Some Magazines Don't Hold Any Bullets

Armor Journal Flight Journal Magazine

Coming soon is a new magazine called Armor Journal. They will have articles about tanks and other aspects of ground warfare. The first issue is scheduled for November 2008. One of the best parts of a wargame army is the information that backs it up. I buy many books and magazines, visit web forums, and websites frequently to stay up to date on military technology and happenings. Even information from WWII often gets an update as new photos are discovered in some attic or an old tank is discovered in a bog.

A good library of books and magazines can provide inspiration for scenarios, details on unit organizations, weapons statistics, and vehicle production and variants. I like to build unusual vehicles that saw combat and even those that probably did not, but may have. At the time of the fall of the Soviet Union, the KGB archives were opened to the West for the first time. Many new facts were discovered and many rumors were quashed or confirmed as a result. Frequently books written on tanks, or other armored vehicles from the Eastern Front in WWII contain factual errors if they were written prior to about 1995. I have replaced and updated much of my book collection to gain this new knowledge we did not posses prior to that time.

Part of the fun of the hobby is doing careful research on battles, tactics, uniforms, equipment, and weapons development, politics and geography. I have found it makes me better able to understand present events because I know the history behind them. The wargames are more realistic and take on more meaning if you have read the stories of the men and women that participated in the battles. I like to start with a general history of a campaign, then individual battles, then unit histories and finally individual stories written by the soldiers that were there. Only then do I feel I can fully comprehend the nature of the events in context. So be sure your hobby budget includes money for books.