Customer Reviews

Nagashino 1575 (Trade Editions)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In Nagashino 1575, Stephen Turnbull again makes a valuable contribution to the limited body of works on samurai military history available in the English language. As in his earlier books, Mr. Turnbull gives as detailed a strategic and tactical account of the battle of Nagashino as is possible from the limitations of the historical sources. As in his earlier works, however, the author is careful to give a fair appraisal of the accuracy of the source. The book also balances the details with a overview of the events leading to the battle, as well as a general introduction to the players who will be well-known to samurai history fans, but likely unknown to anyone else. In addition to an interesting narrative, like other the volumes of Osprey's two Campaign and Men-at-Arms series, this book is full of illustrations and descriptions of the arms and equipment of the armies involved. The book's only defect is in its binding; the inner edges of the large 2-page illustrations disappear into the crease and hide the center portion of the image. Nevertheless, this book's many color and black-and-white illustrations will prove very useful to miniaturists and its maps an excellent resource for wargamers. This is a 5-star book for anyone with an interest in samurai warfare.

Stephen Turnbull is one of the best known scholars and active writers on the subject of samurai history. His book on Nagashino battle is probably a demonstration of what Dr. Turnbull does the best - case study.

The Nagashino starts with with historical background and goes thoroughly through the description of opposing armies, personalities of commanders and other key figures (including among others Okudaira Sadamasa, whose determined resistance to Takeda army in Nagashino castle played its part in making Takeda Katsuyori accept the challenge to fight the fatal for the clan of Takeda battle). Further the author describes in detail the structure of armies, tactics and strategy of Takeda and Oda/Tokugawa forces, the battle itself and aftermath.

Those interested in samurai loyalty will be interested in description of a famous incident when one of Tokugawa samurai, Torii Sune'emon captured by Takeda warriors and offered to serve the new lord. Sune'emon defied Katsuyori's orders and was killed. However, he was admired by both armies alike and one of the commanders of Takeda army was so impressed by Sune'emon's deed that he adopted a picture of the brave samurai on his banner!

The book is full of colour plates, maps and pictures of the battleground and provides wealth of information on the one of the most important battles in Japanese medieval history. During Nagashino Oda Nobunaga introduced volley arquebus fire, which forever changed the samurai warfare burying the old school of cavalry charge (Takeda army was famous for its cavalry attacks) of elite mounted warriors. The impact of Nagashino was felt by samurai commanders through Sekigahara.

The strengths of this Osprey Campaign series title are its excellent art work and maps, very detailed order of battle data, numerous modern photographs of the battlefield and the author's intimate knowledge of Japanese 17th Century warfare. The description of both the siege of Nagashino Castle and the battle are well-written. However the author falls a bit short in the area of military analysis. The Takeda Army was renowned for its cavalry - about 27% of its army - and Turnbull makes great effort to show the defensive measures that Oda Nobunaga and Ieyasu Tokugawa took to stop this cavalry. Yet Turnbull provides no detailed information on Japanese Samurai cavalry tactics or why the Takeda cavalry was so formidable. Turnbull does provide good detail on the arquebus corps and how it was used. Finally, the entire rationale for the Takeda attacking a relief force that was three times its size is never explained. In this account, it appears rather foolhardy and almost suicidal. The bibliography is quite sparse and the wargaming notes (not written by Turnbull) are the usual silly 'matrix' and 'disguised scenario' sort. This is a good complimentary work on a less known battle, but it could use a little more depth and a little less "fluffy" artwork.

This book contains a very good description of the battle, both its cause, and results. It also amply describes the various personalities that participated on both sides. The reason I only give this 3 stars is because of the artwork and maps. Yes the book provides vital maps and some beautiful paintings, but they are printed on 2 page spreads. Given the binding of the book, you can't really see what's in the middle of say Nagashino Castle or the main battlefield without ripping the book in half the process. Beautiful paintings of Samurai in action are marred for the same reason. If the maps had been turned into pull out or fold out pages, it would have made things much clearer and more useful for wargaming etc. A different format would have made this a 4.5 star easily.

This book is very thorough in its descriptions of the battle, its weaponary and the outcome. It also includes great information with regards to individual samurai and how their previous experience may have influenced the battle outcome. The information from this book alone is worth the buy. You can hardly find any book as such outside Japan. However, the only fuss I have is that the book could have been published with better binding or include a hardcover edition. The binding is so bad that you might ruined the book in the process of trying to get a better view of its contents. Other than that, it's a book that must not be missed by students of Sengoku Jidai.

Like all other books by Turnbull, this one is well-written and highly informative, but it's let down by an uncharacteristic sloppiness with regard to names and numbers. The most glaring mistakes are on page 69 (3,000 gunners can only fire 3,000 bullets, not 8-9,000, at one loading!) and page 73 (the caption mentions 12,000 horsemen - the actual number, as Turnbull himself stated elsewhere, was only a third of that). Turnbull does not explain how he derived the figure of 655 arquebusiers on the Takeda side. Nor does he account for how Baba Nobuharu could have 700 men in his vanguard (p. 77) when he was earlier only allocated 120 (p. 64), or how the Sanada brothers could lose 200 men out of a force of 250 to musket fire alone, or just what units constituted Naito Masatoyo's "initial command of 1,000" (p. 79) when he was leading a vanguard of just 250.

For that matter, Sanada "Nobuteru" (p. 77) should be Masateru, as correctly named on pages 63-64. And the descriptions of Takeda Nobutomo and Nobumitsu on page 65 are a jumbled mess, clearly a victim of poor editing. Osprey ought to correct these mistakes in future editions. I also agree with previous reviewers that the binding tends to spoil the artwork of the 2-page battle scene paintings. Osprey's strength has always been in 1-page colour plates, and I wouldn't mind them reverting to that format, with smaller paintings but more of them, in the Campaign series.

This is another excellent outing by Turnbull in which he details one of the most significant battles of the "Warring States period" A period of civil wars in Japan that lasted about 150 years from the mid 15th century through the very end of the 16th.

The battle itself was significant for its cementing of Oda Nobunaga hold over much of Japan and for the use of massed musketry on the battlefield.

Beyond covering the battle itself, Turnbull's work here is an excellent summary of the period, the people, the gear and the politics. Volumes have been written about the Warring States period, some of it by Turnbull himself, and it can be fascinating reading but it can also be very over whelming for the beginning student. In a very few pages Turnbull sums up the period for the casual student, putting in prospective the famous names and feuds which dominate this turbulent part of Japanese history.

He also gives a very good cover of weapons and armor in the period and the place of samurai and commoner foot soldiers who were developing from the previous peasant rabble. When westerners hear about Samurai battles we think of Japanese knights with swords in brightly colored armor but Turnbull explained that by 1575 musketry was a part of Japanese armies and great lords were organizing their armies around this weapon in ways very similar to how corresponding Europeans were also developing fire arms and tactics.

"Nagashino 1575" is a very good book on an important battle in Japanese history, but its true value lies in its ability to act as a basic primer for the entire Warring States period of Japanese history. If you have an interest in this or would like just an easy to handle look into the period, then THIS is the book to start with.

It's an OK treatment, within the limited confines of an Osprey title, and I agree with an earlier reviewer that the illustrations are pretty much useless. However, the suggestions for further reading leave much to be desired: Two titles in Japanese that will be inaccessible to most English readers, and the rest is unashamed self promotion: Other books written by Turnbull. Turnbull seems to have misunderstood the point of this section. It's not supposed to be advertisement, but a service to the reader who wants to know more. In general, if authors are not mature enough to handle this, perhaps it should be put into the hands of others.