Good Book on WWII Small Arms?

[Sequoia]

Can anyone recommend a good book on WWII small arms that includes the smaller Nations?

[Waycool]

Are you game for picking up a couple books?

My faves are:

Small Arms, Artillery and Special Weapons of the Third Reich by Gander

Outstanding reference on weapons used by the German Army in WWII. Produced by two renowned experts this provides to all small arms, anti-aircraft guns, light and heavy artillery, including rail guns and armoured trains, mortars ,rockets, mines etc. etc. all well illustrated and described. 371pp., numerous illustration

The Encyclopedia of Infantry Weapons of World War II by Hogg

A fully comprehensive and illustrated reference work including every major type of weapon used by every army in the world during the Second World War. Every infantry weapond used during World War II, including rifles, machine guns, anti-tank weapons, mortars and grenades are cited on a country by country basis.

Both feature a variety of nations but mainly major countries.

Check abebooks.com (descriptions from abe)

[Waycool]

Just found out Terry Gander also has a Allied small arms book which might be worth a look

Allied Infantry Weapons of World War Two Gander

Bolt action rifles, self-loading rifles, submachine guns, light machine guns, anti-tank weapons, pistols, mortars, hand grenades, flamethrowers, infantry artillery. Illustrated with photos. 207p

[Sequoia]

Thanks. I'm going to put in an order for Hogg for starters.

[John Kettler]

Sequoia,

Find an older, therefore cheaper copy of Edward Ezell's SMALL ARMS OF THE WORLD. The whole book obviously doesn't cover your topic, but you will find a worldwide breadth of coverage here I doubt you'd find anywhere else. When Steve needed images of Hungarian rifles during CMBB development, that's

where I got them from.

The recommendations you were given are excellent, to which I'd add:

INFANTRY WEAPONS, by John Weeks

GRENADES & MORTARS, by Ian Hogg

both in the old Ballantines series

BRASSEY'S INFANTRY WEAPONS OF THE WORLD

THE COMPLETE MACHINE-GUN, Ian Hogg

WORLD WAR II SMALL ARMS, John Weeks

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WEAPONS OF WORLD WAR II

These should keep you off the streets for quite some time and should be fairly cheap to obtain

via www.abe.com or similar. Helping your cause is that except for SMALL ARMS OF THE WORLD, all of these were mass marketed, meaning lots of copies

floating around. Indeed, some of it's so readily available, at least in California, that dealers won't even buy copies of certain titles. Why? They have five already!

A word on authors. Hogg served in WW II and retired as a Master Gunner in the Royal Artillery.

Weeks, when he wrote the WW II small arms book, was a colonel attached to the Parachute Regiment and was serving as the Program Manager, Infantry Weapons, MoD. Ezell got his Ph.D. in history by tracing the search for the lightweight rifle and, when he wrote his book, ran the Military History Division of the Museum of American History where, among other duties, he was curator of the National Firearms Collection at the Smithsonian.

Regards,

John Kettler

[MikeyD]

There's a whole wide-wonderful world of 'gun collector' references out there, most often less expensive than 'military history hobbyist' material on the same subject!