Bruce Quarrie was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 author and historian. He studied English at Peterhouse College, Cambridge University and graduated with honours in 1968. He became a journalist with the Financial Times

Financial Times

The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....

 and then in 1972 joined Patrick Stephens Limited, a Cambridge specialist publisher, as editor of Airfix

Airfix

Airfix is a UK manufacturer of plastic scale model kits of aircraft and other subjects. In Britain, the name Airfix is synonymous with the hobby, a plastic model of this type is often simply referred to as "an airfix kit" even if made by another manufacturer....

 magazine, which PSL produced. He wrote the first of his many books about wargaming

Wargaming

A wargame is a strategy game that deals with military operations of various types, real or fictional. Wargaming is the hobby dedicated to the play of such games, which can also be called conflict simulations, or consims for short. When used professionally to study warfare, it is generally known as...

 in 1974 and in 1986 he became a (prolific) full-time writer on this and military subjects generally. He wrote over 40 titles, mainly on Second World War history, and edited many more.

Quarrie had a reputation for painstaking research and attention to detail, reflected in the high prices many of his out-of-print works still fetch on the second-hand market. His definitive Encyclopedia of the German Army was even published in German. Historian and novelist Len Deighton

Len Deighton

Leonard Cyril Deighton is a British military historian, cookery writer, and novelist. He is perhaps most famous for his spy novel The IPCRESS File, which was made into a film starring Michael Caine....

 described him as "one of our most meticulous and well-informed historians."

Bruce Quarrie was an active wargamer and a member of clubs in, successively, north-east London, Cambridge, and Wellingborough. His 1974 book Napoleonic Wargaming, based on the north-east London club's house rules, brought the hobby to wide attention. Quarrie owned a large miniature army of wargames figures, including the entire Westphalian army of the Napoleonic era, scaled down in size as set out in his own published rules.

He was married with two daughters, and lived in Wellingborough

Wellingborough

Wellingborough is a market town and borough in Northamptonshire, England, situated some from the county town of Northampton. The town is situated on the north side of the River Nene, most of the older town is sited on the flanks of the hills above the river's current flood plain...

, Northamptonshire

Northamptonshire

Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...

.

Partial list of Bruce Quarrie's works

• Airfix Magazine Guide 4: Napoleonic Wargaming, Patrick Stephens Ltd, 1974
• Airfix Magazine Guide 12: Afrika Korps, 1975
• Tank Battles in Miniature 2: Wargamers' Guide to the Russian campaign 1941-1945, 1975
• Tank Battles in Miniature 3: Wargamers' Guide to the north-west European campaign 1944-1945, ISBN 0850592569, 1976
• World War 2 Wargaming (Airfix Magazine Guide No. 15), 1976
• Napoleon's Campaigns in Miniature, Patrick Stephens Ltd, 1977 - 1992 (5 editions)
• Panzergrenadier Division 'Grossdeutschland, 1977
• Fallschirmpanzer Division 'Hermann Goring, 1978
• Tank Battles in Miniature 5: Wargamers' Guide to the Arab-Israeli Wars since 1948, 1978
• Second S.S.Panzer Division 'Das Reich, 1979
• World War II Photo Album 9 Panzers in Russia 1941-43, 1979
• PSL Guide to Wargaming [ed.], Patrick Stephens Ltd, 1980, ISBN 0850594138
• Fantasy Wargaming [contributor], Patrick Stephens Ltd, 1981, ISBN 0850598060
• Panzers in the Balkans and Italy, 1981
• Hitler's Samurai: Waffen-SS in Action, Arco, 1983, ISBN 0850598060
• German Airborne Troops, 1939-45, 1983
• Secret Police Forces of the World, 1986
• Hitler's Teutonic Knights: SS Panzers in action, Patrick Stephens Ltd, 1986
• Firepower, Chartwell Books, 1988
• Beginner's Guide to Wargaming, 1987
• An Illustrated Guide to Tank Busters (with Mike Spick), 1987
• The World's Elite Forces: The Men, Weapons and Operations in the War Against Terrorism, 1985
• Armoured Wargaming, Wildside, 1988
• Fire Power, 1988, ISBN 1555212948
• Hitler: the victory that nearly was, David & Charles, London 1988, ISBN
• Encyclopaedia of the German Army in the 20th Century, Harper Collins, 1989
• Special Forces, 1990
• Weapons of the Waffen-SS: From Small Arms to Tanks, 1990
• Lightning Death: the story of the Waffen-SS, Patrick Stephens Ltd, 1991, ISBN 1852600756
• Airborne Assault: Parachute Forces in Action, 1940-91, 1991
• SAS and Elite Forces (with James Lawrence), 1995
• Waffen-SS Soldier, 1940-45, 1999
• The Ardennes Offensive (V US Corps & XVIII US Airborne Corps), 1999
• The Ardennes Offensive (VI Panzer Armee), 1999
• The Ardennes Offensive: Central Sector: V Panzer Armee, 2000
• The Ardennes Offensive: Central Sector: VII US Corps and VIII US Corps, 2000
• The Ardennes Offensive: Southern Sector, 2001
• Fallschirmjager: German Paratrooper 1935-45, 2001
• German Airborne Divisions: Blitzkrieg 1940-41, 2004
• German Airborne Divisions: Mediterranean Theatre 1942-45, 2005