Scott Forbes Crawford discusses his book on the Han-Xiongnu War (133 BC–89 AD) — a two-century confrontation between sedentary China and steppe nomads that shaped Central Asia and opened the Silk Road. Crawford retraced campaign routes across Mongolia and the Gobi, and the conversation covers Han strategic adaptation, cavalry logistics, and the operational challenges of projecting power into the steppe. A major East Asian conflict finally treated with proper military seriousness rather than footnoted as background to Silk Road romanticism.

Part 4 of Lions Led By Donkeys' series on Hideyoshi's invasion of Korea — one of the most ambitious and catastrophic military adventures of the 16th century. The series has been building well through Japanese logistics failures, Korean naval resistance under Yi Sun-sin, and Ming Chinese intervention. Four parts in, this installment carries real operational heft as it navigates the multi-party complexity that makes the Imjin War one of East Asia's most rewarding but under-studied campaigns.

⚖ The debate: Was the Imjin War primarily a failure of Japanese logistics and supply, or was it fundamentally undone by Korean naval superiority under Admiral Yi Sun-sin and Ming Chinese intervention? Some scholars emphasise Hideyoshi's overextension and broken supply lines as the decisive factor; others argue that Yi Sun-sin's destruction of the Japanese fleet and control of the Korean Strait made sustained invasion logistically impossible regardless of Japanese planning.

Angus Wallace covers the unglamorous but critical role of C-47 Dakota transport crews — paratroop drops, glider towing, supply missions over the Hump and into besieged positions — and why flying unarmed at low altitude into hostile airspace demanded a different kind of nerve than fighter or bomber operations. At 37 minutes, it's focused and efficient. A properly done treatment of a logistical dimension of air warfare that rarely gets its own episode.

🎙 Veterans' accounts: The Library of Congress Veterans History Project holds 100,000+ interviews including extensive testimony from WWII transport pilots and aircrew — searchable at loc.gov/vets

Holland and Murray launch a new series tracking Sam Bradshaw of the 6th Royal Tank Regiment through North Africa and into Italy. Part 1 sets the personal and strategic context — why British armour was in the desert, and how the early campaign against the Italians unfolded. Holland's ability to weave an individual soldier's story into the operational picture is the format at its best, and the RTR angle promises tank-war detail to come.

🏛 Where to see it: The National Army Museum, Chelsea, preserves the regimental history and artefacts of the Royal Tank Regiment, including documents and equipment from the North Africa and Italian campaigns.

Robert Harris joins Tristan Hughes to discuss Marcus Agrippa — the general whose victories at Naulochus and Actium made Augustus's empire possible. Harris brings the novelist's eye for political dynamics, and the military substance — Agrippa's naval campaigns, his engineering, his systematic erasure from the record — is genuinely present.

Christian Parkinson examines the social backgrounds, recruitment, training, and daily reality of British rank-and-file soldiers during the Napoleonic Wars — pushing back against the Wellington-era "scum of the earth" caricature. Short at 20 minutes, but specific on recruitment practices, drink culture, and what made these men fight effectively despite the contempt of their own society.

Ray Harris Jr. interviews Nick Reynolds and Katie Sanders on Peter Ortiz — French Foreign Legion veteran, US Marine, and OSS operative who organised French Resistance networks ahead of D-Day. Good biographical interview, though the format keeps it at survey level rather than operational depth.

🏛 Where to see it: The Central Intelligence Agency's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Reading Room maintains declassified OSS operational files and personnel records from World War II that document resistance coordination activities.

Holland and Sandbrook set up the Marius-Sulla conflict with Marius's rise from obscurity and the political pressures that enabled military strongmen. More political biography than battle history in this opening instalment, but the military context is foundational.