sources. Putting aside the catastrophe of the first day the rest of the battle appears to have nearly succeeded on several occasions in achieving the breakthrough.
The book is broken into a number of sections covering racial characteristics (The German view on Empire performance is interesting especially the characteristics of Canadian and Australian forces which aren't flattering in CERTAIN cases)
Weapons
Tactics
Officers and Leadership
Plus others
From my limited reading and knowledge there were a couple of myth busters in there; RFC performance, Artillery capability to name a couple
Final section of the book goes on to indicate that at the end of the battle they drew some conclusions one of which indicated to the Germans that the war was only going one way with them on the losing side if they couldn't match the Allies in Technology.
Excellent reading, in context, which I will be able to apply to the next book in June.
Si
experiments to find a better way to mount aircraft for wargaming.
