Whenever I read a book that aspires to be a short history of what is a long complex story I do so with a degree of trepidation. What would the authors leave out, would they achieve the right balance and, most importantly, would they do justice to the account. It is with relief that I can report that Nicholas Floyd and Paul Stevens have pulled off this tough mission. Action! Action! Action! is a complete, if select, history of 150 years of Australian artillery and is a story in which all gunners should take pride as it recounts the critical contribution of their arm to the Australia way of war.

Action! Action! Action! is more than a work of institutional reflection, however. It also seeks to educate young gunners on the accomplishments of those who served before them and to explain the place of the artillery in the past, present and future combined arms team. For the past 150 years the artillery has been integral to the performance of Australia’s land forces. From paving the way for the infantry to advance at Amiens in the First World War, to suppressing the enemy at the Battle of El Alamein and the landing at Balikpapan in the Second World War, to the point-blank defence of Fire Base Coral in Vietnam, the story of the gunner resonates throughout the history of Australia’s wars. The authors’ secondary aim is to explain to the other parts of the Army, as well as the public, how fires are employed, organised and targeted, a task they admirably accomplish.

To their credit Floyd and Stevens do not gloss over the tough periods. Budget reduction invariably followed the end of conflicts which saw units wound up, ranks cut, training reduced and the corps striving to sustain technical knowledge. The authors also discuss the failure to deploy guns in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars when the artillery remained at home. The only gunners who deployed either served British guns or worked in non-artillery roles. If the book has a weakness, it is that the authors are too kind to those who chose not to deploy the guns and the potential complications it had for the combined arms team.

Floyd and Stevens heavily illustrated their work with pictures and maps that add a visual interest that this reviewer appreciated. Enhancing the book’s depth and richness are a variety of inserts that outline the technical requirements of placing rounds on target, highlight the contribution of key individuals to the artillery’s development and draw attention to the acts of bravery of select gunners. The authors also provide over 20 tables outlining the development of the artillery organisation from Federation to the present, a valuable resource for the scholar as well as the soldier. Action! Action! Action! is a compelling work that readers will find easy to digest yet professionally fulfilling. The authors have succeeded in their remit to provide gunners with a starting point for understanding the role of their corps in the nation’s military history. Well done, Nick Floyd and Paul Stevens.

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