Historical Wargaming - Where do you get your supporting info?

I play a range of historical war-games that date from antiquity through to World War two. My war-gaming background, much like quite a few of you good people (and if you’re not a war-gamer you have weird reading tastes) is primarily Games Workshop. I started out on the now hallowed 3rd edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles (which is now revived by the Oldhammer movement) and continued on through to the current 8th edition (pfffft, yuck, argh!!!) so there was always a well delivered and tailored amount of “fluff” or background. As this was all created by GW it was easily accessible (for a price) and was only limited by the imaginings of the company.

However then along comes maturity and historical wargaming and the “fluff” aspect gets blown apart. You see there is no such thing as “fluff” when it comes to playing a WW2 war game or other period. These things actually happened, there are huge amounts of literature written about them, with many divergent themes and interpretations therefore it is not as though the game authors can control the story driven aspect of war-gaming for these periods.

So what’s the point of this post, well I thought I’d share some of my current sources of background information. The titles are all clickable links if you think they sound interesting, and I'd be interested in any recommendations you all may have.

The History of WWII Podcast - by Ray Harris Jr

Great podcast on the history of WW2 starting with the political shenanigans and going on to the battles as they happened. Episodes range in length from 30 mins to over an hour.

Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoirs of Major DickWinters

Gives so much more background to E Company, 506th PIR, 101st Airborne than Stephen Ambrose's book, covering the wider Normandy campaign that Easy company was involved in.

Osprey BattleOrders 25: US Airborne Divisions in the ETO 1944-45

Useful companion book for historic structure of the divisions and equipment. A little dry and sterile though.

Together We Stand - James Holland

The history of the war in North Africa 1942-43. It’s a great read and I’m currently three quarters of the way through it. Great if you want an insight into the weirdness that was the desert war in North Africa and some of the politics that went into it. Its not just politics though as it cleared up some of my misconceptions of both Rommel and Monty.

  

H.G.Wells - War of the Worlds

Tricky to read as the pacing and language is a little odd, although it was written some time ago. It does get me into the mood with my Victorian Science Fiction gaming and its a free download from Amazon, which is always nice

The Civil War in Yorkshire: FairfaxVersus Newcastle (Battlefield Britain)

Thoroughly interesting read and as it covers the English Civil War in the region around my home town it was easy to visualise events. Sadly it is very Parliamentarian in focus and I would prefer a more balanced viewpoint

The History of RomePodcast by Mike Duncan

The Grandaddy of all history podcasts this covers the full history starting from the founding of Rome. Well worth it, especially if you play anything from 600BC to 500AD

Xenophon - The Persian Expedition

First hand account of the March of the Ten Thousand that occurred between 401 B.C. and March 399 B.C. An interesting account of Greek warfare translated from the original text. I’m just dipping into this one now so am not sure whether it will help my burgeoning Greek project. I have an old paper copy although it is free over on project gutenberg.