Richard Evelyn Simpkin (1921 - 1986) was a British Army officer, attaining the rank of brigadier. He served during World War II with the Royal Tank Regiment in North Africa and was taken prisoner at Tobruk in 1942. Simpkin retired from the army in 1971.

Simpkin became a Russian language specialist and military theorist.

Race to the Swift is a comprehensive military theory work in the NATO context.

Deep Battle is a work about Red Army general and theorist Mikhail Tukhachevsky. It is part biography, part theory, and part translation of Tukhachevsky's works, focusing on Tukhachevsky's concepts of Deep Battle Theory. The centerpiece is the translation of the 1936 Red Army operations manual PU-36 Deep Operation, which Tukhachevsky is believed to have masterminded.

Bibliography (incomplete)

• Race to the Swift, thoughts on twenty-first century warfare (1985)
• Deep Battle: the brain child of Marshall Tukhachevskii (1987)