British Army 2008 : A FREE book offer

[G.A.MACKINLAY]

Ladies and Gentlemen,
In August I self Published "A Moment in Time" "The British Army 2008", a 250 hardback print run, this with 124 photos and 70 badge drawings. This was completely sold out, and I will not print any more.

I am offering FREE to anyone who requires it, the text only in a electronic file copy. This is in 10point, 456 pages,paginated ready to print. In 28 Chapters, 27 annexes to them, and seven appendicies, I wrote what would have been once called a 'handbook', the content of which I would want in a handbook to buy.

All regiments and corps of the army are discussed (including a chapter on the Royal Marines and Royal Air Force Regiment), unit organisation and equipment tables, ceremonial, air operations and parachuting, amphibious landing support and security of nuclear weapons, the Royal Bodyguards to the Masons, training including that of overseas armies, a through description of the weapons, AFVs including the wheeled fighting vehicles (even tells what happened to the 40 missing Challenger-2 MBTs) artillery/engineer/logistical/ signals equipment, honours and awards to dress, ration packs to pace stick, and the ongoing saga of the Bearskin Cap. With lots of trivia and historical items.

All the information is taken from the public domain, and only reputable sources used, nothing from the internet such as Wikepedia and discussion groups-much of what is written is in total variance with such. And from the nearly 4,000 copies sent out (hard and electronic) only one factual error has been found, that pointed out by Bob Griffin (the author of the superb books on the Chieftain and Conquerer tanks) this dealing with CR-2 dozer blades, which was corrected.

This is a totally genuine FREE offer, see for one example the British Army Rumour Service entry at : http://www.arrse.co.uk/cpgn2/Forums/viewtopic/p=2157842.html#2157842
this has some positive reports on it, you will see at the start some very negative posts from people who did (and have) not actually obtained copies of the text, make up your own mind about it.

If you wish a copy please send a email to my home address. TYPE IN do not cut and paste, [email protected], and within the BODY OF THE TEXT place your email address for ease of response. My software does NOT ACCEPT CUT AND PASTE, and will reject SUCH MESSAGES.
Yours,
G/.
G.A.MACKINLAY

 

[battlensign]

Ladies and Gentlemen,
In August I self Published "A Moment in Time" "The British Army 2008", a 250 hardback print run, this with 124 photos and 70 badge drawings. This was completely sold out, and I will not print any more.

I am offering FREE to anyone who requires it, the text only in a electronic file copy. This is in 10point, 456 pages,paginated ready to print. In 28 Chapters, 27 annexes to them, and seven appendicies, I wrote what would have been once called a 'handbook', the content of which I would want in a handbook to buy.

All regiments and corps of the army are discussed (including a chapter on the Royal Marines and Royal Air Force Regiment), unit organisation and equipment tables, ceremonial, air operations and parachuting, amphibious landing support and security of nuclear weapons, the Royal Bodyguards to the Masons, training including that of overseas armies, a through description of the weapons, AFVs including the wheeled fighting vehicles (even tells what happened to the 40 missing Challenger-2 MBTs) artillery/engineer/logistical/ signals equipment, honours and awards to dress, ration packs to pace stick, and the ongoing saga of the Bearskin Cap. With lots of trivia and historical items.

All the information is taken from the public domain, and only reputable sources used, nothing from the internet such as Wikepedia and discussion groups-much of what is written is in total variance with such. And from the nearly 4,000 copies sent out (hard and electronic) only one factual error has been found, that pointed out by Bob Griffin (the author of the superb books on the Chieftain and Conquerer tanks) this dealing with CR-2 dozer blades, which was corrected.

This is a totally genuine FREE offer, see for one example the British Army Rumour Service entry at : http://www.arrse.co.uk/cpgn2/Forums/viewtopic/p=2157842.html#2157842
this has some positive reports on it, you will see at the start some very negative posts from people who did (and have) not actually obtained copies of the text, make up your own mind about it.

If you wish a copy please send a email to my home address. TYPE IN do not cut and paste, [email protected], and within the BODY OF THE TEXT place your email address for ease of response. My software does NOT ACCEPT CUT AND PASTE, and will reject SUCH MESSAGES.
Yours,
G/.
G.A.MACKINLAY

Wonderful text. Incredibly detailed and within 20 minutes I had recieved the response to my email (probably easier though as I live in Aus too). My only comment is that it can look a little dry without the pics......hope you do another hardcopy run.

Thanks,

Brett.

 

[G.A.MACKINLAY]

Brett,
my thanks for your response.

I will not be doing any other print runs of the book, I knew I could sell 250 copies, which I did within less than a week.

The photos and drawings are the intellectual property of my youngest son, and the eldest grandson respectivelly, and it placed onto an electronic file are open slather for anyone to use.

The text is quality and is as accurate as I could get, although I mention in the foreword that I did not use any document with a security restriction upon it-even though they could have enhanced the text quite dramatically. Even so the information is all from reputable sources.
Yours,
G/.
G.A.MACKINLAY

 

[rev1861]

Great post. Thanks for posting. I enjoyed the read.

 

[ROCK45]

Book

I'm currently reading it and wanted to tell the other forum members that it is real and not some internet scam, great details.

 

[swerve]

Yup. Absolutely genuine.

Gordon MacKinlay has visited other fora to give away his book, & I picked it up from him on one. If anyone wants a detailed description of the status of the British army in mid-2008, this is it. Packed with information, & obviously a labour of love.

 

[DavidDCM]

I first read your offer on tanknet, but I am a more frequent poster here than there so I comment here:

Even though I personally am not particularly interested into the British Army I find your work astonishingly enthralling to read. It gives a lot of information that can be carried over to virtually any other modern army in this world and even though I merely had an hour or two to gallop through the book I can definitely say that beyond doubt it would be worth 20 or 30 €. Not only for those particularly interested in the British army, but basically for every military enthusiast.
I can only guess how much time and labour this work took you and can virtually not believe that you give it away for free. "Thumbs up" or "Thank you" is a gross understatement of what this book deserves.

 

[hvidtfeldt]

I have just received the PDF file - it is very interesting reading and a very impressive piece of work

 

[Jezza]

fantastic will get back when i have read it

 

[rossfrb_1]

Recieved the pdf promptly, a very detailed synopsis.
cheers
rb

 

[neil]

Recieved the pdf same day. Very good and detailed. My compliments.

 

[Feanor]

Out of curiousity, why not just upload it to rapidashare (use a free upload) and post download links? It would be much easier. By the way I did send you an email and am eagerly awaiting a response.

 

[firdausj]

Recieved the pdf today. I enjoyed to read it.

 

[Feanor]

Received it, and am reading. Very interesting. Thank you for making this available to us.

 

[Todjaeger]

Received the .pdf will start reading it soon. Once I have finished, I will post my thoughts on it.

-Cheers

 

[riksavage]

In the same vain the following links provides a free download / information on the latest equipment issued to the UK military, and overview of upgrades to armoured vehicles operating in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The latter shows how remote firing stations, electronic jamming, armour upgrades and improved situational awareness are all being introduced in double quick time.

http://www.army.mod.uk/documents/general/ARMY_VEHICLES_EQUIPMENT.pdf

http://www.defense-update.com/featu...eback_mastiff_vixen_rwmik_jackal_panther.html

 

[G.A.MACKINLAY]

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Last year, I offered free to all interested parties a book, being a "A Moment In Time : The British Army", an electronic copy revised from the original hardcover.

Due to a glitch, I became unable to get back onto the thread, and a number of people who received it stated the same.

Having offered it up on other discussion groups as well, by this October, some 7,500 copies have now been sent out, and it is up on a number of websites as a permanent download item. And many people have subsequently sent copies on - one gentleman in South Korea informed me with great glee that he had sent 107 copies off to fellow enthusiasts!

Due to a great deal of feedback, I have decided to revamp the text and enhance it with events/actions that have occurred over the past year. The bulk of the original text is still of course current and correct. The chapters will be changed around, for examples all UK Special Forces will be in one chapter, as will military music.

And such as the regiments of infantry, will have individual chapters, this to include a comprehensive historical entry for their origins - rather than the simple listing of the original regiments of foot from which they originated. Other historical items will also be enhanced.

Therefore I request that anyone has any ideas for such to enhance the text, I would be most appreciative.

Having written to the publishers and given them hard/disc copies of the book, I was very disappointed to see when I received a copy of "The Armed Forces of the United Kingdom 2010-2011" a certain amount of incorrect information. And I hope that the next edition of my text will correct this.

Due to copyright reasons, I had removed from the electronic text the 124 photos and 70 drawings that had been in the hardcover. For those interested, a website jam packed full of good quality photos of British vehicles :
plain-military.tripod.com
Whilst for those persons who prefer a hard copy, the following profusely illustrated, but quite cheap books are available from Tankograd Publishing, Am Weichselgarten, Germany
REME : Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers : Vehicles of 2 Battalion
REME - Equipment Support to 7th Armoured Brigade.
Royal Armoured Engineers.
British Next Generation Armour : Types and Details of Modern British Vehicle
Armour.
British Army Training Unit Suffield : Types and Details of Modern British
Vehicle Armour.
The company will deal directly with mail order purchasers, and these books
(in German and English) I cannot recommend more highly.

For those persons who wish to see enhancements made to the text, please contact me at my home address :
gam47 @ bigpond.com

I hope to put out the 2nd Edition (solely as a electronic text - no hardcover this time) in December/January.

And of course if anyone wants a copy of the original, just ask - it is FREE!
Yours,
G/.
G.A.MACKINLAY