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Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey
I personally regard Quaritch Wales as the definitive writer in old S.E.Asian warfare. He spent time in the royal court of Siam during the late colonial period as an advisor.
This work would be a good start:-
Ancient South-East Asian Warfare
H.G. Quaritch Wales.
London : Bernard Quaritch, 1952.
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You did not say what period and what countries you are looking for. there were a great number of wars and armies , Armies, Arms and Armor were different in the days of the mongol attacks on the DaiViet and Champa, than it was during Ayutthaya/ Burma battles. Still different was the warrior of the TaySon revolution, the French army fighting the Thanh or the Anglo-Burmese wars.
Even without knowing that I would still have to second the recommendation of AG Maisay to find "Ancient South-East Asian Warfare"
H.G. Quaritch Wales.
Another good one for was also mentioned already by Ariel "Southeast Asian Warfare, 1300-1900" by Michael W.Charney Brill Academic Press, 2004
As you say you cannot buy them you may be able to find a library copy of these to borrow on worldcat.org
http://www.worldcat.org/title/ancien...e/oclc/3390962
Indian and Oriental Arms and Armor by Lord Egerton of Tatton has a small section on that area but its not as good as the other references mentioned.
Someone once recommended Oriental Armour (The Arms & Armour Series)
by H. Russell Robinson but I never got that book so I cannot say if its worth the time.
THE SWORDS OF CONTINENTAL SOUTHEAST ASIA by Ian A. Greaves, Mark I. Bowditch & Andrew Y. Winston member of this forum is not a free standing book but written for the catalogue of a museum exhibit in Macao can be found here
http://www.arscives.com/historysteel...ea.article.htm
Project Gutenburg and openlibrary.org have free versions of many accounts of the area, and may have helpful free ebooks. A couple of examples that are not on arms but give accounts about some of the conflicts in SE Asia :
On The Irrawaddy:A Story of the First Burmese War
By G. A. Henty Illustrated by W. H. Overendare
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/21242...-h/21242-h.htm
or
"Frontier and overseas expeditions from India" Volume 5
http://openlibrary.org/books/OL50801...ons_from_India.
I did not know about BURMA AND INDO-CHINA (Armies of the Nineteenth Century: Asia) by Ian Heath but thanks to Timo Nieminen I have now ordered it.