British Cavalry Equipments 1800-1941

Mike Chappell comes from an Aldershot family with British Army connections stretching back several generations. He enlisted as a teenage private in the Royal Hampshire Regiment in 1952. Over the next 22 years of infantry soldiering, many of them spent with the Gloucester Regiment, he held every rank and many regimental appointments up to WO1 and Regimental Sergeant Major. he retired in 1974, as RSM of the 1st Battalion The Wessex Regiment (Rifle Volunteers), after seeing service in Malaya, Cyprus, Swaziland, Libya, Germany, Ulster and home garrisons. He began painting military subjects in 1968 and since then has gained worldwide popularity as a military illustrator. Mike has also written and illustrated many quality books in the Osprey Military list.From the opening years of the 19th century, which saw the first moves towards standardisation and the beginnings of the demise of the system which allowed the colonels of regiments so much say in the equipping of their troops, through the influences of the Napoleonic Wars to the inevitable demise of the horse in military service brought about by the mechanisation prior to the Second World War, this authoritative text examines in detail the historical development of British cavalry equipment 1800-1941.