This is another excellent outing by Turnbull in which he details one of the most significant battles of the "Warring States period" A period of civil wars in Japan that lasted about 150 years from the mid 15th century through the very end of the 16th.

The battle itself was significant for its cementing of Oda Nobunaga hold over much of Japan and for the use of massed musketry on the battlefield.

Beyond covering the battle itself, Turnbull's work here is an excellent summary of the period, the people, the gear and the politics. Volumes have been written about the Warring States period, some of it by Trumbull himself, and it can be fascinating reading but it can also be very over whelming for the beginning student. In a very few pages Trumbull sums up the period for the casual student, putting in prospective the famous names and feuds which dominate this turbulent part of Japanese history.

He also gives a very good cover of weapons and armor in the period and the place of samurai and commoner foot soldiers who were developing from the previous peasant rabble. When westerners hear about Samurai battles we think of Japanese knights with swords in brightly colored armor but Turnbull explained that by 1575 musketry was a part of Japanese armies and great lords were organizing their armies around this weapon in ways very similar to how corresponding Europeans were also developing fire arms and tactics.

"Nagashino 1575" is a very good book on an important battle in Japanese history, but its true value lies in its ability to act as a basic primer for the entire Warring States period of Japanese history. If you have an interest in this or would like just an easy to handle look into the period, then THIS is the book to start with.

Like all other books by Turnbull, this one is well-written and highly informative, but it's let down by an uncharacteristic sloppiness with regard to names and numbers. The most glaring mistakes are on page 69 (3,000 gunners can only fire 3,000 bullets, not 8-9,000, at one loading!) and page 73 (the caption mentions 12,000 horsemen - the actual number, as Turnbull himself stated elsewhere, was only a third of that). Turnbull does not explain how he derived the figure of 655 arquebusiers on the Takeda side. Nor does he account for how Baba Nobuharu could have 700 men in his vanguard (p. 77) when he was earlier only allocated 120 (p. 64), or how the Sanada brothers could lose 200 men out of a force of 250 to musket fire alone, or just what units constituted Naito Masatoyo's "initial command of 1,000" (p. 79) when he was leading a vanguard of just 250.

For that matter, Sanada "Nobuteru" (p. 77) should be Masateru, as correctly named on pages 63-64. And the descriptions of Takeda Nobutomo and Nobumitsu on page 65 are a jumbled mess, clearly a victim of poor editing. Osprey ought to correct these mistakes in future editions. I also agree with previous reviewers that the binding tends to spoil the artwork of the 2-page battle scene paintings. Osprey's strength has always been in 1-page colour plates, and I wouldn't mind them reverting to that format, with smaller paintings but more of them, in the Campaign series.