Customer Reviews

Fighting Techniques of the Oriental World: Equiptment, Combat Skills, and Tactics

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

To begin with the title is misleading, at best this book is a shallow survey of tactics & military organization from various periods & places. This book contains NO information about "Combat Skills."

Overall, the text is poorly organized & the illustrations are laughable modern sketches. For example the drawing of a Chinese Targeteer shows him barefoot with his shield held in a position that not only would completely blind him but has NOTHING in common with the standard text on Chinese Shield & Saber, the well known work of Gen. Qi Jiguang. There are almost no periods illustrations.

When this book first arrived, I was surprised to find the bibliography was less than half a page long & that it included not a single primary source.

This book is quite unusual in that it provides a basic survey of warfare in the Orient. It would have been a much, much better book if coverage had included India, South-east Asia and Korea. As it is, the book focuses primarily on citing Chinese and Japanese references. It would also have been much better if the period covered here had been moved back to include the Qin, Han and Tang dynasties, a glaring omission. As it is, it is a dismal effort.

The broad chapters include infantry, mounted troops etc but again, coverage is messy. There is no clear chronology and examples are cited out of chronology, and therefore out of context. For example, there is constant reference to Sun Tzu, the Art of War (c544-496 BC). What has this to do with the period covered? It is like citing Thucydides etc to talk about the period from the Middle Ages to the Colonial Period.

There are references to unfamiliar battles which are sketchy on details but the manner in which this is presented gives the impression of these as being steeped in facts. I am sceptical on this point as the below examples will highlight my reasons).

The chapter on the role of infantry starts off with two pictures of Qin Dynasty terracotta warriors, a period clearly outside the scope of this coverage!

The text starts off by talking about the Chinese under Mongol rule, the Ming Dynasty, switches to the later Qing Dynasty, then flips backwards to include the Qin and Han Dyansties, again periods outside ths cope of this coverage! There is absolutely no mention of the word Yuan Dynasty in the text, the official name of the Mongol period! There is a single line drawing of a Yuan Chinese Infantryman, c1260 (presumably AD?).
The chapter includes detailed descriptions of samurai swords, longbows, weapons of the cavalry. I am extremely dubious of the samurai armour as depicted in the illustrations and photos. These appear to be hybrid armours, cannibalized from various periods and reassembled to give "representative" armours. That skepticism is further reinforced by the description of the Japanese naginata as a glaive, a Western weapon!

There is quite a broad coverage on the use of firearms. Focus is given on the battle of Nagashino, where a cautionary tale is told of overstating the importance of firearms on its outcome. Then why cite this example?

Finally, there is coverage of the ninjas under infantry. Why?

The chapter on mounted warfare starts off by discussing nomadic uprisings starting from around 1004, culminating in the rise of Genghis Khan and the Mongol empire. Finally, the term "Yuan" is now used here as Kublai Khan crowning himself as the first Yuan emperor. An illustration of a Yuan Period Chinese cavalryman c 1280 contains the verbose term "the Sino-Mongol Yuan empire". This very poor illustration is unfortunately based on another poor and ugly illustration in an Osprey MAA book, which showed the same mounted man as sitting too far back on the rump of the horse.

In fact, all the line illustrations used here can be traced back to illustrations in other recent books (many Ospreys), some of dubious quality. Hence my overall skepticism on the value of this book.

In summary, Each chapter starts off by citing some typical tactics, quoting a cited reference which as it is not given in their short Bibliography, means that they are merely citing it from a secondary source. On the illustrated battles, there is some coverage of a specific battle, with or without reference to the afore-mentioned tactics just discussed. The same battle is then illustrated in a diagram, with more or less the same info pasted on it as per the main text.

The line drawings are not very good, obviously being traced from other pictures. There are also numerous typo errors.

All in all, this book provides dubious coverage on an interesting topic, unfortunately let down by poor coverage, focus, editing and illustrations.

I don't know why one reviewer was complaining about this book. I am an avid Asian history buff and was very pleased to see that this team of authors had this in their series of "Fighting Techniques..." books. I am happy to see such books written in English as it is not always easy to find materials on Asian history with such illustrations. This book talks about different battles (mainly the medieval period) and has computer-like graphic layouts showing the battle scenes with symbolic men on horses or ships. I have particular interest in the Mongol invasion attempts on Japan and there are a few pages dedicated to that here with a nice computer graphic layout showing how the ships tried to approach Hakata Bay. I noticed some of the battle layouts were also the same ones used in another book titled "Battles That Changed Warfare", but only a few of them (probably because some of the authors were involved in both books). This book mainly covers Chinese, Mongolian, Japanese, and some Korean battles. The only complaint I have is that I wish they expanded their coverage to more ancient (pre-medieval) and significant battles in Asia such as the Tang and Sui armies invasion of the Koguryo kingdom of Korea(where more than 95% of the Chinese troops were killed, leading to the weakening of those respective dynasties in China). Either way, books like this on Asian history are always a welcome read if you're into Asian history or military history in general. I look forward to their other books in this series.

This book is the one of the only modern books on Asian land battle tactics and C&C. A short section of the sea tactics is also included. If you've purchase the other books in the series it function as great overview and briefing on the way Asian armies functioned and fought from about 1600 to 1800's.

IF you harbor any interest in how Asian armies developed early in the 2nd Century then this a must buy.