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The detailed description of the Battle of Wagram in 1809 led it to being the basis for the “Paper Wars” wargame, “Wagram 1809- Napoleon’s Last Triumph” by Compass Games, issue 93 by Ty Bomba.

The book was also referenced by veteran historian Susan Jaques in her Napoleonic History “The Caesar of Paris.”

Two months after “Sixty Battles” came Ricky D Phillips’ third release, “Hannibal Rising – The Hunt for a Lost Battle and a New Past” in which the historian describes his ultimately successful quest to discover Hannibal‘s first ever battlefield, lost since 220BC.

and the location of “The Saw” fought by Hannibal’s father Hamilcar in 238BC and the most famous of his battles.

Having discovered two of the most important ancient battlefields in history and debunked the mystery of the “Espada de Anibal” – the supposedly lost magical sword of Hannibal himself, which Phillips actually found – he was also featured in two articles by “Ancient Origins” Magazine, firstly for the battle: “Military Historian Discovers Hannibal’s Long Lost Battlefield” and secondly for the sword: “Espada de Anibal – The Mystery Behind Hannibal’s Magical Lost Sword”.

On April 2nd 2021 Ricky D Phillips released his second Falklands War book “Last Letters from Stanley“ the first English language book on the Falklands War from the Argentine perspective since 1989, with artwork again provided by artist Ray Rushbrook.

The book became #1 New Release & #1 Best Seller and was first featured by Argentine newspaper Via Pais

In November 2021 he issued the first in a planned series of Falklands War pictorial histories in the “Osprey” style, called “Tied With Wires – The Incredible Argentine Inventions & Weapons of the Falklands War” which reached No.2 in Amazon best sellers chart, followed by “The Falklands Invasion – A Pictorial History” in May 2022.

In October 2023 Ricky D Phillips released the “Phoenix and Belgrano: The Life and Death of a Warship” which told for the first time the entire story of the USS Phoenix / ARA General Belgrano Brooklyn Class Cruiser from the drawing board through to her final controversial sinking.

He spoke on the “A Few Minutes of History” Podcast about this a few days after publication

Ricky D Phillips

Phillips has acted as a historical consultant to Paul Fraser Collard, author of the military-history-fiction genre Jack Lark series on his two American Civil War books, “The True Soldier” and “The Rebel Killer” and is mentioned in both for his contributions in helping with the historical backdrop and, in the case of “The Rebel Killer” a great deal of the historical plot and research too, as well as suggesting to Paul the use of the now-famous Le Mat revolver used by the main character in the book.

Ricky D Phillips was born in December 1978 in Whetstone North London as the younger of identical twins and is a Military Historian and an Associate Member of the Royal Historical Society.

He is a nine-time #1 Best Selling Author in the UK & USA on subjects ranging from Ancient History to the Napoleonic Wars and the 1982 Falklands War: the subject for which he is most well known.

Phillips trained at Southgate Technical College in where he obtained a Degree in Engineering and moved to be an army officer in the REME.

The book was the first detailed look at the Falklands invasion of April 2nd 1982 and drew together over 300 witnesses from the UK, Argentina and the Falkland Islands to compile the history of the battle of Stanley.

The book focused upon the contemporary media reports that the greatly-outnumbered Royal Marines garrison had offered a mere ‘token resistance’ at best and proved that a great number of incidents were deliberately hidden from the public view to slant the opinion of the world powers into a more pro-British stance.

Shortly after publication, Phillips acquired the rights to The First Casualty from the original publisher and incorporated it under “British East India Company Books Ltd”.

The First Casualty (“TFC”) became a Five-Star #1 Best Seller and has held the #1 position in Military History, History of Naval Forces & Maritime Archaeology six times in its various print runs and editions.

It has sold in over 40 countries around the globe.

Her Majesty the Queen requested a signed copy for the library at Balmoral Castle.

Launched at the Royal Marines Museum in Portsmouth, the book was reported in the Portsmouth News under the banner headline of “VINDICATED”.

The newspaper later added a second mobile-friendly story of the same, again referring to the Royal Marines as “Completely Vindicated.”

Ricky D Phillips' next book was Sixty Battles – The Complete Battles of Napoleon Bonaparte from Toulon to Waterloo which entered the Amazon charts as #1 New Release in both the UK and USA and was Amazon #1 Best Seller in both the UK and USA the very next day, making it his second back-to-back #1

The first book which lists every battle, combat, skirmish or action in which Napoleon fought and commanded, with data grids and 40 battle and campaign maps.

In 1999, he suffered a serious injury which left him requiring orthopaedic and neuro surgery, as well as suffering with PTSD, effectively ending his selection training with the British Army, and so went into the corporate world, becoming Operations and Technical Director for a major Engineering partnership.

Ricky D Phillips began writing military history in 2002 having always held the subject as a great passion.

By the age of 21 he had already amassed over 3,000 military history books into his collection, which grew over the years.

In this time, from 2002-2015 he wrote eight military history books but never published any of them, although his contributions to digital military history were recognised.

In 2008 he moved to Stockbridge, Edinburgh, where he now resides.

In 2009 he created the British Military History group on Linkedin, which was for many years the biggest and fastest-growing professional military history group on the internet.

In 2014 Phillips’ dedication to digital and online Military History, whilst still unpublished, led to him being included in the Society for Army Historical Research “Top 15 most influential people in military history” book list

and was followed by his first TV appearance for STV in his Napoleonic Wars presentation “Sixty Battles”

and also for his work on the Victoria Cross, entitled “Nine Valiant Academicals.” He also worked that year as a historian on Japanese TV.

“The First Casualty – The Untold Story of the Falklands War” was published (originally by Navy Books of Liskeard, and later by BEIC Books of Edinburgh) on March 28th 2017 on the 35th anniversary of the Falklands War.

In 2018 Ricky D Phillips also worked with modern-day military-history-fiction author, the USA based Gary Albyn on his highly-acclaimed book “Red Talon” the sequel to “A League of Warriors” which took Albyn’s lead character to the 1982 Falklands War.

Albyn, already a big fan of “The First Casualty” asked Phillips if he might be the first to fictionalise the story, and Phillips helped with character development, historical advice and wrote the foreword to the book.

Phillips was elected an Associate Member of the Royal Historical Association in 2024.

Phillips was also in the press for gathering the crew of the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible to upstage and refute the speech of Argentine pilot Gerardo Isaac, who claimed to have sunk the ship in the Falklands War, and this was picked up by both the Portsmouth News and the Daily Express in their own version of the article.

Phillips’ contribution to the vast “War History Online” Magazine was a piece also about the Falklands War entitled “Lured onto the Punch” which the magazine claimed to be one of their most successful and widely read articles of all time.