The Mammoth Book of SF Wars

I had high expectations, since I love military scifi, but was pretty disappointed.
First, I expected military like in ”combat”, but almost all of the stories happen after wars, before wars, collateral to wars or from the POV of non-combatants.
Second, I liked about a quarter of the stories, but the rest felt ok at best (some, quite numerous, I really disliked). The main problem was that I found many to be over-precious, over-worded and lame, the kind of stories meant not to entertain or enthrall, but to show off how amazing the author is. They weren't.
The average would be 3/5, but the anthology as a whole felt less, the reason being the same: I disliked the kind of scifi Watson&Whates chose, for being “too much for too little”, and in the future I'll avoid their anthologies (like Datlow's or JJ Adam's; from Whates this is my second try, both disliked). The kind I love is that chosen in anthologies by Greenberg, Mike Ashley, Sterling, Stephen Jones, Dozois - in that order.
The 6/24 stories I liked here were:
Peacekeeper • (2012) 19 pages by Mike Resnick, Brad R. Torgerson
• Storming Hell • (2009) 8 pages by John Lambshead
• The Horars of War • (1970) 19 pages by Gene Wolfe
• The Game of Rat and Dragon • (1955) 17 pages by Cordwainer Smith
• Winning Peace • (2007) 27 pages by Paul J. McAuley
• The Wake • (2011) 14 pages by Dan Abnett
About 3-4 others from 24 were ok.
14-15/24 were lame at best...