"Orientalized" Between the 13th and 15th centuries Russia developed along different lines from the rest of Europe. The Mongol conquest had a profound influence on arms, armour, organization, recruitment and tactics. Russian forces were pitted against late Mongol armies strongly influenced by contact with the Turkish-Islamic world. During the closing decades of this period the rising power of Muscovy, the most "Mongolized" of the Russian principalities, turned the tables and began to dominate the remaining Mongol (Tartar) Khanates. This book reveals how the role of firearms, particularly siege artillery, and the development of distinctive Russian forms of wooden fortifications, often in conjunction with the use of gunpowder artillary, make this period in Russia's military history unique.

Illustrated by: Angus McBride