OT - Book (Non Fiction) Review/Recommendations Thread [Archive]

TiggerCCW UK

05-12-2009, 03:04 AM

One soldiers war in Chechnya : Arkady Babchenko. Memoirs of a soldier in Chechnya. Very interesting because not much has come out of this war yet. A very personal account relating his service initially as a conscript and then having volunteered to go back. Deals a lot with the bullying and beatings handed out by senior ranks down through the chain of command, and also the problems with supplies etc. If this is indicative of the average quality of Russian troops we were scared of them for no reason. An excellent book.

Fighting Scared : Robin Horsfall. Memoirs of an ex SAS soldier covering his time in the regiment and after he left and became a bodyguard.

Guns for hire : Tony Geraghty. Analysis of mercenaries/pmc's in modern times. Includes Iraq and Afghanistan.

We were soldiers once.... And young : Lt Gen Harold Moore (Retd) & Joe Galloway. Now made famous by the film. Account of the first major battle between the US and NVA/VC.

We are soldiers still : Same authors as above. Details the return to the battle field after 40 years, including meeting with their former enemies. A very touching study of forgiveness on both sides. Highly recommended.

Targan

05-12-2009, 03:26 AM

We were soldiers once.... And young : Lt Gen Harold Moore (Retd) & Joe Galloway. Now made famous by the film. Account of the first major battle between the US and NVA/VC. I read this before seeing the film and was pleasantly surprised at how closely the film followed the book.

We are soldiers still : Same authors as above. Details the return to the battle field after 40 years, including meeting with their former enemies. A very touching study of forgiveness on both sides. Highly recommended.I want to read this. Had no idea until now that it existed.

TiggerCCW UK

05-12-2009, 03:33 AM

I hadn't heard of it either, until my brother got me it for Christmas. Can't recommend it highly enough.

TiggerCCW UK

05-12-2009, 04:49 AM

Fetch Felix - The fight against the Ulster bombers, 1976-77 : Lt Col Derrick Patrick OBE. Memoirs of SATO (Senior Ammunition Technical Officer), the CO of 321 EOD in the mid seventies.

In the company of heroes : Mike Durant. The story of the Blackhawk pilot captured during the Blackhawk down mission. Details his earlier career and also the Mogadishu mission and its aftermath.

Deadly Beat : Richard Latham. Memoirs of an English man who served in the RUC.

Contact : AFN Clarke. Memoirs of a Lt in the paras two tours in NI in the early seventies. One tour in West Belfast, one in South Armagh.

The Raid : Benjamin F Schemmer. In depth study of the Son Tay raid, from planning to aftermath.

Lions Donkeys and Dinosaurs : Lewis Page. A study of how the British Army is equipped, the faults with the equipment and how the majority of it has been purchased for political reasons as opposed to actual operational requirements.

Platoon Leader : James McDonagh. Memoirs of a platoon leader in Vietnam.

kato13

05-12-2009, 06:46 AM

This thread was actually bighauser's idea. I just wanted to thank him for it (but I wanted it to be successful first).

Have added quite a bit to my reading list.

TiggerCCW UK

05-12-2009, 06:52 AM

I've more coming as well - just didn't want to dominate the thread too much :) I buy shed loads of stuff second hand and stockpile it for when I've time to read - like at the minute seeing I'm off work still :(

General Pain

05-12-2009, 08:19 AM

fiction but a good read:
http://www.amazon.com/Aquarium-Viktor-Suvorov/dp/0241115450

nonfiction
http://www.amazon.com/Report-24-No-Gunnar-Sonsteby/dp/156980141X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1242134289&sr=1-1

This book I actually have it signed by G.SÃƒÂ¸nsteby himself (he is acustomer at my shop) he is the most decorated norweigian ever. - Stories from WW2 and norweigians doing saboteur-missions

Apart from that I can't recommend enough anything written by Terry Pratchett - his infamous discworld-novels are to die for

Legbreaker

05-12-2009, 08:45 AM

"Those ragged bloody heros" - Peter Brune
"To the bitter end" - Lex McAulay

Two books detailing events in 1942-43 from the Kokoda Trail to the Japanese defeat at Buna and Gona in Papua New Guinea. At the beginning of this chapter of WWII, one understrength and dispersed battalion (the 39th) of VERY poorly trained and even poorer equipped Australian militia held back 10,000 of Japans best in a fighting withdrawal over the worst terrain imaginable until reinforced by a brigade hurriedly redeployed from the middle east.

"The Glass Cannon" & "The Barbarians" - Peter Pinney
A diary of one soldiers experience in Bougainville, 1944-45

"Tank warfare in world war II" - George Forty
First hand accounts from allied and Axis soliders

TiggerCCW UK

05-12-2009, 11:19 AM

Here goes with another few for you all :)

Making a killing : James Ashcroft. Memoirs of a PMC in Iraq. Part of the group that had responsibility for the water infrastructure.

Joint Force Harrier : Cmdr Ade Orchard RN. Memoirs of a squadron leader flying harrier's on close support missions in Afghanistan.

Rules of engagement : Tim Collins. Colonel Tim's memoirs from the second gulf war, from the speech he gave on the eve of the war to the allegations of mistreating prisoners and his clearance of said allegations. Good read, especially because his family and mine are friends from years ago.

Post 381 : James Doherty. Memoirs of an ARP warden during the blitz on Belfast in WW2. I first read this as part of my GCSE history project. Only school text book I ever went and bought my own copy of.

An Ordinary Soldier : Doug Beattie. Memoirs of a member of the Royal Irish Regiment from his tour in Afghanistan. Cracking read.

Eight lives down : Chris Hunter. Memoirs of his tour as an EOD officer in Iraq.

The Forgotten Voices series. Transcriptions of audio records from the Imperial War Museum. There are a big selection of books covering from the first world war to the Falklands. First hand accounts of people who were there, truly harrowing in some cases, but well worth reading.

The Cage : Tom Abraham. Memoirs of an English man who served as an officer in the US army in Vietnam. He was captured by the VC but escaped and made it back to friendly lines.

And probably I've a few more recommendations to make yet :)

Rainbow Six

05-12-2009, 11:44 AM

A few more...

A Million Bullets - James Fergusson - a study of the British Army in Afghanistan in 2006

3 Para - again, Afganistan in 2006, but focusing specifically on the Para Reg Battlegroup

The Circuit - Bob Shepherd - ex SAS guy who now works as a PMC

The Gamble - Thomas E Ricks - a study of the US Surge in Iraq focusing on the actions of General David Pertraeus (I'm reading this at the moment)

Defiance - The Bielski Partisans by Nechama Tec- the book that inspired the recent Daniel Craig film.

Centre of the Storm by George Tenet - memoir of the ex Director of the CIA

Would also second many of Tigger's recommendations, especially Sniper One, Eight Lives Down, and Rules of Engagement

TiggerCCW UK

05-12-2009, 12:29 PM

I reckon we've similar tastes Rainbow - I'm reading The Circuit at the minute :)

Rainbow Six

05-12-2009, 02:16 PM

I reckon we've similar tastes Rainbow - I'm reading The Circuit at the minute :)

I reckon you're right there Tigger...after I finish the Gamble I'll be moving on to An Ordinary Soldier. :)

A few other recommendations:

Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran - a study of the activities of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq

Guests of the Ayatollah by Mark Bowden - about the US Embassy hostages in Tehran in 1979 (author is the same man who wrote Black Hawk Down)

Armageddon and Nemesis by Max Hastings - Armageddon has been discussed on the forums before, Nemesis is the follow up and centres on the closing stages of the Pacific War.

Cheers

Targan

05-12-2009, 10:38 PM

I've recently started reading 18 Hours by Sandra Lee. True story about Jock Wallace, Signaller, 152 Signals Sqn (152 is the signals unit for the Australian SAS Regiment) who with another 152 sig was attached to Charlie Company, 1-87 US 10th Mountain Infantry Division to provide comms for the SAS liaison to the 10th who was coordinating with 1 Sqn, SASR. They fought in a big battle at the start of Operation Anaconda. I don't normally like reading factual war stories by female authors but this one isn't bad.

Matt Wiser

05-13-2009, 12:37 AM

A few more:

Crusade by Rick Atkinson: The best history so far of the First Gulf War
(He's also writing a trilogy on the U.S. Army in the ETO and MTO in WW II-two books so far and both worth reading)

She Went to War: The Rhonda Cornum Story by then-MAJ Rhonda Cornum (now a Brig. Gen); a firsthand account from one of two female POWs in the First Gulf War.

Down Range by Richard Couch: Navy SEALS on operations post 9-11. The author is a former SEAL, so be warned.

Any one of Tom Clancy's nonfiction books (Fighter Wing, Armored Cav, Marine, Submarine, etc.)

The Great War in Africa by Brian Farwell: WW I in Africa, very useful if planning a T2K campaign involving the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Kenya.

TiggerCCW UK

05-13-2009, 03:03 AM

Another couple for you :)

War Dogs : Keith Cory Jones. A journalists travels with a group of mostly UK mercenaries in the former Yugoslavia.

That Others May Live : SMSGT Jack Brehm. Memoirs of a para rescue jumper. Astounding what these guys get up to.

Cold War; Building for Nuclear Confrontation : Wayne D Cocroft & Roger J C Thomas. An English Heritage publication studying Cold War architecture in the UK. Very interesting and full of useful photos, drawings and floor plans of everything from nuclear bomb stores to ROC posts to regional government bunkers. Great book!

Rainbow Six

05-16-2009, 04:48 AM

Another couple that came to mind...

Berlin and Stalingrad, both by Anthony Beevor. In the same vein as Max Hastings' Armageddon...Berlin in particular paints a vivid picture of the last few months of WW2.

Littlearmies

05-16-2009, 08:21 AM

Vulcan 607 by Rowland White - the story of the RAF mission to crater the runway at Port Stanley during The Falklands War. A really first rate account of flying elderly British jets (three months away from the scrapyard at the start of the war) 4,000 miles beyond their maximum range to deliver 21 thousand-pound bombs. Normally I prefer books about the PBI but this was very good.

Sod That For A Game OF Soldiers by Mark Eyles-Thomas - the story of a young Para during the Falklands War. Extremely good book.

Riding The Retreat by Richard Holmes. The story of a group of friends retracing the route of the British Army retreat to Mons during the opening weeks of WWI. Every time I read one of his books it just makes me wish he could be presuaded to do a War Walks series on the battlefields of North America. In fact I'd pretty much recommend anything by him - I haven't come across a dud yet (although I've heard Dusty Warriors being criticised for being a bit biased - he was colonel of the regiment featured). I'm working on his Marlborough at the moment.

Fusiliers by my friend, Mark Urban, the story of the 23rd Royal Welch Fusiliers during the AWI. A really first rate account of a battalion that served pretty much from the beginning to the end of the war that includes lots of first person accounts of events.

I could go on but this also caused me to look at my "slush pile" of unread books and realise that my New Year resolution to read two books for every one I bought went out of the window about March and that I now have around thirty unread books in a large stack by my bed. As I have the same impulses with model soldiers (several large boxes of unpainted lead lie at the foot of my wardrobe) I realise I must do something about both issues!

Targan

05-16-2009, 08:57 AM

Night Stalkers by Michael Durant. All about the history and some of the operations conducted by the US 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. I enjoyed reading this very much. Lots of good tie in information about other elite US units too (such as Delta and the ISA).

Delta Force by Colonel Charlie A Beckwith and Donald Knox. The history of 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta. Co-written by the unit's founder. A must read in my opinion. During the Vietnam War Charlie Beckwith was a Green Beret officer and was aboard a helicopter being inserted for a mission when he was shot through the abdomen with a 12.7mm round. When he was being triaged in a hospital the medics wrote him off as a gonner until he threatened them with violence if they didn't get him into an operating theatre. Went on to continue his miltary career in special forces. What an astonishingly tough bastard. Respect.

TiggerCCW UK

05-16-2009, 10:07 AM

Matt Wiser

05-16-2009, 08:28 PM

The two books by Antony Beevor are pretty good; one thing you find out when reading Stalingrad is that Ivan executed 13,500 of his own soldiers for various offenses (real and imagined)-a whole division's worth. And the book on Berlin you find just how out of control the Red Army was: a lot of attrition among junior officers, and discipline slacked off big time-hence a lot of out-of-control soldiers wreaking havoc on civilians. And they were encouraged, too, by some of those writing for Soviet Army newspapers.

A few more:

Hitler's Last Gamble: The Battle of the Bulge by Trevor Dupuy (his last book): a very good read on the last major German offensive on the Western Front in WW II.

Leave No Man Behind by David C. Isby: POW/Hostage Rescue missions conducted by the U.S. military from 1945 (Los Banos in the Philippines) to 2003 (the Lynch rescue in Iraq).

Clash of the Carriers, by Barrett Tillman The story of the Battle of the Philippine Sea; the final carrier clash of WW II and might be (though I doubt it) the last one of its kind.

A Glorious Way to Die by Russel Spurr: The story of the superbattleship Yamato's final sortie and her sinking (7 Apr 45) in the largest war-at-sea air strike ever launched. More planes went after the Yamato in that strike (386) than Nagumo launched at Pearl Harbor (353).

Littlearmies

05-17-2009, 08:01 AM

Same author has just released Phoenix Squadron about HMS Ark Royal and her Buccaneers doing a long range mission over Belize - great read.

Re Mark Urban - a friend of yours? Tell him I said congratulations on Big Boys Rules - an excellent read, and as a Northern Irish man I tend to be fussy about books I read about over here. Suppose that counts as another recommendation as well :)

I've seen Phoenix Squadron but haven't yet taken the plunge.

Re Mark Urban - I'll let him know he has another satisfied customer :) . I actually prefer his books about less contempory events - we share a common interest in my other hobby which is how I came to meet him - but it's mostly friendship through email (despite him living less than five miles away) because every time I'm due to pop round to his place he's being sent off to the latest crisis point for the BBC. He's a very nice guy with an excellent knowledge of the AWI and Napoleonic Wars - so far nothing of his that I've picked up has disappointed me.

Adm.Lee

05-17-2009, 04:30 PM

I have hundreds of titles, mostly WW2 ones. Wandering to the far Pacific first:
Shattered sword/ Parshall and Tully. Incredibly well-detailed account fo the battle of Midway-- some of what you know is wrong! The Japanese were in worse shape going in than most people know, the US wasn't as lucky as is believed, they were better (at some carrier tactics).

First team and The first team and the Guadalcanal campaign / John Lundstrom. Also incredibly detailed accounts of fighter combat among carrier pilots for the first year of WW2.

Sea Harrier over the Falklands / Sharkey Ward. He was one of the two Sea Harrier squadron commanders. He is NOT at all friendly to the RAF, be warned.

Battle for the Rhine / Robin Neillands. Somewhat biased towards the British half of the perennial Patton-Montgomery argument, but his arguments seem rather sound to me. Covers the Sep 44-March 45 part of the Western Front.

I've been copying some modern titles from this list, that's a field I usually stay away from.

Anything by Dan Bolger. Dragons at war covered his time at National Training Center with a mech company in 1982 or 1983. Battle for Hunger Hill covered his time as a battalion CO at JRTC in 1993-- two visits! He's also written two on US military actions: one for 1975-1986, and another for the early '90s. I can't think of those titles right now.

Those are the ones that jump to the front of my mind right now.

Raellus

05-17-2009, 04:52 PM

If you like WWII Pacific Theatre naval warfare, check out Hornfinscher's Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors about the fighting off of Samar during the massive Leyte Gulf battle. A couple of destroyers and destroyer escorts held off several Japanese battleships, saving several escort carriers from certain destruction. A stunning tale of poor judgement, bravery, and sacrifice on both sides

I'll second anything by Beevor or Atkinson. Beevor's new one about D-Day is coming out soon. Woo-hoo!

For more modern combat, Black Hawk Down is the Holy Grail. Generation Kill was pretty good, as was Thunder Run, both about the offensive that kicked off the second Iraq War.

Next on my reading list is a book called 3 Para about some British paratroopers in Afghanistan. I'll let you all know how it was when I finish it.

TiggerCCW UK

05-17-2009, 05:49 PM

3 Para wasn't bad, but there is a similar one about the marines (can't remember the title off hand) which I thought was better.

pmulcahy11b

05-17-2009, 06:34 PM

Can't beat the Jane's books for technical details (even if they wouldn't let me use their pictures...:mad: ).

Raellus

05-17-2009, 06:34 PM

3 Para wasn't bad, but there is a similar one about the marines (can't remember the title off hand) which I thought was better.

Ooh! Royal Marines? You gotta tell me what it's called.

Also, a couple of Cornelius Ryan books have been mentioned, all of them great. My favorite, though, is A Bridge Too Far- an all-time classic of the genre.

I also like Max Hastings. Overlord, Armageddon, and Retribution (all WWII) are all great, as is The Falklands.

Rainbow Six

05-18-2009, 03:20 AM

Ooh! Royal Marines? You gotta tell me what it's called.

Also, a couple of Cornelius Ryan books have been mentioned, all of them great. My favorite, though, is A Bridge Too Far- an all-time classic of the genre.

I also like Max Hastings. Overlord, Armageddon, and Retribution (all WWII) are all great, as is The Falklands.

Could be 3 Commando Brigade by Ewen Southby Tailyour. I've come close to buying it a few times, but as I currently have a backlog of books to get through decided to wait until the paperback comes out. The author is a former Royal Marine officer who saw active service in the Falklands.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ewen_Southby-Tailyour

Also, Patrick Bishop has just released a sequel to 3 Para entitled Ground Truth, which focuses on 3 Para's return to Afghanistan in 2008.

Adm.Lee

05-18-2009, 12:20 PM

Recommendations for Hornfischer, Max Hastings and Cornelius Ryan-- I concur with all of those.

Eisenhower's lieutenants / Russell Weigley- is a nifty look at the higher commanders in WW2.

Guadalcanal / Richard B. Frank- was awesome. His later one (forget the title-- Downfall?) on the projected landings in Japan, 1945-46 was scary. The Japanese had slipped one by Magic-- there were going to be a lot more on or near the beaches than we knew.

If ya can't guess, I'm mostly a wargamer at the "operational" level.

General Kenney reports / George Kenney- is very likely a biased book, but a fun read.

TiggerCCW UK

05-19-2009, 05:52 AM

@Rael - 3 Cdo is the one I was talking about. Good read. Anyone read Excursion to Hell by Vince Bramley? Another Falklands book, very very good.

Littlearmies

05-27-2009, 06:27 PM

I'll second anything by Beevor or Atkinson. Beevor's new one about D-Day is coming out soon. Woo-hoo!

Actually Beevor's D Day book is out now in the UK - I bought an airport edition at Luton's WH Smith on a 4 for 3 deal on Friday morning (unfortunately my friend who took great care of my wife and I over the weekend lusted after it so obviously that I weakened and gave it to him as a "thank you").

However I can now second An Ordinary Soldier, A Million Bullets and Phoenix Squadronas being jolly good (Phoenix Squadron finished and the other two half read - my wife packed the one I'd started in my case so I had no option.....)

I also thought of another two books Hitler's U-Boat War:The Hunters 1939 - 1942 and Hitler's U-Boat War:The Hunted 1942 - 1945 both by Clair Blair. These are pretty much the definitive story of the real Cruel Sea in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Highly detailed you can't come out of these without feeing a great deal of respect for the men on both sides.

Adm.Lee

05-28-2009, 12:02 PM

I also thought of another two books Hitler's U-Boat War:The Hunters 1939 - 1942 and Hitler's U-Boat War:The Hunted 1942 - 1945 both by Clair Blair. These are pretty much the definitive story of the real Cruel Sea in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Highly detailed you can't come out of these without feeing a great deal of respect for the men on both sides.

That reminds me of his also excellent one-volume book on the Pacific sub campaign-- Silent victory, IIRC. And back on dry land, I really liked his Forgotten War. It covered the opening year of the Korean War, with special emphasis on US Army leadership, battalion-level on up, and on the integration of African-Americans.

Targan

06-22-2009, 01:03 AM

I'm currently reading House to House by David Bellavia and John Bruning which is about US Army Infantry Staff Sgt Bellavia's experiences during the Battle of Falluja in November 2004. I'm really enjoying this book, very gritty and conveys well the nastiness of close-in urban warfare. One aspect I particularly enjoy is that Bellavia is quite self-depricating, and he doesn't pull any punches.

Sorry if this book has previously been mentioned in this thread, I am at work and don't have time to go back through the posts to check.

natehale1971

07-06-2009, 08:35 AM

(kato13 edit moved here since I felt the thread needed a bump and it fits better in this thread)

I just bought a copy of "Glen Beck's 'Common Sense'" tonight when i went to walmart to get my disability check cashed. I would recommend it to everyone to read. it is very good from what i have just gotten to read... it's not left, nor right... it's just plan common sense that people really should look at and... welll, when i get this finished, and anyone wants to borrow it, let me know and i will send it your way.

Targan

07-24-2009, 10:44 PM

I am currently reading "The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes and Why" by Amanda Ripley, published by Arrow Books. It is very interesting. The book's subject is pretty well explained by its title. The author has conducted hundreds of interviews with accident, combat and disaster survivors from all over the world and has also used dozens of academic papers in her research.

Reading this book has given me food for thought in a number of areas related to T2K but especially about Coolness Under Fire, Initiative, leadership and panic. In one chapter there is some very interesting information about how the structure of some peoples' brains make them more susceptible to suffering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It seems that people who have a larger than average hippocampus are much more resistant to PTSD. There is also some interesting stuff about the differences in brain chemistry between your average soldier and special forces-type personnel, and hundreds of examples of accidents, combats and disasters and how those interviewed dealt with them.

In keeping with the rating system introduced in the Fiction Books thread I rate this one 4.5 out of 5 mushroom clouds.

smokewolf

07-25-2009, 10:45 AM

Band of Brothers - Stephen Ambrose

Citizen Soldiers - Stephen Ambrose

Both good books about soldiers in WWII

Rainbow Six

12-16-2009, 06:57 AM

Bumping this thread as Christmas is coing up and there's a few new books out there that might be of interest.

A couple I've read lately or am reading at the minute

1. Finest Years by Max Hastings. reading this at the moment - an account of the premiership of Sir Winston Churchill during the War Years. Up to Hastings' usual excellent standard. Highly recommended.

2. Danger Close by Colonel Stuart Tootal. Another of the Afghanistan books on the market in the UK, and about 3 Para in Helmand in 2006. Written by the Battalion's Commanding Officer at the time.

3. Attack State Red by Colonel Richard Kemp. Like Danger Close, written by a former Battalion Commander in Helmand, in this case the CO of the 1st Battalion, Royal Anglian Regiment.

4. The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 by Christopher Andrew. A good read for anyone interested in how an Intelligence Service operates.

Cheers

Adm.Lee

12-16-2009, 02:05 PM

I'm interested in those Afghan books by battalion commanders. About a month ago, I read "Apache" by a British chopper pilot, after his 2nd tour there, supporting the Royal Marines. I liked it.

TiggerCCW UK

12-16-2009, 02:39 PM

I'm interested in those Afghan books by battalion commanders. About a month ago, I read "Apache" by a British chopper pilot, after his 2nd tour there, supporting the Royal Marines. I liked it.

Thats the one by Ed Macy, isn't it? He has a second book out this year called (I think) 'Hellfire'.

Adm.Lee

12-17-2009, 09:34 AM

Thats the one by Ed Macy, isn't it? He has a second book out this year called (I think) 'Hellfire'.

Yes, thank you-- I couldn't remember the author OTTOMH. Second one? Hmm, have to keep my eyes on it.

fightingflamingo

12-17-2009, 12:19 PM

How to Make War: A Comprehensive Guide to Modern Warfare in the Twenty-first Century 4th Ed. - good theoretical basis for warfare and the issues encountered by combatants in high intensity to low intensity conflict... has become my bible of sorts... have every edition released since the 1st...

Targan

12-18-2009, 01:04 AM

This one may be of most interest to our Australian posters but it was an excellent book: The Tiger Man of Vietnam. I was so impressed by the book I bought two extra copies, one for my dad and one for my future father in law. The following is lifted from the back cover:

"In 1963 Australian Army Captain Barry Petersen was sent to Vietnam. It was one of the most tightly held secrets of the Vietnam War: long before combat troops set foot there and under the command of the CIA, Petersen was ordered to train and lead guerilla squads of Montagnard tribesmen against the Viet Cong in the remote Central Highlands.

Petersen succesfully formed a fearsome militia, named "Tiger Men". A canny leader, he was courageous in battle and his bravery saw him awarded the coveted Military Cross and worshipped by the hill tribes.

But his success created enemies, not just within the Viet Cong. Like Marlon Brando's character in Apocalypse Now, some in the CIA saw Petersen as having gone native. His refusal, when asked, to turn his Tiger Men into assassins as part of the notorious CIA Phoenix Program only strengthened that belief. The CIA strongly resented anyone who stood in their way. Some in US intelligence were determined Petersen had to go. He was lucky to make it out of the mountains alive."

Petersen had previously fought in the Malaya Emergency with the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment. The Montagnard people he formed the Tiger Men with were the Rhade and they ended up declaring him to be the earthly embodiment of their war god. An excellent book.

Mohoender

12-18-2009, 02:14 AM

Targ that story reminds me of others: Lawrence of Arabia and, later, Major-General Orde Charles Wingate.

TiggerCCW UK

12-18-2009, 05:41 AM

Raellus

12-31-2009, 04:54 PM

Just finishing Company Commander (Charles Macdonald) based on a rec here. I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Pros:

It really helps someone who hasn't been in the service (i.e. me) understand how a rifle company works.

Gripping descriptions of combat.

Cons:

No maps. It's really easy to get confused when reading the author's description of firefights. Even scratch pencil maps would have helped a lot.

Macdonald makes some questionable judgement calls. He seems to have no problem with his men shooting prisoners, even slightly wounded ones. A couple of times, his men tell him that escorted prisoners didn't make it to the rear ("he tried to escape, you know...") and once, it appears that he did nothing to stop the rape of a German civilian girl ("the noise of a few men from the squad 'forcefully propositioning' a German girl") by some of his men. Those two instances really bothered me.

Raellus

12-31-2009, 05:07 PM

I haven't finished it yet but, based on what I've read so far, I'd like to recommend Victory Was Beyond Their Grasp by Douglas Nash. It's a profile/history of the 272nd Volksgrenadier Division, focusing on its assault company.

It's reinforcing my belief that the VGDs are a pretty good model of late Twilight War infantry divisions, in terms of their composition (lots of men culled from the crippled air force and navy, wounded soldiers rushed out of hospital, men at either end of the latest draft bracket, etc.), equipment (plenty of small arms but not always a lot of ammo, a handful of whatever AFV was available at inception, few, if any trucks), training (very brief, often rushed into the front line), and leadership (a cadre of experienced officers from shattered divisions; inexperienced NCOs due to attrition).

It's also raised some ideas that I hadn't thought of, like the use of "press gangs" (can't remember the term the Germans used for this) and reducing the time spent convalescing by wounded men to fill the ranks of combat units.

Anyway, so far, it's well written and very informative. I've also read Hell's Gate (by the same author) about the Cherkassy Pocket battle on the Ostfront and enjoyed it as well.

Littlearmies

01-01-2010, 09:06 AM

Only marginally on topic but a jolly good read nevertheless is a book I just finished:

"Three Cups Of Tea" by Greg Mortensen and David Oliver Relin - 'Here we drink three cups of tea to do business; the first you are a stranger, the second you become a friend, and the third, you join our family, and for our family we are prepared to do anything - even die' - Haji Ali, Korphe Village Chief, Karakoram mountains, Pakistan.

"In 1993, after a terrifying and disastrous attempt to climb K2, a mountaineer called Greg Mortenson drifted, cold and dehydrated, into an impoverished Pakistan village in the Karakoram Mountains. Moved by the inhabitants' kindness, he promised to return and build a school. "Three Cups of Tea" is the story of that promise and its extraordinary outcome. Over the next decade Mortenson built not just one but fifty-five schools - especially for girls - in remote villages across the forbidding and breathtaking landscape of Pakistan and Afghanistan, just as the Taliban rose to power. His story is at once a riveting adventure and a testament to the power of the humanitarian spirit."

Actually that info is pretty out of date - it's now 131 schools and rising. What is interesting is that Mortensen was in the right place at the right time - his schools have a standard secular Pakistani curriculum, they make an effort to involve the villagers who donate land and labour while Mortensen's charity donates materials and pays the teachers (the going rate - $2 or $3 a month). His schools are free for the children - which means they are the only alternative most of these kids have to an "education" in a Saudi funded wahhabi madrassa, many of which teach terrorism at the same time. Mortensen is fighting the battle for hearts and minds in the remotest areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan one kid at a time...

As you can tell, I've become something of a fanboy over the course of the past week:

https://www.ikat.org/

Happy New Year

Graebarde

01-01-2010, 10:35 AM

Happy New Year folks.

In a lighter thinking on the lines of recovery, rather than from a war footing, I have several that are worth the read on how-to.

Carla Emery's Encyclopeida of Country Living

Any of the older books by John Seymour, which are unfortunately out of print, including these. The Forgotten Arts is especially interesting IMO.
Farming for Self-Sufficiency - Independence on a 5-Acre Farm (1973).
Self-Sufficiency (1970).
The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency (1976).
The Self-Sufficient Gardener (1978).
The Forgotten Arts (1984).
The Forgotten Household Crafts (1987).

The Traditional Bowyer's Bible All four volumes. How to build bows, arrows, make arrowheads, string, etc etc and history of archery around the world. Very interesting, esp for someone interested in the subject.

Grae

Targan

01-01-2010, 08:36 PM

A friend gave me for Christmas a copy of Throwing Fire - Projectile Technology Through History by Alfred W Crosby. Just started reading it, very interesting. Footnoted all through, starts in pre-history with the physics of the thrown rock.

Adm.Lee

01-18-2010, 10:28 PM

Good- Baghdad at sunrise: a brigade commander's war in Iraq / Peter R. Mansoor. Col. Mansoor commanded the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division from June 2003-July 2004 in Iraq. His brigade had some of western Baghdad, and succeeded in quieting its area, and then moved to the Karbala fight against Sadr on their way out in 2004. It's a good read, especially if you want to learn how to do counter-insurgency. He went on to be a staffer to Gen. Petraeus when he led MNF-Iraq, but has now retired to teach history at Ohio State.
I may have met him way back when-- he started his doctoral program at OSU when I was finishing my bachelor's in military history, and took a few grad-level courses (summer 1990). His thesis was published: The GI offensive in Europe : the triumph of American infantry divisions, 1941-1945, and that was a really good book, too. The US infantry usually gets a bad rap, but he brought out that they had their good qualities, and it was those that won the war in the ETO.

Bad- Wings of Gold: the US Navy's air offensive in the Pacific by Gerald Astor. I think the author did a cut & paste job with a bunch of oral histories, and slapped together the connecting text, which was full of technical errors. I admit to being unusual, but I was in grade school when I could tell the difference between SBD and SB2C dive-bombers, and I knew that the IJNS Yamato had 18.1" guns, not 17"! Especially disappointing, since his biography of "Terrible" Terry Allen was pretty good.

Adm.Lee

02-09-2010, 06:14 PM

I found this one at the library yesterday. It seems like a T2k-style thing to do:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6308079-the-only-thing-worth-dying-for

pmulcahy11b

02-09-2010, 07:41 PM

I found this one at the library yesterday. It seems like a T2k-style thing to do:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6308079-the-only-thing-worth-dying-for

Unfortunately, I'd have to sign up for Farcebook to read it; I'm not that trusting of Facebook.

Targan

02-09-2010, 09:49 PM

Unfortunately, I'd have to sign up for Farcebook to read it; I'm not that trusting of Facebook.

Why would you have to sign up to Facebook? I thought that link was to a review of the book at a non-Facebook site.

Anyhow, it looks like a good read. I'd like to get a copy. I'll have to look around the bookshops here in Australia and see if it is available.

Adm.Lee

02-10-2010, 08:54 AM

Unfortunately, I'd have to sign up for Farcebook to read it; I'm not that trusting of Facebook.

Try again, I edited it to go to Goodreads instead.

Jason Weiser

02-12-2010, 01:03 PM

Closing With The Enemy: How the GIs fought the War in Europe 1944-45: I've read and re-read that book about a dozen times. It also explodes the myth "The GIs stank as infantrymen." and it showed that when doctrine failed, the American GI was flexible enough to improvise solutions, and how the Army as a whole became a clearing house in dispensing the information on said solutions throughout the Army. It also demonstrates how the Army began to realize that it needed to teach junior officers some sense of self-preservation, as too many of them were exposing themselves needlessly...:(

http://www.michaeldoubler.com/Closing.htm

Raellus

02-12-2010, 03:17 PM

I just finished The Siege of Budapest by Hungarian historian Krisztian Ungvary. It was sad but pretty good. I think it would be helpful for a GM trying to recreate a city siege or describe its aftermath. I would have like more detailed info about the relief operations but overall it was a quick and worthwhile read.

Cdnwolf

02-12-2010, 07:27 PM

For a really good account about a Russian attack against a fixed defence position, I recommend "First Clash" by Kenneth Macksey.

Its about a meeting encounter between the 4'th Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group and the Soviets 1'st Guard Tank Division. It has lots of detailed maps and organizational charts. Fascinating read.

Also "Dragons at War - Land Battle in The Desert" by Daniel Bolger... a great behind the scenes look at the US Army National Training Center at Camp Irwin. It also offered insight on how to play the great game and get promoted.

Adm.Lee

02-12-2010, 08:56 PM

Also "Dragons at War - Land Battle in The Desert" by Daniel Bolger... a great behind the scenes look at the US Army National Training Center at Camp Irwin. It also offered insight on how to play the great game and get promoted.

I'm a huge fan of Bolger's work. He wrote "Dragons" after a 1982 deployment by his brigade to NTC-- he was a company CO. He also wrote "The battle for Hunger Hill" about his brigade's (he was a battalion commander in the 101st) 1993 and 1994 deployments to the JRTC at Fort Polk. JRTC is the anti-guerrilla version of NTC-- a big laser-tag game, plus civilians, guerrillas, journalists and NGOs. I liked that book better, but it infuriated me later: to know that the Army *had* learned some lessons of counter-insurgency, and they couldn't get through to the high command.
He's also written two or three histories of post-Vietnam actions by the US, "Death ground," "Savage peace: Americans at war in the 1990s," and "Americans at war:1975-1986"; and a novel "Feast of bones."
Daniel P. Bolger-- says he now commands the 1st Cavalry Division.

WonderGoon

02-16-2010, 10:48 PM

A Rumor of War by Phillip Caputo: Pretty good read about the authors time in Vietnam with the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade in 1965 and again ten years later when he returned as a newspaper correspondent.

Blood on the Risers: An Airborne Soldier's Thirty-five Months in Vietnam by John Leppelman: An honest, gut wrenching read which was a catharsis for the author (in my opinion). At times brutally honest. Has an afterword where the author expresses his opinions on allowing females to take jump training. Leppelman served as a paratrooper with the 173rd Airborne, an Army seaman, and an LRRP.

Infantry Soldier Holding the Line at the Battle of the Bulge by George W. Neill: Neill served with the 99th Infantry Division during the Battle of the Bulge. It also covers his time serving with a signal battalion in London after he recovered from wounds suffered on the line. An interesting read.

The Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military This is a dictionary of military terms. Handy for those unfamiliar with military terminology. (I picked this up at Dollar General, of all places, for a dollar. Cover price is $7.99. Check the spinner rack at your local Dollar General, if you've got one nearby).

Enjoy!

Goon

sic1701

03-06-2010, 11:36 PM

Reading "The Dead Hand:The Untold Story Of The Cold War Arms Race And Its Dangerous Legacy" by David E. Hoffman. A little lite reading.

Oh, and the six-issue "Zero Killer" comic series by DC. In which WW3 happens in 1973.

Targan

03-07-2010, 12:02 AM

I'm currently reading a bit of a classic - The Fall of Saigon by David Butler.

chico20854

03-07-2010, 12:04 AM

Reading "The Dead Hand:The Untold Story Of The Cold War Arms Race And Its Dangerous Legacy" by David E. Hoffman. A little lite reading.

It's on my stack of books to read.

About halfway through "Strategic Geography - NATO, the Warsaw Pact and the Superpowers" by Hugh Farrington, with a free preview at http://books.google.com/books?id=A5g9AAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=strategic+geography+nato+the+warsaw+pact+and+th e+superpowers

sic1701

03-07-2010, 04:06 PM

Anyone read the John Birmingham Axis of Time trilogy; "Weapons of Choice", "Designated Targets", and "Final Impact"? Helluva story.

His "Without Warning" isn't quite as good, though the portion of the story detailing the Israeli pre-emptive nuclear strikes on their adversaries is pretty interesting.

Raellus

03-07-2010, 04:41 PM

Adrian Goldsworthy's How Rome Fell. Makes me fear for my own country. The parallels are numerous.

Adm.Lee

03-07-2010, 08:50 PM

There is no freedom without bread! : 1989 and the civil war that brought down Communism by Constantine Pleshakov. According to him, the WP forces were really really weak, and no one trusted them to squash any of the 1989 revolts. Well, Ceaucescu did, and see what that got him.

Dogger

03-15-2010, 02:31 AM

'Shattered Sword'. by Jonathan Parshall & Anthony Tully is a detailed account of the Battle of Midway from the Japanese perspective...and one of the best books of the battle that I've read. Wish I had gotten to it a lot sooner, excellent dissection of Japanese doctrine and a unique view into the actions, and inaction's that led to Kido Butai's fiery fate at the hands of the USN.

I especially enjoyed the detailed accounts of what was happening on the IJN CV's as USN bomb hits took place...very revealing. While I still enjoy Gordon W. Prange's Miracle at Midway for it's American view...Shattered Sword excellently completes the total view of the events of 4 - 7 June 1942.

Amazon Link (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1574889230/qid=1134328115/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-3296805-3538512?n=507846&s=books&v=glance)

http://www.jmr.nmm.ac.uk/upload/img_200/Shattered-Sword.jpg

Marc

03-15-2010, 05:14 AM

Adrian Goldsworthy's How Rome Fell. Makes me fear for my own country. The parallels are numerous.

Las year I read The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization, by Bryan Ward-Perkins. And in spite for the obvious differences, there are numerous and interesting parallelisms with the Twilight post-war world.

Some examples are the fall of the serial production (developed in certain fields), the lost of value of the currency in use and its substitution by the barter practicing, the interruption of the communication lines...

The fall of commerce in a very interdependent and specialized market caused starvation (in some cases) and the incapacity to continue the production of certain, since the moment, granted as needed, day to day goods.

Local production emerged as the only way to keep communities alive and the incapacity of the system to provide enforcing powers forced the different communities to develop their own self-defense methods against raiding parties. All with the inevitable lost of precious and specialized knowledge.

Of course, there are important differences with the Twilight world, above all, "the rhythm of the fall". Anyway I extracted some interesting ideas for our Twilight sessions.

headquarters

03-15-2010, 07:37 AM

Russian SCi Fi ina dystopic post apoc setting - the worlds largest airraid shelter -the Moscow subway system and of course the story of a young man embroiled in a plot to bring about the end or new beginning for mankind.

Brutality and makeshift firearms in a hazmat suit enviroment.

Also a cool insight into todays Russia -if you choose to read that into it .

Targan

03-15-2010, 08:05 AM

Marc

03-15-2010, 08:42 AM

Adm.Lee

03-15-2010, 10:54 AM

Adm.Lee

03-15-2010, 10:57 AM

The only thing worth dying for: how eleven Green Berets forged a new Afghanistan by Eric Blehm.

I haven't finished it yet, but this is about ODA 574, which choppered into southern Afghanistan, met up with Hamid Karzai, and took apart the Taliban around Kandahar. It's a great read, and it certainly seems like a thing a Twilight players' group would do.

Caradhras

03-17-2010, 08:30 AM

Researching for my latest project (running a campaign of players being British riflemen in the napoleonic Peninsula War), I have been reading this :-

http://www.amazon.com/Rifles-Years-Wellingtons-Legendary-Sharpshooters/dp/0571216811/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268832294&sr=8-12

It is a great read into the 'real lives' of men who fought in this period. Not sure how much Bernard Cornwells Sharpe series (books + TV) got around the World, but this is the facts behind the stories.

headquarters

03-17-2010, 09:18 AM

Sean bean makes agood Sharpe.Read some of them -watched others .All in all good stuff.

Researching for my latest project (running a campaign of players being British riflemen in the napoleonic Peninsula War), I have been reading this :-

http://www.amazon.com/Rifles-Years-Wellingtons-Legendary-Sharpshooters/dp/0571216811/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268832294&sr=8-12

It is a great read into the 'real lives' of men who fought in this period. Not sure how much Bernard Cornwells Sharpe series (books + TV) got around the World, but this is the facts behind the stories.

Targan

03-18-2010, 03:26 AM

Sean bean makes agood Sharpe.Read some of them -watched others .All in all good stuff.

Agreed.

Marc

03-18-2010, 04:42 AM

Sean bean makes agood Sharpe.Read some of them -watched others .All in all good stuff.

I've watched some of the episodes of Sharpe, too. Although I must admit that I still have some problems to understand 100% the spoken English, depending of accent of the character. The same happens to me with Anzacs. Sometimes it's a little frustrating... Anyway I have enjoyed Sharpe, though I remember an absurd argument of one of the episodes regarding a Spanish revolt in relation with an old relic-banner. Ah! Those inevitable topics!

Raellus

03-18-2010, 10:10 AM

I'm taking a bread from How Rome Fell to read the WWII memoir, With the Old Breed by E.B. Sledge. As an enlisted Marine, Sledge fought on Peleliu and Okinawa. His first-hand account of the battles makes for gripping reading. I highly recommend it. Apparently, this book was one of several used as the basis for the HBO miniseries, The Pacific.

Adm.Lee

05-11-2010, 09:01 PM

HOGs in the shadows: combat stories from Marine snipers in Iraq by Milo S. Afong. I'm partway into it, and it is well-written. It's a collection of reports from different snipers and teams.

I also picked up one by a British sniper, but I forgot the title-- Prince of Wales' Regiment, I remember that much.

I'm not a sniper-fanatic, but they do make for good reading pretty often, and as very small teams, they make for good RPG fodder. I can't remember the last time I tied a PC group in knots with a sniper..... :D

Raellus

05-11-2010, 09:12 PM

pmulcahy11b

05-11-2010, 11:27 PM

Sean bean makes agood Sharpe.Read some of them -watched others .All in all good stuff.

Another one of those cases where I have the books and haven't touched any of them yet...

Targan

05-12-2010, 02:06 AM

When I watched Sharpe on TV it reminded me of The Man Who Would Be King (film) based on the Rudyard Kipling story of the same name (The Man Who Would Be King). Anyone here seen that film? It was truly excellent, made a big impresion on me as a kid. It starred Sean Connery and Michael Caine. I can't recommend it highly enough.

TiggerCCW UK

05-12-2010, 03:55 AM

[U]

I also picked up one by a British sniper, but I forgot the title-- Prince of Wales' Regiment, I remember that much.

I think you're talking about 'Sniper One' by Dan Mills. Good read.

headquarters

05-12-2010, 04:04 AM

Rainbow Six

05-12-2010, 11:03 AM

Adm.Lee

05-12-2010, 04:25 PM

I think you're talking about 'Sniper One' by Dan Mills. Good read.

Yep, that's it.

I finished 'HOGs', it was pretty good. Nearly all of the stories are from 2003-04, and only one from '05.

HorseSoldier

05-13-2010, 04:01 PM

The Village and Once a Warrior King are both about Vietnam, but about low and slow counter-insurgency work, rather than big search and destroy operations or sexy LRRP work on the wrong side of the Cambodian border. Very good primers, I think, for a game or scenario where PCs put down roots in some surviving settlement.

Most anything about Rhodesia puts me in mind of how things might look in those places where a central government is still intact and fighting against enemy forces or marauder bands. War on a shoestring budget.

TiggerCCW UK

05-13-2010, 04:45 PM

'Once a Warrior King' is a great read, highly recommend it!

Raellus

05-24-2010, 09:51 AM

I heard an interview this morning on NPR with Sebastian Junger, author of A Perfect Storm, about his new book, War. It's about an American platoon manning a remote outpost in Afghanistan that endured near constant combat for several months. It sounds really interesting and I really enjoyed his earlier work. I usually wait for books to come out in paperback but I may end up springing for this one.

Anyone here read it already?

I just read War in a couple of sittings and it is very good. Aside from some riveting descriptions of combat, it goes into a lot of depth on the psychology of men in combat and, for someone who's never seen the elephant, it's chock full of useful information. It also deals a lot with what soldiers in a small FOB/outpost do in their down time.

Unlike Blackhawk Down, it doesn't have a coherent narrative thread- it's more a collection of related events over a two-year period- but it's just about as good. I highly recommend it.

The author was also making an award-winning, feature length documentary while he was researching/reporting the events in the book. It's called Restrepo and it's not yet been released. I can't wait to see it.

pmulcahy11b

05-24-2010, 11:22 AM

I heard an interview this morning on NPR with Sebastian Junger, author of A Perfect Storm, about his new book, War. It's about an American platoon manning a remote outpost in Afghanistan that endured near constant combat for several months. It sounds really interesting and I really enjoyed his earlier work. I usually wait for books to come out in paperback but I may end up springing for this one.

Anyone here read it already?

I just watched a DVRed episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, who had an interview with Sebastian Junger the Friday before last -- the man talks and acts like a veteran even though he's a journalist, and he's deeply impressed and has considerable respect for the soldiers he spent time with. He plainly said he doesn't ever want to go back to Afghanistan, because he doesn't think he has the courage to do it again, and he admires the guts of those who go back again and again. I was impressed with him -- I'll have to go find his book.

Raellus

02-20-2011, 05:16 PM

I just finished The Last Stand of Fox Company about a besieged U.S. Marine unit cut off on a hill guarding a pass during the Chosin Resevoir battles of the Korean War. It's really good and I highly recommend it. Right now, it's available on Amazon for only $6. It's well worth it.

http://www.amazon.com/Last-Stand-Fox-Company-Marines/dp/B004H8GM5S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1298243720&sr=8-1

HorseSoldier

02-20-2011, 06:43 PM

East of Chosin is another good read from that place and time, about the US Army regimental combat team on the other side of the resevoir across from the USMC. For the most part they didn't make it out -- I think something like 70-80 survivors stumbled into the relative safety of the Marines' lines after they were surrounded and plowed under by taking their chances walking out across the ice on the resevoir itself.

Apparently their situation was stable and they were holding their own as long as the ammunition held for the quad-50s and 40mm AA guns, but once those went black they weren't able to keep the Chinese at bay effectively.

Targan

02-21-2011, 03:56 AM

Tobruk by Peter Fitzsimons, published by Harper Collins. A very in-depth and illustrated chronicle of the part of the North African campaign in the title. I bought 3 copies, one for myself, one for my father and one for my future father in law. It means alot to my father and myself because my grandfather was a New Zealand infantry captain when he fought in the battles for Tobruk.

Rapparee

02-21-2011, 03:18 PM

The Boys From Baghdad- Simon Lowe

My dad read this and slung it my direction when he was finished. A man who was in the British Army for seven years, went on to serve with the French Foreign Legion for a decade then decides to become a PMC with ArmorGroup in Iraq, guarding convoys. Ambushes and friendly fire incidents all seem to be in a days work for this guy.

McAleese's Fighting Manual-Peter McAleese

An ex British para, with experience in Aden and the like, he went on to do mercenary work in Angola for the FNLA (Taking over from the infamous Colonel Callan). After that he served in Rhodesia with their SAS during the Bush War, continuing onto South Africa after it ended. Even after a parachute accident, this man went on to do some mercenary work in Colombia before training Russian bodyguards.

His manual is a book describing the basics of small-scale infantry combat. Its clearly orientated around the platoon and is chock full of anecdotes of his experiences, particularly those in Africa. He's a big fan of low-tech solutions and has an endless array of dirty tricks to divulge. A veyr interesting read.

Also, good to see Sniper One getting some love here. Absolutely fantastic book!

Legbreaker

02-21-2011, 04:44 PM

McAleese's Fighting Manual-Peter McAleese

His manual is a book describing the basics of small-scale infantry combat. Its clearly orientated around the platoon and is chock full of anecdotes of his experiences, particularly those in Africa. He's a big fan of low-tech solutions and has an endless array of dirty tricks to divulge. A very interesting read.

Sounds like it should be required reading for any player with a combat type character. Too many times basic mistakes are made in RPGs by players with characters who should know better.

Adm.Lee

03-26-2011, 03:46 PM

Not quite a recommendation today, but an update. Daniel P. Bolger wrote several really good books that I am sure I mentioned upthread ("Battle for Hunger Hill," "Dragons in the desert" to name just two). I was downloading an article he wrote in 1991, and thought to look for him on Wikipedia. He's been promoted to Lieutenant General after commanding the 1st Cavalry Division.

And, another operational-level WW2 book that I love now: "The battle for western Europe: fall 1944," by John A. Adams.

HorseSoldier

03-26-2011, 04:27 PM

Meh -- Bolger wrote cheerleading pieces reflecting whatever unit he was assigned to. When his mech infantry book started talking about how M113s with 50 cals were BMP killing machines I pretty much realized he'd given me permission to ignore anything else he had to say (though I suffered through a couple more of his books along the way).

I'm not surprised to hear he made general and is moving up the chain at that level. He struck me (from his books) as the kind of guy who'd do well on the political side of the career track.

Targan

03-26-2011, 11:36 PM

I recently ordered online a copy of A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan (I read it years ago but lost my original copy). Vann was a really unusual guy, very outspoken, was basically forced out of the US Army as Lt Col during the Vietnam War because what he was trying to tell the top brass about the war in Vietnam was very unpopular. He went back to Vietnam with USAID and ended up commanding troops as a civilian with similar authority to a general. Was also a close personal friend of Dan Ellsberg's.

Vann had many personal failings and no doubt pissed off a lot of people but he was a very interesting character. I recommend this book.

HorseSoldier

03-27-2011, 06:23 AM

I saw the (not so great) made for HBO movie version and have been wanting to read the book for some time -- Vann does seem like one of those "in case of war break glass" sort of guys, but even then made the fatal faux pas of committing the truth, which is rarely popular and probably about as big a mistake as anyone could make among the Vietnam era senior military and political leadership . . .

dragoon500ly

03-27-2011, 07:09 AM

Here's a few from the stacks:

Carlson's Raid, The Daring Marine Assault on Makin by George Smith. Best account of the August, 1942 raid that I've found. Well researched.

Omaha Beach, A Flawed Vistory by Adrian Lewis, Traces the development of the Omaha assault plan including how the tactical leadership were opposed to the entire plan. A good read that blows a few holes in some popular misconceptions of the battle.

Unheralded Victory, The Defeat of the Viet Kong and the North Vietnamese Army 1961-1973 by Mark Woodruff. An intresting read concerning the tactical defeat of the VC/NVA and their final political victory.

Matt Wiser

03-27-2011, 09:49 PM

I'll add Beevor's D-Day to the list. Along with Paul Carrell's two books on the Eastern Front: Hitler Moves East and Scorched Earth.

Adm.Lee

03-27-2011, 10:50 PM

Along with Paul Carrell's two books on the Eastern Front: Hitler Moves East and Scorched Earth.

As long as you are aware of Carell's rah-rah for the German side of the Eastern Front. I agree, he's a good writer, it's more readable than a lot of East Front stuff I've read.

Matt Wiser

03-28-2011, 01:28 AM

Oh, I'm well aware of that...I first read them when I was in college, and a professor who also had the books pointed that out-especially the lack of any treatment of partisan warfare or the Einsatzgruppen's activities. Too bad he never did a final book to tell the final story from Summer '44 to the end. Though Antony Beevor's book on Berlin treats the Vistula-Oder Offensive and Pomerania well enough.

JHart

03-28-2011, 03:05 PM

dragoon500ly

03-29-2011, 03:19 PM

Here's a couple of more titles...

"The Last Hundred Yards", this one is a intro guide for USMC NCOs, useful since it breaks down a lot of the leadership tasks into easy to digest blocks. Very useful for non-military players to get a feel for how things work.

"The Myth of the Great War, How the Germans Won the Battles and How the Americans Saved the Allies." By John Mosier. Title says it all, its a well researched book by an author who took the time to research the German, French, and Italian military archives. His conclusions will certainly send any Anglophile into near-earth orbit. Everything from the Allied High Command lying to the civilian government, to mislabeling maps as to exactly where the front lines are. Take the time to set down and read it, then research his sources.....it certainly leaves you questioning some of the popular myths of WWI....

pmulcahy11b

03-30-2011, 08:57 AM

I finished reading The Gun by C. J. Chivers a couple of weeks ago, which is a history of the AK-47. It offers a good history about the development of automatic guns and the effect of the AK on the world stage.

I have a similar-concept book, AK-47: The Grim Reaper, by Frank Iannamico, which I intend to read in more detail in the near future, especially with an eye towards what I can add to my T2K pages.

TiggerCCW UK

03-30-2011, 05:15 PM

Keeping the AK theme going I'd also recommend 'AK-47 The weapon that changed the face of war' by Larry Kahaner.

Raellus

03-30-2011, 06:53 PM

There's been a glut of books on the AK over the past 5 years or so. I guess a bunch of authors realized that the 60th anniversary of the Kalashnikov assault rifle '47 was coming up and they all started working on books to hit stores at around that time.

Sanjuro

04-06-2011, 06:16 AM

For anyone who enjoyed Once a Warrior King, I can also recommend Chickenhawk, by Robert Mason. It is an excellent account of a novice helicopter pilot learning his trade with the 1st Cav in Vietnam, with some very revealing stuff later on about the effects of combat fatigue.

Rainbow Six

04-09-2011, 01:29 PM

Just finished Dead Men Risen by Toby Harnden (ISBN 9781849164214),

There are a number of books now available about the British Army in Afghanistan and this one is, in my opinion, one of the best I've read. It covers the Welsh Guards 2009 tour, during which they lost their Commanding Officer and a Company Commander to IED's.

Highly, highly recommended.

Adm.Lee

06-06-2011, 02:57 PM

The wrong war: grit, strategy and the way out of Afghanistan by "Bing" West.

West is also the author of the classic The Village, about a Combined Action Platoon in Vietnam. This is his book about hanging around Marines and soldiers in 2009 and 2010, and his recommendations as well. I thought the patrol reporting was well done, and the suggestions clear.

He does not over-hype the "Well, when I was in Vietnam, we did this..." angle, but he does draw parallels when they can be seen. In fact, he spends a fair amount of time on the places where classic Counterinsurgency prescriptions won't work, such as where the locals are deeply hostile, and the local government is too corrupt or incompetent to deliver meaningful services.

Raellus

06-06-2011, 04:01 PM

Raellus

07-21-2011, 09:44 PM

These Osprey titles haven't been released yet, at least in the U.S., but they promise to have quite a bit of potential for the classic T2K'er:

1. Vietnam Gun-Trucks 2. Special Operations Patrol Vehicles (Afghanistan & Iraq) 3. LAV-25

http://www.amazon.com/Vietnam-Gun-Trucks-New-Vanguard/dp/184908355X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311302416&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Special-Operations-Patrol-Vehicles-Afghanistan/dp/1849081875/ref=pd_sim_b_7

http://www.amazon.com/LAV-25-New-Vanguard-James-DAngina/dp/1849086117/ref=pd_sim_b_1

kcdusk

07-24-2011, 03:40 AM

I just bought "Licensed to kill" by Robert Young Pelton. More Merc than T2K. I've only read the first 3 or 4 chapters, it has been a great read so far with subject material to come later in the book which i am more interested in.

http://www.amazon.com/Licensed-Kill-Hired-Guns-Terror/dp/1400097819

Graebarde

08-10-2011, 05:37 PM

One Second Later William R Forstchen. EMP attack on the US, and survival in a rather populated area of western North Carolina. Very interesting perspectives. The book, written a few years ago, was actually submitted to congress, or at least one of the committees.

Sorry if it was already mentioned.

Sanjuro

08-10-2011, 07:18 PM

Sniping in France, by Herbert Hesketh-Prichard. The author was a big game hunter, who became involved in the training of snipers and scouts in WW1. It has a lot of interesting material about camouflage, and the use of hides for snipers. The fictional sniper in Gerald Seymour's Holding the Zero had a copy in his rucksack!

Raellus

08-10-2011, 07:18 PM

bobcat

08-11-2011, 03:13 AM

Targan

08-11-2011, 06:57 AM

house to house by david bellavia is a very good book. great depictions of modern urban fighting. taken from real events in fallujah.

(of course you will notice the crazy guy what trained me is mentioned by name on page 78) :D

Indeed a good read (as I said in post #38 of this thread :D). Depicts urban warfare as being a really intense, visceral activity. Obviously very nerve-wracking for the author.

Graebarde

08-24-2011, 03:40 PM

I hope that's fiction! ;)

Ooops.. yeah it's fiction... dang glasses LOL.. though I was posting in the fiction books.. sorry.

ArmySGT.

08-24-2011, 06:17 PM

http://www.scribd.com/collections/2340844/WWII-American-TMs-and-FMs

Rainbow Six

09-02-2011, 07:06 AM

Just finished "Outlaws Inc" by Matt Potter (isbn 9780283071379).

It details the activities of ex Soviet Air Force crews who turned to private enterprise after the end of the Cold War, flying cargos of varying legality around the World in ageing Ilyushins and Antonovs.

Highly recommended for anyone running a Merc: 2000 game.

Adm.Lee

09-02-2011, 02:02 PM

Just finished "Outlaws Inc" by Matt Potter ...

Highly recommended for anyone running a Merc: 2000 game.

That sounds cool!

I'm about halfway thru "Lions of Kandahar: the story of a fight against all odds" by Maj. Rusty Bradley. It's an SF A-Team (with an Afghan company) south of Kandahar in the fall of 2006. So far, it's good, but not great. Standard "SF are awesome, Big Army just doesn't understand us" vibe is running through it.

kota1342000

09-23-2011, 12:21 PM

Anyone running Mediterranean Cruise or Boomer might be interested in "Dangerous Ground" ISBN-10: 076530788X, and "Cold Choices" ISBN-10: 0765358468, both by Larry Bond. Both fiction both excellent backgound and detail for attack boats. :)

Webstral

09-23-2011, 02:26 PM

Standard "SF are awesome, Big Army just doesn't understand us" vibe is running through it.

The Big Army doesn't get SF. It's not that the regulars can't get SF; however, the Army leadership is conditioned to deal with Joe. Joe is a good guy, but at the same time he generally sucks a**. He requires close supervision for virtually every task. Despite having volunteered, he generally behaves as though he was dragooned into service. His responsibilities mean little to him beyond the fact that he will suffer if he is caught not executing them. The spirit of the law is only to be observed when it comes to his privileges; otherwise, a stricter observance of the letter of the law than a tort lawyer could argue is the watchword. "I was told I couldn't go to the PX. No one said anything about the commissary or the bowling alley."

Of course, the other side of the coin is that the leadership has become so jaded from dealing with Joe that everything comes to revolve around the lowest common demoninator. Since in any body of soldiers larger than four someone is sure to become a drunken idiot if given a touch of liberty, no one can be given liberty. Since every application of UCMJ in my command (says a unit commander) jeopardizes my OER, the only reasonable solution is to prevent any and all misbehavior. Better to treat 100 men putting their lives on the line for the nation like untrustworthy children than let a single chowderhead take the heat for his own decisions. Grown men can only be treated like untrustworthy children for so long before they start to live up to the expectations of the leadership. The circle completes itself.

So I would argue that the Big Army doesn't get Special Forces because we're acculturated against tolerating or recognizing the behaviors that mark SF: initiative, judgment, commitment, recognizance.

atiff

09-24-2011, 05:25 AM

I can't find the quote, but I believe it was a Civil War general who said something like "To understand that men are simply boys grown large, one must have commanded soldiers." Seems this idea of how large groups of men in uniform behave has been around for some time...

Legbreaker

09-24-2011, 09:54 AM

So I would argue that the Big Army doesn't get Special Forces because we're acculturated against tolerating or recognizing the behaviors that mark SF: initiative, judgment, commitment, recognizance.
It really depends on the organisation. Over here in Australia, personal initiative, good judgement, commitment, and self control are highly desired traits in the junior ranks.
This isn't to say obedience and discipline aren't demanded, however the individual soldier is given the freedom to make their own decisions on most matters (and enough rope to hang themselves with if they're stupid with that freedom).

Adm.Lee

09-24-2011, 11:02 AM

It really depends on the organisation. Over here in Australia, personal initiative, good judgement, commitment, and self control are highly desired traits in the junior ranks.
This isn't to say obedience and discipline aren't demanded, however the individual soldier is given the freedom to make their own decisions on most matters (and enough rope to hang themselves with if they're stupid with that freedom).

I think it comes down to command climate. No commander went wrong (it is believed) if he stuck to the regs. It is a lot easier than making judgement calls, and allowing subordinates the freedom to do what they need/want.

Anyway, I am reminded of a great quote about large organizations. "The Navy is a system designed by geniuses, to be operated by idiots." -- I forget the character's name, from The Caine Mutiny, by Herman Wouk.

Matt W

09-24-2011, 01:57 PM

"Merchant of Death"

http://www.amazon.com/Merchant-Death-Money-Planes-Possible/dp/0470048662

Ideal for a Merc: 2000 campaign

Adm.Lee

09-24-2011, 09:36 PM

That sounds cool!

I'm about halfway thru "Lions of Kandahar: the story of a fight against all odds" by Maj. Rusty Bradley. It's an SF A-Team (with an Afghan company) south of Kandahar in the fall of 2006.

I should have posted once I finished it. It was good, but not great. The author's team, with other teams and their Afghan allies, drove across a desert to form a backstop for 2+ Canadian mechanized battalions that were driving south from Kandahar. What happened was that the mechs got mired in built-up towns, while the teams blundered into the Taliban's training, HQ and marshaling area, stirring up a hornet's nest.

What I didn't like was that while the "foolish Big Army" vibe continued, I didn't detect much that the Canadians didn't do for the SF guys. The other bit that rubbed me wrong was that it was the author that always had the right answer to his commander's problems-- it seemed a bit self-promoting.

Adm.Lee

10-07-2011, 05:14 PM

What it's like to go to war by Karl Marlantes.

Wow. The author has also written the novel Matterhorn, about a Marine lieutenant in Vietnam. This is his book on dealing with his own life, before during and after having been a Marine LT in Vietnam. He delves into myth, religion, psychology, spirituality, philosophy and more.

The main thrust is how screwed up he was after he got back (he actually did get spit on while in uniform), how he's come to terms with that, and what America and western society ought to do to accommodate warriors among them. It's stuff to head off or alleviate PTSD before and after battle, and to come to grips with it in the long term. It's also something that he wants policymakers to understand before making life & death decisions.

It's heady stuff, and I plan on reading it again someday.

HorseSoldier

10-08-2011, 01:15 AM

Grown men can only be treated like untrustworthy children for so long before they start to live up to the expectations of the leadership. The circle completes itself.

I think that problem has been perennial in any military organization, at least judging by Kipling's "We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too, But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you; . . . You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all: We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational."

So I would argue that the Big Army doesn't get Special Forces because we're acculturated against tolerating or recognizing the behaviors that mark SF: initiative, judgment, commitment, recognizance.

That would be my assessment, also, having done the gear shifting back from the land of the happy secret squirrels to the Big Army (or National Guard, anyway). I see a lot of NCOs who don't seem to grasp that trying to model yourself and your conduct on how your drill sergeant treated people in basic training doesn't make you a good NCO, it just marks you as a dolt who can't really analyze and assess how to get the best out your troops in grown-up land. This would probably be less galling if the same guys didn't tend to be the best and brightest -- on paper -- but who are really just the end result of an organization that has a seriously pathological love-hate relationship with initiative and autonomy.

(On the other hand, on the SF side of the house, if someone wanted to be a stereotypical Joe -- even on the support side -- he could usually be shown the door and found some new home if he didn't make midcourse corrections. In the Big Army, when Joe wants to be as dumb as he can be . . . well, then someone has to retard their response down to his level. Or revise the system so it's easier to separate the non-adaptors and duds, but I'm not holding my breath on that.)

Raellus

10-08-2011, 12:11 PM

What it's like to go to war Wow. The author has also written the novel Matterhorn, about a Marine lieutenant in Vietnam. This is his book on dealing with his own life, before during and after having been a Marine LT in Vietnam. He delves into myth, religion, psychology, spirituality, philosophy and more.

I already raved about Matterhorn over in the fiction recommendation thread, but I've got to reiterate here just how brilliant it was. I definitely plan on rereading it again soon.

raketenjagdpanzer

10-11-2011, 01:40 PM

By Sledge and Lecke, respectively.

Sledge's book is by far a better, IMO, view of the Marines in the pacific from a grunt's eye view. The book is a horror story; although Sledge sees active duty late in the war (the full title of his book is In With The Old Breed at Pelileu and Okinawa) the late-war almost calm that seems to permeate books about the Western European theater (Citizen Soldier, Band of Brothers, Beyond Band of Brothers, Biggest Brother, etc.) the fighting in the Pacific reached a fevered pitch up to the surrender in August of 1945 - and Sledge was in the thick of it.

It's fascinating to read about Sledge's combat experience on Pelileu, and his talk of the airfield - then to read Leckie's treatment of that same battle (Leckie's last; a Japanese field gun chased him down with shell fire until an errant round hit an ammo dump near him and the concussion left him temporarily deaf and suffering aphasia and he did not recover in time to be returned to the line).

Leckie's book is almost poetic in its description of everything, including the horrors of combat. Where Sledge focused on how war ground him down (he almost succumbed to the temptation to take gold teeth from the mouth of a dead Japanese soldier until a field medic cautioned him about "germs", although he relates that the medic was likely more concerned for the health of Sledge's soul rather than his physical well-being), and about the utterly dehumanizing conditions that his unit lived and fought in, Leickie frames the experience in terms of a grand adventure, a boys' own, even his own removal to a rear-area mental hospital for bedwetting which included threatening an orderly (albeit half-jokingly) with a captured Japanese pistol.

They're both great works, of the two, though, again, I prefer Sledge's story the most.

It was interesting (and a bit disappointing) to read them after having seen The Pacific on HBO: while Sledge's memoir was kept "essentially" the same, Leckie's book seemed to have been mined for its skeleton, but surface details wholly erased or recreated to fit a different story. For example, in the book, Leckie talks about stealing supplies from Army depots including canned peaches and apricots which he describes as being so good that he ate until he felt sick: in the miniseries, we're treated to James Badge vomiting profusely after eating part of a can. Likewise, a French expatriot who'd joined the 1st Marines and been given the nickname "Commando" is seen (in the mini-series) as succumbing to shell shock and committing suicide nude in front of the mess tent. Per Leckie, the actual person was stalwart (if a bit wrong-headed in applying urban and suburban guerrilla warfare tactics to jungle combat) and died in combat.

Tonally, The Pacific portrayed Leckie's experiences as much more in line with the way Sledge, perhaps, would have described them rather than how Leckie actually did.

Raellus

10-11-2011, 02:54 PM

These would go really well in the Non-Fiction Recommendation Thread. I think I will go ahead and try to merge them.

raketenjagdpanzer

10-11-2011, 03:08 PM

These would go really well in the Non-Fiction Recommendation Thread. I think I will go ahead and try to merge them.

Dang it why do I keep forgetting that thing is there?! Sorry, boss.

Fusilier

10-11-2011, 11:01 PM

I already raved about Matterhorn over in the fiction recommendation thread, but I've got to reiterate here just how brilliant it was. I definitely plan on rereading it again soon.

I followed your recommendation and finished it just a little while ago. Glad I did. Definitely worth a re-read, or in my case a re-listen (I had to go audio). I already have a few ideas taken from it to put to use in my pbp game.

Also, I swear I saw a review of it on Amazon by you...

Raellus

10-12-2011, 12:03 AM

I followed your recommendation and finished it just a little while ago. Glad I did. Definitely worth a re-read, or in my case a re-listen (I had to go audio). I already have a few ideas taken from it to put to use in my pbp game.

Also, I swear I saw a review of it on Amazon by you...

Marlantes' novel is amazing, right?

I've written a few reviews on Amazon but I didn't write one for Matterhorn. I did, however, write an epic review of the Three Wolf Moon T-shirt, which, IIRC, you first led me to.

Rainbow Six

12-28-2011, 08:42 AM

Got the usual haul of books for Christmas, which as ever will take me about six months to work my way through.

One that I have to mention though is "The Official ARRSE Guide to the British Army" by Major Des Astor (isbn 9780593065617) which manages to do a great job of being both funny and informative.

Some more info (and a couple of reviews) on Amazon

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Official-ARRSE-Guide-British-Army/dp/0593065611/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325083156&sr=8-1

Definitely recommended.

Adm.Lee

03-19-2012, 02:03 PM

Outlaw platoon by Sean Parnell

The author commanded a rifle platoon for the 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan in 2006. As I read it, I thought that he did a very good job, both at leading his men, and at writing the book.

Also frustrating to read the encounters with base-bound "FOBbits" who fail to understand that they're in a war zone. Ditto for some of the officers and NCOs he had to deal with.

The "village of the damned" chapter, which details the terror tactics of the Taliban, was quite horrifying.

Regarding the SF/line troops controversy we talked of above, I was pleased to see that Parnell's aggressive spirit won the respect of an SF colonel who operated with them at one point.

Adm.Lee

03-19-2012, 02:11 PM

God willing: my wild ride with the new Iraqi Army by Eric Navarro

Here's a Marine officer who becomes an advisor to an Iraqi battalion. If you ever want to hear a nightmare about leading troops to battle, this might be it. The below quote from upthread came back to me as I went looking through here.

... however, the Army leadership is conditioned to deal with Joe. Joe is a good guy, but at the same time he generally sucks a**. He requires close supervision for virtually every task. ... His responsibilities mean little to him beyond the fact that he will suffer if he is caught not executing them. The spirit of the law is only to be observed when it comes to his privileges; otherwise, a stricter observance of the letter of the law than a tort lawyer could argue is the watchword. "I was told I couldn't go to the PX. No one said anything about the commissary or the bowling alley."

Navarro came to realize that each and every order had to be given all the time, every time, starting with instructions to use the latrines and/or port-a-potties. Fire discipline was non-existent, and many more things that seemed too wild to believe.

Adm.Lee

07-28-2012, 08:57 AM

"The gun" by C J Chivers. Half of this is about the Mikhail Kalashnikov, his AK-47 and its successors, knockoffs, and derivatives, and what they meant to the world. In the '60s, it meant revolutionaries and guerrillas. Since the '70s, that has meant terrorists, and in the '90s, child soldiers and warlords. AK may also stand for "Africa Killer."

About a quarter is the development of automatic weapons, from Dr. Gatling through WW1. WW2 is lightly covered, but the Sturmgewehr 44 is in there. Another quarter is the slow American response to develop an assault rifle, followed by the hasty adoption of the AR-15/M-16 and its teething troubles.

Some of the details here were new to me, but I had read the overall story before. I give it 3 stars.

Now, for what I think could have been added.
The author does take the DoD to task for suddenly jumping on the barely tested AR-15, and not opening up competitive bids. I suspect there was a huge element of the McNamara & whiz-kids mentality of "doing everything in a new way," I might have explored that.

If other American companies might have developed assault rifles, what of Europe? Were all of the gun companies also blind to the new type of weapon, did they not have ideas? The NATO standardization fight was touched on, but I don't know if it was reopened at any point.

Littlearmies

08-17-2012, 06:55 PM

First of all I'd second "Dead Men Risen" by Toby Harnden - easily the best book about the British in Afghanistan that I've read.

Secondly, I'd recommend "Black Hearts" by Jim Fredericks. It sounds wrong to say I enjoyed this book - it is about Bravo Company of 1/502 in Iraq in 2006/7. At the centre of the book is how four soldiers of the battalion murdered an Iraqi family of four and raped the 14 year old daughter before murdering her - but the story of Bravo Company's time in Iraq that places the murder in context is pretty chilling reading. Fredericks has clearly researched his subject pretty thoroughly and describes the emotional impact of a year spent "outside the wire" extremely well - I'd recommend this book for anyone interested in the psychological aspects of war crimes, and I think it should be read by commanders up to at least company level.

I'm interested to hear the views of some veterans on this one. Obviously it always risky to base an opinion on one journalist take on an event but after reading the book I'd have sacked just about everybody involved in the chain of command (one couldn't help contrasting the calibre and style of management in the 502nd with that of the Welsh Guards in Toby Harnden's book) - nobody at any level really comes out of it looking good. Clearly the guys who committed the crimes were guilty and there are no excuses for what they did - but after reading the book I couldn't help feeling that they and their colleagues had been let down at just about every level of management right the way to the very top. Instead pretty well everyone (except for the four perpetrators) who had some command responsibility for these men appears to have continued their careers in the army as though nothing much had happened.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Hearts-platoons-descent-triangle/dp/023075208X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345247348&sr=1-1

Raellus

08-18-2012, 12:14 AM

Speaking of books dealing with war crimes, I just finished Tiger Force, by Sallah and Weiss. It's about an off-the-books recon platoon from the 101st and its protracted rampage of scores of deliberate civilian killings in Vietnam during 1967. The authors are a pair of newspaper journalists who clearly don't know a whole lot about military matters, but the story they tell is pretty compelling. The military investigated the murders into the mid '70s before someone higher up burried it.

Littlearmies

08-18-2012, 04:18 AM

Re Black Hearts - I'd like to stress that this book isn't a hatchet job on the military - the crime itself and the investigation are just a small part of the book. Fredericks has clearly done a first rate amount of research and he writes very well about the stress caused by walking down a road looking for IEDs, or manning a checkpoint waiting for someone to shoot at you. In my view he expresses this better than Sebastian Junger does in "War". He makes cogent points to rebut those that suggest that service in Iraq or Afghanistan is somehow less tough than WWII because the soldiers are only facing insurgents rather than the Wehrmacht. The book is also a real eye-opener for us Brits who see our army in Afghanistan and elsewhere making do with too few soldiers for the job, and not enough equipment to do it - and who perceive the American way of war as riding in by the thousands with Oakley sunglasses and state of the art gear, blowing everything up and then declaring victory (okay exaggerated for effect but you know what I mean). These guys were in allegedly the worst place in Iraq at the time, without enough troops to do what was asked of them, evidently beyond the end of a very long supply line, and had a shitty CO to boot. My personal view is that this book should be required reading for all officers and NCOs as a study in just how the results of stress, undermanning, perceived isolation and poor leadership can result in terrible consequences (in passing there are some wider but still pertinent points made about the US Army as a whole) but there you go...

Adm.Lee

02-07-2013, 09:31 PM

Got two for today.

I'm 2/3 through "Ike's bluff" by Evan Thomas. This is good! Not only informative, but an easy read, too. It's a bit before our T2k time, but still important. It's Pres. Eisenhower's foreign & defense policies, how he wrestled with the fact that he could blow the world to Kingdom Come in a day. Ike opted for a light touch and plenty of misdirection. Journalists and historians since have thought of Ike as a bumbling geezer who didn't seem to care about dangers, but that was mostly his act, working to put the American people at ease. He didn't want panic pushing the country into a Prussian- or Soviet-style police/garrison state, and he didn't want to panic the Soviets into starting something they couldn't finish. His "New Look" defense policy (aka "massive retaliation") was meant to keep the US out of all wars, since any war could easily escalate to the Big One.

"Rules of the game" by Andrew Gordon. It's about the Royal Navy's leadership at Jutland. The first 1/3 of the book sets up the battle, and takes us deeply into the first phases of the action. Then, we go back in time, to see how the peacetime RN became so set in its ways, especially in regards to signalling, that hardened initiative and tactical thinking. That's also about 1/3 of the book, and it dragged a bit, IMO. The last third resumes with the battle and the aftermath. There's a good bit on how contemporary navies could pay attention to what happened, and learn how to avoid peacetime mindsets that stultify wartime thinking. The Jellicoe vs. Beatty arguments that riled the service in the postwar years are included.

Adm.Lee

06-26-2013, 05:29 PM

by Gary O'Neal, with David Fisher.

O'Neal is apparently one of those super-SF/Ranger guys that we all fear and envy. He's put in a 30+year career, jumping, snooping, instructing, fighting since Vietnam.

He's also deeply spiritual, in a Native American way (his mother was Sioux), and has developed his own martial art, which he has taught.

Raellus

06-29-2013, 01:25 PM

I just finished Guns at Last Light by Rick Atkinson. It's the third and final volume in his excellent Liberation Trilogy about the United States' involvement in the ETO during WWII and it focusses on the campaign in northwest Europe from D-Day to VE Day. The first book, Army at Dawn chronicles the campaign in North Africa from Operation Torch onward. The second book, called The Day of Battle, is about the campaigns in Sicily and Italy through 1944. All three books are really, really good. Although they focus on American diplomatic and military involvement in each region, they also cover other Allied personalities and operations as well, especially for joint and/or codependent ops. I can't recommend this trilogy highly enough.

James Langham

07-08-2013, 10:53 AM

In addition to the Flashman books, George MacDonald Fraser also wrote the wonderful "Quartered Safe Out Here," chronicling his time in Burma in WW2. An unapologetic book it tries to explain the reality of soldiering there and features some wonderful set piece scenes - I defy anyone to not be moved (in both humour and gentle sadness) by the description of the ex-servicemen many years on in the final chapter.

If you enjoy this he continues the story in fictional form in the McAuslen trilogy which I find even better than his wonderful Flashman books.

Raellus

07-25-2013, 03:55 PM

This isn't a review because I haven't read this yet, but this new book looks to be a great source of material on what happens in the aftermath of a devastating, modern, total war situation- the kind you'd expect to see in the Twilight War.

http://www.npr.org/2013/07/24/204538728/after-wwii-europe-was-a-savage-continent-of-devastation?utm_source&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=20130725

I shall be acquiring it forthwith and will post a review once I've finished it.

Incidentally, I just stumbled across a fairly recent (it's new in paperback) book entitled Twilight War, about the simmering decades=long pseudo-war between Iran and the U.S.

Targan

08-03-2013, 10:28 PM

Plague Wars: The Terrifying Reality of Biological Warfare by Tom Mangold and Jeff Goldberg, published by St. Martin's Press ISBN 0-312-20353-5 / 0-312-26379-1. The edition I have is from 2001 so it's a little bit dated now but it really is terrifying. Meticulously footnoted for sources and quite a few photos and illustrations too. You don't have to be an epidemiologist to understand this book. The biggest problem I had reading it is that it's so depressing how easily biological warfare could end modern human civilization.

Raellus

09-07-2013, 03:54 PM

I've started reading Savage Continent and, so far, it's proving to be a veritable gold mine for T2K-related world-building. Fairly concise but colorful sections address everything from displaced persons, to famine, the black market, and the the physical and moral degradation and destruction of most of continental Europe. It's a must-have for anyone who wants/needs help creating a grim but realistic post-apocalyptic setting, especially in Europe (although a lot of it could just as well be applied to CONUS or other parts of the western world).

mikeo80

09-07-2013, 05:16 PM

The biggest problem I had reading it is that it's so depressing how easily biological warfare could end modern human civilization.

All it really takes is one person with a highly contagious disease that does not manifest for 48-72 hours. (Think a virulent flu) That person gets on a 747 or an Airbus with 500-600 people in an enclosed space for, say, an 8 hour flight. Now you have 500-600 disease vectors getting on OTHER flights. Need I go on?

I could see nukes being brought out in very short notice to try and BURN the bug out. All international travel stops. All trade stops.

I have got to stop here. I am depressing myself.....

My $0.02

Mike

Cdnwolf

09-07-2013, 06:49 PM

http://www.ndemiccreations.com/en/

This is a fascinating app game I play on my phone and the purpose is to wipe out the world with a plague in the shortest time evolving it. It is scary how fast different virus types and bacteria's evolve.

raketenjagdpanzer

09-07-2013, 07:16 PM

If you have at least a high-school graduate education I think Rise and Fall of the Third Reich should be mandatory reading.

Adm.Lee

09-24-2013, 07:51 PM

I just picked this one up at the library this week, it started off reading easily. He started as a cavalry scout in 1986, spent a little time in Desert Storm, Bosnia, and then twice into Iraq.

He spent a lot of time in M113, M2 and M3, so hearing about being inside one of those is probably worth looking at, for the crowd around here.

At least two of the brief reviews on Goodreads.com say that others think he's making up some of the stuff. Could be, I am in no position to judge at this time.

Raellus

09-24-2013, 08:15 PM

I noticed Carnivore on the shelf at my local bookstore. Reading the dust jacket gave me the strong impression that it's a vanity piece including more than a fair sprinkling of macho B.S.

Adm.Lee

09-25-2013, 08:46 PM

It's sounding a lot like "war stories," well-embellished, as told at the bar after the war.

In the initial days of combat in 2003, apparently dozens, if not hundreds of trucks full of Iraqi soldiers kept driving into the fire of his Bradley. He's run his track out of ammo a lot.

It does read well, I've barely spent two hours on it, and I'm 2/3 done.

Raellus

09-26-2013, 12:05 AM

In the initial days of combat in 2003, apparently dozens, if not hundreds of trucks full of Iraqi soldiers kept driving into the fire of his Bradley. He's run his track out of ammo a lot.

That's more plausible than what the jacket seemed to imply. It made it sound like he was lighting up T-72s and hopping out of his track to do clean up with a liberated AK (I seem to remember a photo of the author with such an AK on the cover or inside flap of the jacket).

If you haven't already read Thunder Run, by David Zucchino, you really ought to consider it. I think I recommended it in this thread a ways back. The soldiers in that book also blast a lot of wrong-way Charlie Iraqis but they're too busy surviving to keep tally of how many men they kill.

Adm.Lee

09-26-2013, 04:45 AM

That's more plausible than what the jacket seemed to imply. It made it sound like he was lighting up T-72s and hopping out of his track to do clean up with a liberated AK (I seem to remember a photo of the author with such an AK on the cover or inside flap of the jacket).

More like lighting up unarmored trucks and cleaning up with an M4 and then an AK, when he runs the M4 out of ammo. He exhibits a healthy fear of T-72s the entire book. On his second tour, he acted as an overwatch sniper when his squadron has both Bradleys and armored Hummers.

I will move Thunder Run up the to-read queue. Johnson was in 3/7 Cavalry, so some of his stuff should re-appear there.

Adm.Lee

11-14-2013, 09:01 PM

by Eric Schlosser.

Pretty scary stuff. How nuclear weapons (in the US) were developed (hint: rather haphazardly), including their safety systems, deployment plans (generally driven by Pentagon budget infighting), RAND studies and nuclear laboratory studies.

A major focus is the 1980 Damascus incident, when a Titan II missile caught fire in its silo outside Damascus, AR. Almost every chapter loops back to a journalistic retelling of the response by SAC, the Wing HQ, maintenance and security guys on the ground, local farmers and newsmen.

But, it doesn't ignore the many times that nuclear weapons dropped or nearly fired, airplanes carrying them caught on fire, or just lay around waiting for someone to take them. Consider the Davy Crockett nuclear recoilless rifle. The Army asked for 32,000 warheads for it and other artillery mounts in 1961. This, in the same time period that a bomb nearly went off in North Carolina (only one of four safety devices worked) and it was found that there were no serious, armed, guards on US Jupiter and Thor missile sites in Europe. Oh, and President Kennedy found out that the "missile gap" existed, but the reverse of what he'd been preaching-- we had hundreds of bombers and dozens of missiles-- the USSR had 4 ICBMs.

I'm not halfway through it, and I'm thinking lots of Twilight-ish implications. Missiles not launching, missing targets, warheads not going off at the right times, all kinds of sick things.

A 1948-49 scenario, starting from the Berlin Airlift, seems the Soviets' best chance to take Europe without annihilation. I think that's been raised elsewhere around here. It would be super-easy to do US survivors of the 1st ID or Constabulary regiments, and/or the lone British division, overrun by the Soviets. Potential contact with the UK by radio, perhaps aerial resupply.

Targan

11-16-2013, 04:53 AM

Currently reading The Shetland Bus by David Howarth, originally published in 1951 by Thomas Nelson and Sons (although the version I'm reading is a new edition published in 1998 by The Shetland Times Ltd and reprinted five times since then).

The book details the exploits of a combined RN/British Army/volunteer civilian operation to smuggle agents, armaments, ordnance and other materiel into German-occupied Norway during WWII, and returning with civilian refugees and Norwegian military personnel wanting to receive additional training and return to the fight.

They used 50 to 80 foot Norwegian fishing vessels crewed by volunteer Norwegian fishermen and merchant navy veterans to make their runs, armed as best as they practically could, and restricted their voyages to the winter months to take advantage of the extended periods of darkness. These guys surely must have had gonads of solid steel. Imagine sailing from the Shetland Islands to the Norwegian coast, in the howling gales of winter, in wooden fishing boats, over and over and over again, for the majority of the war.

The author was a Lt Cdr in the RN and was the 2IC of the operation. He seems to have been a very humble and modest man and his writing style is concise and easy to read. The book is liberally interspersed with maps and black and white photographs. For those with an interest in the lesser-known allied operations of the war I can't recommend this book highly enough.

StainlessSteelCynic

11-16-2013, 08:12 AM

Started reading "Street Without Joy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Without_Joy)" just the other week.
Could never find a copy in Australia and I finally gave in and bought a digital copy through Google Play.

Also got "The Sorrow Of War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sorrow_of_War)" from Google Play and although it's fiction, the novel is strongly based on the author's own experience as a North Vietnamese soldier fighting in the south during the Vietnam War. Had started reading a family friend's copy some years back but only got through the first few chapters before having to give it back, so I never got to finish it.

The author, Hoàng Ấu Phương, was only 13 years old when he joined the Glorious 27th Youth Brigade (mostly composed of teenagers) and was one of only ten survivors out of 500 at the wars end ten years later. He then served for another three years with a graves registration unit finding fallen comrades. Like many others, he was dismissed from the army when the government had no more use for him.
As a side note, of the ten survivors of the Glorious 27th, six are said to have committed suicide not long after they left the North Vietnamese Army.

He wrote the novel (under the pen name Bảo Ninh) as his graduation project for the Nguyen Du Writing School in Hanoi and although it was not officially published (as the communist Vietnamese government didn't agree with it's lack of "heroic struggle" portrayals) it was copied via roneo machine in 1991 and distributed privately through Vietnam (under the title The Destiny of Love) before being translated to English and offered to a British publishers where it received the name The Sorrow Of War.

This title seems more apt, given that early in the novel, the protagonist Kien is searching the Forest of Screaming Souls for the remains of fallen comrades from the 27th Battalion. He is the only survivor of the 27th, destroyed in that forest except for him.

It was important to the Vietnamese to recover their dead for burial after the war as they believed that if a person is not buried properly, their soul will wander forever. Traditional Vietnamese belief holds that Kien Muc Lien reached enlightenment as a young boy but his mother had been evil. At her death she was punished with eternal torment and so her son asked Buddha for help upon which Buddha instructed the boy in the Vu Lan ceremony (wandering souls ceremony AKA the Amnesty of Unquiet Spirits) to allow his mother's soul to find peace.

As might be guessed, this novel had a profound impact upon me even after a few chapters because it was the first time I encountered what the aftermath of the war was like for the Vietnamese who fought on the communist side. The author seems to be reaching for catharsis as much as for understanding of what happened to his teenage life and the spiritual aspects of his search resonate strongly in his book.

Hmm, apologies all, didn't mean for this to turn into a review of a fiction title but I really do feel this book is worth reading by anyone interested in the Vietnam War because most of what we have seen published is entirely from our sides perspective.

Targan

11-16-2013, 10:47 PM

I've read The Sorrow of War and it had a profound impact on me, too. I got the impression that it was an autobiography thinly disguised as fiction to avoid trouble with the Vietnamese authorities. Great book.

Adm.Lee

02-23-2014, 03:01 PM

Wow. This is intense, as advertised in this thread. The final room-clearing fight is still rattling through my head, a day after I finished reading it.

I was possibly most impressed by the fortification work done by the jihadis, building house-sized IEDs, bricking up doors, windows, and stairwells to channel the Americans and Iraqis, and removing stairs to limit roof access.

Relative to T2k, I was also impressed by the massive amount of bullets shot, relative to hits recorded. It reinforces my impressions that the low number of hits/accuracy/etc. in T2k v1.0 rules (1 roll per 3 bullets, accuracy limited to 60% of skill).

Something else struck me, maybe I missed something-- only 2 squads in a Bradley platoon?

Adm.Lee

11-13-2014, 07:56 PM

This is about 3rd platoon, Kilo Company, 3/5 Marines, during their Oct 2010-Mar 2011 deployment to Sangin in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. The reinforced platoon deployed to a patrol base separate from their parent company. They sent out two or three squad patrols per day to harass the Taliban. (They soon received two squads of reservists to hold down their patrol base, and there was a platoon of Afghans there, too.) Snipers, mortars, and engineers were attached, rounding the platoon up to 50 members.

Strong leadership, esprit de corps and cohesion are the themes that run through the whole account. The Marines patrolled daily, pushing back the Taliban despite IEDs and ambushes. In retrospect, I am surprised to not see bombardment by rockets or mortars, as one reads about in similar positions in Iraq or Vietnam. Their post seemed to be relatively untouched.

West is a Marine veteran of the Vietnam War, author of several books, including The Village, which detailed the Combined Action Platoon concept as it developed during that war.

West has harsh words for SecDef Gates and Pres. Obama, who made noises about the surge, but put a short time limit on the war. Generals McChrystal and Petraeus get praise for understanding how a counter-insurgency campaign needed to be fought, and mild criticism for not recognizing (publicly) that Afghanistan and especially Helmand were too broken for such a system to work, and for accepting a too-low force level. The Marine leadership (division, brigade, regiment) he praises for seeing that the province was too far gone for hearts and minds, it needed clearing of Taliban pure and simple. The Marines' ability to create cohesive and experienced combat teams and leaders is the real praise from the author, as well as the dedication of the individual grunts.

It read very well to me, I had trouble putting it down and burned through it in about 3 days. I've liked West's other books, I think I've read all but 1 or 2 of his works by now.

Raellus

11-13-2014, 09:19 PM

Thanks for the recommendation, Admiral. That one slipped by me. I've read The Village and West's book about the Marines' part in the Battle[s] of Fallujah, No True Glory, and liked them both.

Canadian Army

11-14-2014, 04:42 PM

Here are last ten books that I have read:

Sir Brian Horrocks Corps Commander
A Soldier Speaks (Public Papers and Speeches of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur)
Field Book for Canadian Scouting
Europe without Defense?
From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider's Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War
Champagne Navy, Canada's Small Boat Raiders of the Second
World War
Basic Rescue Skills
Trump-Style Negotiation: Powerful Strategies and Tactics for Mastering Every Deal
Duffy's Regiment: A History of the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment
Emily Post on Entertaining

Adm.Lee

11-17-2014, 09:16 PM

I also snagged Daniel Bolger's "Why we lost"-- he opens with stating that along with other US Army generals, he shares responsibility for the losses in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm looking forward to it, I have enjoyed everything of his that I read before.

Adm.Lee

11-25-2014, 09:04 PM

Really only covers three separate areas in Iraq. One is back-to-back tours by SEAL team snipers in Ramadi, 2006; another is Marine snipers in Anbar province, 2004, and the last is Oregon NG scout-snipers in Baghdad, 2004, during the Sadr uprising then. The last one was the most intriguing to me, you can find plenty of books on SEAL and Marine snipers, I thought.

One of the authors is an Oregon journalist who embedded with the 2-162 Infantry, the other is a Marine gunnery sergeant, and most of the 2nd section is all his recollections, including some Somalia stories for completion.

Good reading, a fair description of sniper techniques, and three good looks at urban warfare from above street level.

Adm.Lee

01-09-2015, 08:56 PM

This work uses a fair number of interviews with Soviets, both soldiers and officers, mostly paratroopers and pilots. It served to remind me how brutal and ugly the Soviet army on campaign could be. Afghans are killed left and right, and looting is rampant. Also, how crappy Soviet logistics were: the looting was largely of consumer goods that couldn't be bought in the USSR, and of food or warm clothing that the soldiers couldn't get at all. The Soviet conscripts were terrorized and beaten down by their senior privates, not the sergeants. The Afghans' loyalty was as suspect and pliable that we have heard from the American war in that same country.

The Soviet (non)decision to intervene, as well as the Afghan disintegration that led to it, seemed to take a long time to read, while once the shooting starts, the interviews with veterans made this a great read.

Irony: Najibullah's government that was left behind when the Soviets finally pulled out in early 1989, no one expected his government to survive. It outlasted the Soviet Union. By only a few months, really.

What struck me in relation to T2k: the Soviet Army we see here is really pretty crappy. Something had to have changed (in timeline) to make the Soviets such a power in 1995-1999.

Adm.Lee

06-15-2015, 10:41 AM

Ashley's war: the untold story of a team of women soldiers on the special ops battlefield / Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

This was really well-written, in that I had trouble putting it down.

The book follows a group of women (already in the Army) who were among the first to compete to be on Cultural Support Teams, women who accompanied spec-ops raids in Afghanistan for intelligence & security tasks. Since women in Afghan culture need to be kept separate and safe from non-family men, American/Western troops would anger the locals by searching or interrogating any women they found, and usually not get any information. By bringing women along to calm the Afghan women, keep them safe from the raiders or the Taliban during a raid, and ask them questions without the eyes of men on them, they could ease tensions and collect information.

From about 2010, Joint Special Operations Command started pushing for such women "enablers", and got a lot of volunteers-- Army women who wanted to do more than sit at desks. They ran them through a quick training course in both Ranger/SF operations, and Afghan culture. (Language was an unfortunate shortfall, so female interpreters who could keep up with the Rangers-- really rare-- had to be picked up once they got there.) The women they got were the ones who were already very physically fit, able to beat the men's PT requirements and very motivated to do something active.

The book follows the "plank-owners" of the CSTs to Afghanistan in 2011, with interviews from many of the participants. Ashley of the title is 1LT Ashley I. Stumpf-White, who was killed by an IED in 2011, so far the only woman lost from the CSTs. The writer spends 2 chapters with her family and husband (active-duty artillery officer), as well as the other CST members and an interpreter in the aftermath of her death. I was very impressed with not just the Army's reaching out to the family, but the Rangers-- both in Afghanistan and in the States-- taking over. They didn't write her off as "not one of us" or "just an enabler", but embraced her as a Ranger.

T2k value? It's something to consider in interrogating locals (especially in the Middle East), that women might more likely talk to non-threatening women, rather than foreign men.

Medic

06-20-2015, 10:34 AM

The unknown soldier by Väinö Linna

With the new translation to English, here is a chance to read about the Continuation War from 1941-44, written from the point of view of a machinegun company in the Finnish Army. While some characters are fictional and others are a combination of several real personnel, there are some actual individual soldiers (under different names), who servee during the war in the said company. It's also a good description of how many Finns viewed the war.

swaghauler

06-21-2015, 12:19 PM

As some of you already know, I've been collecting technical specifications on various equipment and weapons since getting back into Twilight2000. I was dismayed at the lack of detailed information on weapons like back blast, travel/flight speed and minimum arming distance. I found a book published by Osprey about the RPG that has a great deal of information in it. Gordon L. Rottman wrote The Rocket Propelled Grenade and it is full of little gems that will help you "flesh out" the RPGs in your game. There is the occasional mistake in the book, like the editor accidentally putting the stats for the RPG-2 in the RPG-7's chart, but the book is packed with useful information. I have had experience actually firing an RPG-7 in Africa (during Restore Hope) and again when I fired a Chinese Type 69 while working with a security detail that traveled to Afghanistan. Mr. Rottman's experience with the weapon mirror my own. Check out the book at Osprey Publishing.

.45cultist

06-21-2015, 12:37 PM

My last read books:

Kill or Get Killed by Rex Applegate
A Rifleman Went to War by Herbert McBride
Men Against Tanks by John Weeks
How to Make War by James Dunnigan
Hatcher's Notebook by Julian Hatcher

Anna Elizabeth

06-21-2015, 01:46 PM

I need to buy a copy of "How to Make War", I've read the library copy so many times. Jim Dunnigan was "the Grand Old Man" of wargame designers, and that book is an excellent introduction to the subject.

LT. Ox

08-15-2015, 11:19 PM

I just had to add one or two;
To Hell and Back- Audie Murphy the reason I went in the Army.
The Longest Day Book not the movie (not bad Movie)
The Red badge Of Courage simple short and classic the writer knew what courage was /is
Pork Chop Hill again Book Not movie. I am so glad I did not fight in the frozen wasteland.
Any WEB Griffin Book
Lee’s lieutenants

Mahatatain

08-17-2015, 07:53 AM

The Longest Day Book not the movie (not bad Movie)

I assume that you mean the book by Cornelius Ryan? If you do then it's a fantastic read and I would thoroughly recommend his book "A Bridge Too Far" that was also turned into a film (as I'm sure you're aware) as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bridge_Too_Far_(book)

I've also read "The Last Battle" by Ryan but didn't find it as good - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Battle_(Ryan)

LT. Ox

08-17-2015, 11:13 AM

Yes I was talking about the Ryan book and thank you for adding " A bridge too far". I have not read his " the Last Battle" and I will even with your review:D.

Adm.Lee

12-07-2015, 08:21 PM

"Now the inspiration for the CBS Television drama, 'The Unit.'"

Haney is one of the near-original members of 1st SFOD-Delta, so he's talking about the long selection period, training from the ground up on hostage-rescue missions, and missions quietly done in Central America and Middle East, as well as Grenada.

I had forgotten/never known that Delta had been studying/training for a mission into Laos in the early '80s, to go after the missing American POWs from the Vietnam War.

Listening to this on CDs as I drive, I've been leaning into wanting to run/play something like T2k/Merc again. Well, more than usual.

Adm.Lee

04-23-2016, 11:37 AM

Not directly T2k-related, I suppose. This is about the manufacturing and (especially) the selling of a pistol line that became really popular, really quickly. How quickly? They aren't in the 1st or 2nd edition, yet they became the issue weapon for the Austrian Army in 1983, not long before the game appeared.

By the early '90s, they were popping up in American police departments and in rap songs (but apparently not that many were bought/used by American criminals). Smith & Wesson and Colt lost a lot of market share, apparently, Glock snuck up on them, too.

I'm not finished reading yet, but there's a lot on some excellent salesmanship here. I skimmed ahead enough to know there's some financial skullduggery later on.

Only pictures are on the cover (close-up of the trigger area) and one of the founder/designer. I think it could have used some of the personalities involved, but that's just me.

I think one of these will pop up on an NPC as a "prestige" weapon soon.

Raellus

04-23-2016, 01:25 PM

The Glock 17A is in the v1.0 Small Arms Guide (c. 1988).

Adm.Lee

04-23-2016, 04:44 PM

Hm. I looked in the ToC, didn't see it. {Re-Look} Oh, there it is. Alphabetically after the H&K entries. I do that a lot, missing things that really should be obvious. I tell myself that's why God didn't let me have that career in the Army or CIA that I dreamed of; I'd miss that one little thing that would screw up a fight.

Jpegform58

02-19-2017, 12:35 PM

Young writer might be interested in improving their own writing skills. Follow the link to read some interesting articles dedicated to that http://bigessaywriter.com/blog/best-recommendations-for-book-essay-writing

swaghauler

04-05-2017, 04:38 PM

This book is a detailed account of Romesha's CMH Award winning command of Red Platoon, B Troop 3-61st Cavalry, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division while under attack by a superior Taliban force at Outpost Keating. The book is well written and an "easy read" from the standpoint of language (all the terms and slang are explained for "non-military" readers).

It is NOT an easy read from the standpoint of the story. Romesha goes into great detail about the members of Red Platoon and their histories (including all their very human flaws). This means you tend to feel rage/sadness when they are killed during the fight (these are REAL PEOPLE after all). The book pulls no punches in describing how bloody the battle was and how hard the members of B Troop take it when their friends are killed.

It also details how foolish the Army was in thinking that they could build an outpost in a valley surrounded by mountains (so it could be resupplied by truck, which it couldn't be by the way) as well as how their former Captain "hung them out to dry" by forbidding any defensive improvements or even allowing the changing out the Claymores that defended the perimeter (he believed they would be "shut down" by the Army any day and didn't want to use materials that were ACTUALLY ON THE SITE). in a twist of irony, he was relieved of command and replaced just days before the attack (although the Army later held him accountable).

It also pulls no punches when describing how the Afghan Army personnel abandoned their posts and actually looted the Troop's personal effects as the members of Red and Blue platoon were dying to keep the Taliban from overrunning Keating and killing everyone (including the Afghan soldiers). In addition, it details how some of the Afghan National Police turned on the Americans and attacked them in support of the Taliban fighters.

If you can handle the harsh reality the book portrays, it is worth reading. The book also has a very good map of Outpost Keating that a GM may find useful.

rcaf_777

04-13-2017, 10:17 AM

You can download a free copy here

http://www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca/dhh-dhp/pub/boo-bro/vimy/index-eng.asp

Adm.Lee

04-18-2017, 02:36 PM

I picked this up without knowing it was a sequel. Irving was a Ranger in both Iraq and Afghanistan, this is pretty much the "stuff we couldn't fit into the first book".

It reads nice and quickly, but suffers from jumping around a bit in time and space. Some chapters are about his time as a Stryker driver in Iraq, and some about snatch & grab foot patrols in Afghanistan.

Plenty of stuff about what a short-range sniper does while assault teams go in on a target. It made it sound like his team did most (nearly all) of the killing, while the rest of the team did only suppressive fire at best.

I give it 2, maybe 2.5 stars.

Adm.Lee

04-29-2017, 10:50 AM

James Langham2

04-29-2017, 12:11 PM

I would recommend Chieftain Main Battle Tank published by Haynes and the Tank Museum. I got my copy bought for me by my wonderful girlfriend on a trip to the QRLNY Museum in Thoresby yesterday.

It has lots of lovely technical detail (any book that sows the petrol cooker issued to crews gets my vote!).

Now I just need to be really nice to her as there are others in the same series... :-)

Adm.Lee

04-30-2017, 07:08 PM

Found the first book. It's a lot like the second one. Still sounds like he and his teammate did all of the killing, the assault guys and machinegunners just did suppression.

Still, a good collection of war stories.

Finished this. Still 2.5 stars.

I do have to add a long story. Nearly all of the Ranger missions appeared to be nighttime snatch missions against Taliban leaders or bombmakers. One night, his spotter disappeared on the march to the target. Irving backtracks, and finds that his partner has fallen down a hole. A really deep hole, where he's in a bit of shock and treading water. When the Air Force CSAR guys pull him out, they estimated it was 80 feet down to the water. A later diver, sent to recover his rifle and laser, couldn't find bottom at 40 feet!

Anyway, the funny part is that while the other guy was waiting to be sent home with (only!) a broken leg, the SEALs on the same base gave him an honorary trident and HALO wings for surviving "the free fall and swim of his life". :D

Adm.Lee

05-10-2017, 07:04 PM

I looked back through this thread again. Gee, I still read a lot about snipers, don't I? ;) And here, I thought I was staying off of the bandwagon by avoiding most of the SEAL books that are constantly coming out.

I did recently grab 4 modern-war titles, one from this list, and there are no sniper memoirs among them.

Also, my summer fiction reading project is a short list of Robert Heinlein, once I finish the short stack of Star Trek on top of those.

kato13

06-21-2017, 11:12 PM

Anyone have any good recommendations on books on the formation/early history of the OSS?

Adm.Lee

08-01-2017, 04:01 PM

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32025405-special-forces-berlin?from_search=true

by James Stejskal

"This book relays the history of a little known and highly classified US Army Special Forces Detachment that was stationed in Berlin, Germany from 1956 to 1990. It came into existence in response to the threat posed by the massive armies of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies to the nations of Western Europe. US military planners decided they needed a plan to slow the massive Soviet advance they expected when and if a war began. The plan was Special Forces Berlin. The first 40 men who came to Berlin in mid-1956 were soon reinforced by 60 more and these 100 soldiers (and their successors) would stand ready to go to war in a hostile area occupied by nearly one million Warsaw Pact forces until 1990. If war came, some of these men would stay in Berlin to fight the enemy, while others would cross the most heavily defended border in the world and disappear into the countryside to accomplish their tasks behind Soviet lines. The Detachment were also involved in operations elsewhere, including involvement in the attempted rescue of American hostages from Tehran in 1979. When SF Berlin was disbanded, its files and records were for the most part destroyed or lost. Written by a veteran of the unit, this narrative of the unit's activities is based on the recollections of the men who served in it, coupled with what little declassified, official documentation is available."

Folks, here's a campaign starter for a more traditional WW3 setting! US SF teams having to hide in Berlin and strike out at the Pact lines communications around the city.

I just heard about this from the "Spycast" podcast. Apparently, these guys were so good at maintaining cover that the Stasi really didn't know they were there, and other Americans in and out of Berlin didn't know what they were really there for.

Adm.Lee

08-01-2017, 04:07 PM

In this past month, I read both Red Platoon (mentioned above by Swaghauler) and Pale Horse: Hunting Terrorists and Commanding Heroes with the 101st Airborne Division by Col. Jimmy Blackmon.

Red Platoon was great, although disappointing in that the unit had such a hard fight through no fault of their own.

Pale Horse was written by the commander of the aviation brigade that supported Red Platoon during its hard fight. He writes of constantly struggling with a lack of machines relative to the missions needed. COP Keating was due to be evacuated in the weeks before the battle, but other operations and priorities intruded.

EDIT: and one of those other priorities was the search for an MIA named Bergdahl.

Adm.Lee

10-31-2017, 09:33 PM

by Mary Jennings Hegar.

Captain Hegar went through Air Force ROTC, but was not given a flight-school slot. She worked hard to win a slot later, and ended up flying HH60 search & rescue helos with the New York Air Guard. She made 3 deployments to Afghanistan, being shot down & wounded once. She spent some time in the California Air Guard before her injuries forced her out of the service. She led the later lawsuit that developed into the Defense Department lifting the no-ground-combat-assignments-for-women policy.

I had trouble putting it down, it was a smooth read. Lots of flying stories, some stories of sex discrimination, some stories of bureaucratic foul-ups.

Targan

12-11-2017, 09:56 PM

War Books: Major General Mick Ryan's 2018 reading list (https://mwi.usma.edu/war-books-major-general-mick-ryans-2018-reading-list/)

Raellus

06-29-2018, 12:21 PM

I haven't finished it yet, but Susan Southard's, Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War, is a good world-building resource containing a wealth of info on what it is like to experience, and live in the aftermath, of a nuclear attack.

swaghauler

07-20-2018, 08:02 PM

Osprey Publishing's The US Grenade Launchers, the M79, the M203, and the M320 by Gordon Rottman (ISBN: 978-1-4728-1952-9) is a pretty decent read. It does have some of the erroneous information that the US Army published in their field manuals before the 1987 edits of those manuals (triggering my questions about the M576 Multi-projectile round) but has LOTS of good info in it from the round types to the launcher's historical employment. It even covers a few rarer types of Grenade Launcher like the USMC's M32 6-round GL and the China Lake "pump action" grenade launcher. There is even a discussion of the equipment used to carry grenades in action (including "field-expedient" methods). I can recommend this book as well as Osprey's book on the RPG family.

swaghauler

07-25-2018, 03:09 PM

I must recommend the reference work The Encyclopedia of World Military Weapons (ISBN: 0-517-65341-9, Cresent Books 1988) as a good reference for various vehicles and heavy weapons. It has a very good level of detail for a work written in 1988.

Legbreaker

12-08-2018, 09:00 AM

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2013/10/war-unions-fought-australia/?fbclid=IwAR1vvDa-Kh_vq4hH9YvO75NeLgfBQ7SeZZQsFkqFj6O1qDK7Zv9Fe9TpTe Y
Absolutely worth a read if you can track it down (not sure it's available outside Australia).
Details the bastardry bordering on treason that occurred in union run industries in WWII, particularly on the docks and in coal mines. The strikes, go slow campaigns, theft, sabotage and more which directly led to massive shortages both at home, and worse, on the front lines even while Australia was under imminent threat of Japanese invasion.
At the time the unions were absolutely riddled with loud and proud Marxists bent on bringing about a workers revolution at any cost, even if it meant loosing the war against Japan!

dragoon500ly

02-04-2019, 08:06 AM

Picked up an very interesting read on the WWII German Army called
"Enduring the Whirlwind, The German Army and the Russo-German War 1941-1943" by Gregory Liedtke.

Its an overview of the German rearmament starting in 1919, through the Nazi assumption of power and breaks down the overall costs and quantities of the build-up to war.

Also of interest is the breakdown of personnel and combat losses.

Its a dry read, but very interesting to any student of of the war!

Adm.Lee

02-07-2019, 09:22 PM

The best stuff I've seen on the WW2 Germans at the high command level are Robert Citino's works.

"Death of the Wehrmacht: the German campaigns of 1942"
"The Wehrmacht retreats: fighting a lost war, 1943"
"The Wehrmacht's last stand: The German campaigns of 1944-45"

How did the Germans stave off defeat for so long? and WHY did the Germans fiht for so long? are the prime questions of these books. Citino's spent a long time studying and writing about the Germans, these are well worth reading.

Raellus

04-04-2019, 05:54 PM

Not a review/recommendation, but a heads-up- these titles could be helpful for GM's wanting to update their T2K timelines.

https://ospreypublishing.com/store/military-history/upcoming-books/preorder-2-months/armies-of-russia-039-s-war-in-ukraine

https://ospreypublishing.com/store/military-history/upcoming-books/preorder-3-months/weapons-of-the-us-special-operations-command

They're both scheduled for release this summer.

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unkated

04-08-2019, 09:59 AM

Paul Scharre has worked for 10 years in the policy side of robotic warfare. He has put together a book (Army of None) about recent development of autonomous weapons, directions that technology is heading, and the (US) government and military policies regarding that development.

Hmm. That reads a bit dry. But then, so does the book. It is a sober view of the development of autonomous weapons and the direction and capabilities of current technologic developments (published 2018). He has some excellent access to heads of technology development and policy inside the US military.

Army of None is even-handed on the question of where development should go. Essentially, after talking about what can be done, Mr. Scharre points out potential good uses of autonomous weapons and bad ones and basically says we need to think these out and choose now, because the capability to create fully autonomous weapons system is very close. Of course, the question becomes what do you want autonomous weapons systems to do; their discrimination and judgement regarding targets is far from perfect.

My major objection to the book is that Mr. Scharre's sources are 90% American, perhaps 6% British, and 4% Israeli (for technology) and there is little presentation about Chinese or Russian capabilities, or about anyone else's policies (beyond a few published comments).

If you have any interest in the current state of this area of weapons capability, this is a good read (or listen; it is available as an audiobook).

Uncle Ted

Adm.Lee

08-08-2019, 01:02 PM

I'd read this about 1990, and pulled it out again while playing a Korean War-game earlier this summer. It's a monster of a single volume, nearly 1000 pages of text, and a lot more of endnotes and references. Unlike some works on the Korean War, there are chapters after the fighting dies down in the summer of 1951, through to the 1953 armistice.

A major focus of this work is on US Army's leadership, from battalion to theater level. How the Eighth Army and the Pentagon brought in officers to fill slots and improve leadership is perhaps something T2k fans could consider. I was somewhat disappointed to find that my current age is now "too old" to command a regiment. :(

swaghauler

08-13-2019, 01:06 PM

I've been going back into the old library for a training class I recently ran and have to recommend TWO books to the forum here. They are Massad Ayoob's...

StressFire I [Combat Pistol] (ISBN- 978-0936279039)
StressFire II [Combat Shotgun] (ISBN- 978-0936279114)

These are the definitive texts on using those weapons systems and form the foundation of the US Army Pistol Marksmanship training as well as the Shotgun Training Course for USMC FAST teams.

There are also videos on YouTube that you might like.

Raellus

04-19-2020, 01:06 PM

Spain in Our Hearts, by Adam Hochschild is about American (and British) volunteers in the Spanish Civil War. It's pretty light on descriptions of battles and combat, but paints really compelling portraits of folks that risked their lives to fight for a cause that they believed in. It also does a really good job of describing the everyday life of foreign volunteers in Republican Spain. This is where it is most applicable to T2K- for most of the war, the International Brigades were poorly supplied in almost every area- food, medicine, and, especially, modern weaponry. They had to do as much as they could with very little (less and less as the war wore on).

Although the book focuses on those who supported the Republican cause (Hemingway and Orwell, to name the most famous), it also profiles a couple of Americans who supported the Nationalists (i.e. fascists), including the CEO of Texaco.

It's a really well-written book- much better (although less exhaustive) than Antony Beevor's, The Battle for Spain, which, IMHO was uncharacteristically dry (and I'm a huge fan of his later work).

I was originally drawn to the Spanish Civil War when I started thinking about whether the U.S.A. could experience and ideologically-driven civil war in the near future. After reading these two books, and following the national news for the last 17 years or so, I've concluded that the possibility is not as remote as I once imagined...

Matt Wiser

04-19-2020, 10:34 PM

Antony Beevor's latest is what I'm tackling now..The Battle of Arnhem: The Deadliest Airborne Operation of World War II.

Two things stand out, and they're both about the highest-ranking prima donna in the ETO: Montgomery. 1) His pride and vanity led to the operation, which should never have been attempted, failure to listen to the Dutch Underground or the Dutch Brigade fighting with the British-some of whose officers knew the ground-and ANY Dutch officer in prewar staff training who proposed an attack up the same road XXX Corps took was automatically failed, and dismissing intelligence that suggested things not just at Arnhem, but along XXX Corps' advance, were not what he thought them to be.

2) That same vanity, until the day he died, would not allow him to admit that the whole operation had been a disaster. Eisenhower said it best: "Monty's a psychopath. He will never admit to anything wrong, everything has gone right, and he has never made a mistake." Monty was his own worst enemy, though his Chief of Staff knew it, but he would never admit it.

Raellus

04-19-2020, 11:56 PM

I enjoyed his Battle of Arnhem.

Yeah, there seems to pretty broad consensus among modern WW2 historians (Beevor, Hastings, Atkinson, to name a few) that Monty was pretty good at set-piece battles as long as they unfolded according to plan, but pretty shit when it came to operating on the fly. If a plan didn't work as intended, as in the case of Market Garden (and Epsom, and Goodwood), he couldn't adjust and improvise his way to victory.

His baffling failure to clear the Scheldt Estuary and thereby in actuality to open the port of Antwerp arguably delayed the Allied victory, and allowed the Soviets to reach Berlin first.

Monty was indeed an egomaniac, who would take credit for any success, could never admit to making a mistake, and believed that he alone was qualified to lead the Allied armies in the field. Most of his men loved him, but most of his fellow field officers- American and British- couldn't stand the guy.

He was probably the British Empire's most overrated general of WW2 (if not of all time), and is a strong candidate for most overrated general of all of the Allied armies during the war.

Legbreaker

04-20-2020, 03:44 AM

Monty was not at fault when you look at the actual evidence. The plan was good, if risky, but there was one weak link that screwed it all up.
Firstly Beevor missed some very important facts, although overall the book is good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr92BwihIoU
According to John Frost.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C_HoMVhKAI
Then, if you're interested in seeing an unbiased assessment using all the available materials...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTUC79o4Kmc&t=4s

ABOUT TIK

History isn’t as boring as some people think, and my goal is to get people talking about it. I also want to dispel the myths and distortions that ruin our perception of the past by asking a simple question - “But is this really the case?”. I have a 2:1 Degree in History and a passion for early 20th Century conflicts (mainly WW2). I’m therefore approaching this like I would an academic essay. Lots of sources, quotes, references and so on. Only the truth will do.

Raellus

04-20-2020, 10:48 AM

Yes he was, if you look at the actual evidence.

First off, I think it's interesting that you put more stock in some rando* Monty apologist making Youtube "the real story" videos than the bulk of eminent WW2 historians (3/4 I mentioned being British). Also, Frost isn't unbiased. If anyone had a dog in the fight, he did.

BTW, have you read any of the books Mr. Youtube historian cited? If you don't accept Ryan, Hastings, Beevor, and Atkinson's analysis (to name but a few), I'm probably not going to be able to change your mind, but here is the evidence:

Montgomery's whole plan hinged on linking up with the airborne divisions at the bridges quickly, but there was only one MSR- an elevated highway with soft shoulders, running through woodlands and little towns, crossing several canals and rivers- between the start line and Eindhoven, Nijmegen, and Arnhem.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that if that MSR can be obstructed or cut for any length of time, the Airborne divisions- especially the one at the end of the line- are going to be hung out to dry. Monty grossly overestimated the ability of an armored corps to advance along a single axis through country that was far less than ideal for tanks, and simultaneously underestimated the German's ability to interfere with the planned advance. The plan, on paper, only survives a cursory glance. Look closely, you will see that it was deeply flawed on multiple levels.

Also, downplaying intel that there was at least one SS Panzer division in the Arnhem area was foolish, to say the least. Cornelius Ryan agrees.

Plus, the whole plan wouldn't even have been necessary if Montgomery had cleared the Scheldt estuary in the first place. Failure to do so meant that the Germans could prevent the Allies from using the port of Antwerp (which was captured 90% intact), and they did. This prolonged the Allies' supply problems. Market Garden was an attempt to puncture the German defenses before supplies ran out. This was only an issue because Antwerp remained closed due to Monty's oversight. As it turned out, Market Garden burned through the Allies existing supply stockpile, necessitating a freeze on major offensive operations that allowed the Germans the breathing space to prepare Wacht am Rhein (the Ardennes counteroffensive).

For Market Garden to have succeeded, everything would have had according to plan. What are the odds of a plan surviving contact with an enemy, especially one as competent as the Wehrmacht/Waffen SS? It was a gamble that set the Allies back months (by burning the last of its fuel supplies) and led to the Hongerwinter in Holland.

Ike deserves part of the blame for approving the plan, but Monty, as the advocate, architect, and administrator, deserves the lion's share. Monty was a pompous tool.

*Differently biased is not "unbiased".

Legbreaker

04-20-2020, 12:26 PM

Oh dear. You didn't watch any of that did you.
FYI, he's an actual historian who's probably put more time into researching WWII than pretty much all the rest of us here combined.
I suggest you watch the videos I suggested, then perhaps a few more and THEN get back to me.

Matt Wiser

04-20-2020, 11:36 PM

For Market-Garden, Monty should have been relieved. Any other Army commander who launched that operation would have been sacked, and justifiably so.

Remember, the Dutch, in their prewar staff college training, automatically failed any officer who proposed an attack up what became known as Hell's Highway. It was the refusal by Monty to make use of the Dutch Resistance, as well as the Dutch officers serving with the one Dutch Brigade in the field with Br 2nd Army, that would've told him "You can't do this. Not up just one road with terrain unfit for armor." But no....he knew more than anyone else.

Legbreaker

04-21-2020, 02:05 AM

For Market-Garden, Monty should have been relieved.

I see you haven't watched the videos I suggested either then.

dragoon500ly

04-21-2020, 11:05 AM

Hate to say this, but I've read most of the histories on Market Garden, watched the youtube videos you've suggested and had the advantage of having actually walked many parts of the Highway of Death. Speaking as a tanker, no worse route could have been selected.

At the time, the 'highway' was a narrow two-lane road elevated over the surrounding countryside. Recent geological surveys have confirmed the extreme difficulty of moving armored vehicles over sodden fields (please remember that much of this part of Holland was recovered from the sea). Toss in the recent heavy rains prior to the battle, and the British were forced onto that road. The Germans then enjoyed firing practice at silhouetted targets.

To add insult to injury, the pre-war Dutch army never bothered with an advance to the Arnhem bridge, better to jog left and take the often over-looked ferry at Oosterbeek to cross the Rhine and attack Arnhem bridge from both ends.

Monty's plan was strategically brilliant, allow him the use of the only real Allied reserves, priority on supplies and he would make a narrow thrust, size a single bridge over the Rhine, make a right turn and funnel more troops into a drive into the Ruhr valley and defeat the Germans and end the war by Christmas.

In the end, the Allies suffered heavy losses and were the proud owners of a saliant that led nowhere.

dragoon500ly

04-21-2020, 11:10 AM

Not new books, but Hector Bywater's alternative history 'The Great Pacific War' is an interesting read.

Even more interesting is his 'Sea-Power in the Pacific' (written before the Naval disarmament treaties). This gives a good overview of the support structure and planning of the IJN/USN. with the time.

Raellus

04-21-2020, 11:34 AM

I see you haven't watched the videos I suggested either then.

I watched the book review video, but you're right, it was so "hot take" (It could have worked but Americans!) and myopic that I didn't bother to watch the others.

Clearly, you haven't read any of the books mentioned.

Both Hastings (a Brit) and Ryan (a Brit) also conclude that XXX was Corps was slow. This argument is not exclusive to Beevor's book. It's not controversial, "hot take" Youtube videos notwithstanding.

But XXX Corps' leisurely pace can mostly be forgiven because the overall plan was so flawed. As Dragoon500ly pointed out, the highway to Arnhem was unsuitable for a rapid corps-strength advance. A single substantial delay anywhere along the line and the plan fails. To believe that every single unit involved would achieve their day one objectives without delay is quixotically naive. Monty should have known better. He probably did, but the pompous egotist was such a glory hound that he pushed ahead with it anyway. He deserves the lion's share of the blame.

And your Youtube historian gets so hung up on what did or did not happen at Nijmegan that he ignores a key military tenet (also he waffles about the 36 hour delay- his central argument- just before and after minute 14) central to the failure of Market Garden.

The absolutely critical tenet that he conveniently underplays is that it is nearly impossible to move a corps quickly down a single MSR without unsecured flanks against determined resistance. If he wants to blame Gavin for not capturing Nijmegan on day one, fine, but that's not the only reason that Market Garden failed; it's not the biggest reason that Market Garden failed. As Matt Wiser pointed out, the Dutch knew that the plan wouldn't work before the war. Quite simply, the plan was crap. And that's on Monty.

The notion that if there hadn't been a delay at Nijmegan (blame who you like), there wouldn't have been a delay elsewhere and Market Garden would have succeeded is indefensible.

Even if XXX Corps had reached 1st Parachute Division in Arnhem, the offensive would very likely have stopped/ended right there, with no strategic benefit to the Allies (besides a salient that led nowhere, as Dragoon500ly said). All the Germans would have to do is blow the bridge. The Germans had already demonstrated that they did not fear the push and were determined to stand and fight. XXX Corps, already at the end of its logistical tether, would not have been able to push on. The highway would have been vulnerable to being cut behind XXX Corps by the German forces bypassed along the flanks (you don't need "100 tanks" to do this). Adequate fuel and ammo supplies would not have been able to get to Arnhem, even had it been captured. The allied army was already running prohibitively low on both when the operation started, largely because Monty'd failed to secure Antwerp.

Monty sucked.

I suggest you read some books on the subject and then get back to me.

dragoon500ly

04-21-2020, 07:27 PM

I forgot about the dig at 82ABN....they never had orders to seize the Nijmegen bridge on Day One, rather seize the bridge "if practicable." One of their primary tasks on Day One was to secure the bridges at Grave, the Maas-Waal canal and at Heumen, they also had the task of securing the key high ground at the Groesbeek Heights. Securing the heights was necessary as a blocking position to prevent a German counterattack from the nearby Reichwald as well as prevent the Germans from setting artillery FOs overlooking the key highway.

Nevertheless, General Gavin was sufficiently pleased with the initial progress that he was able to free a battalion of the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment later on Day One.

The battalion was not able to approach the bridge until early evening and ran into elements of a SS Recon Battalion that stopped them cold. Elements of this SS unit later drove back to Arnhem and ran into Frost's 2nd Paras on the bridge.

Olefin

04-28-2020, 09:36 AM

There is no way that Monty's attack would have succeeded - and I agree that he should have been sacked - he threw away the 6th Airborne basically - it was only by a lot of luck and very hard fighting and the dedication of those who stayed behind to convince the Germans they were still in place that any of them got away - otherwise the Germans would have bagged them all.

And you cant fault any of the airborne units - the all fought magnificently - but trying to come up that road was a disaster waiting to happen. The British and Americans were lucky that the German units were as damaged as they were or they might have had a Kharkov type disaster and gotten several units bagged by the Germans instead of just Frost's parachutists at the bridge in Arnhem.

Legbreaker

04-28-2020, 10:51 AM

There is no way that Monty's attack would have succeeded.

I see you haven't watched the material I suggested either.

Olefin

04-28-2020, 11:02 AM

Actually done a lot of research on Market Garden - it was an out and out disaster - in some ways it actually extended the war because it gave the Germans more confidence in thinking they could stop the British and Americans from penetrating into Germany and that they could stop the Allies in the West - and if the German forces that had cut the road had held they would have bagged the British spearhead who wouldnt have been able to turn around on the road and attack to clear it

Raellus

04-28-2020, 02:38 PM

This is a book recommendation thread, BTW. It was intended to be a place for forum members to share book recommendations/reviews, not post third party Youtubers' reviews.

Please refrain from posting opinions about books which you have not read.

Besides,

Several scholarly tomes on the ETO, 1944-'45 and Market Garden > A couple of hot-take Youtube videos on the same subject

Thank you.

Legbreaker

04-29-2020, 01:20 AM

You assume I haven't read it or plenty more just because I'm referring you to somebody who can detail the arguments better than I can and take much less time doing it?

Raellus

04-29-2020, 09:35 AM

You assume I haven't read it or plenty more just because I'm referring you to somebody who can detail the arguments better than I can and take much less time doing it?

Yes, because I flat out asked you if you read any of the books I mentioned and you didn't answer. Instead, you kept harping on the Youtube videos that you linked to.

Firstly Beevor missed some very important facts, although overall the book is good.

This is the only indication that you read the book, and, coincidentally (?), your one-line "review" is exactly the same as Mr. Youtube's opening thesis for his book review/hot-take expose video.

You are certainly entitled to your opinions, but the fact that you accept a Youtuber's analysis rather than multiple renowned military historians' also suggests that you have not actually read any of their relevant works.

Then there's the important matter of context. You have a well-documented history of trolling and have been banned from this forum twice for said (and other online venues as well). Let's take a look at your first and second posts in the preceding "debate".

Monty was not at fault when you look at the actual evidence. (emphasis added) This to two forumites who had recently read a 443-page book (including notes and bibliography)- as if the book we were recommended/discussing was not based on any "actual evidence".

Oh dear. You didn't watch any of that did you.
FYI, he's an actual historian who's probably put more time into researching WWII than pretty much all the rest of us here combined.
I suggest you watch the videos I suggested, then perhaps a few more and THEN get back to me.

When you pop into a thread and immediately start arguing with people, in a deliberately condescending tone, it calls into question your intentions, if not your sources.

The fact that you didn't respond to any of the opposing arguments presented in this debate (of which there were several) with anything other than "watch the videos" also smacks of trolling. At the very least, it strongly indicates that your knowledge of the subject derives exclusively from said videos.

If you have actually read the relevant Beevor, Ryan, Hastings, and/or Atkinson (Pulitzer winner), and/or any other scholarly books on the subject, then I'm sorry.

Now let's move on and use this thread for what it was intended- non-fiction book recommendations.

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Olefin

04-29-2020, 10:23 AM

I own all three of Atkinson's books on the US Army during WWII and have read them repeatedly - I HIGHLY recommend them for those who are interested in WWII history - and they are great reads that you can use for Twilight 2000 as well (especially the books on Italy and Africa showing how the US Army went thru a very painful process of learning the art of war)

Also have several of Cornelius Ryan's books as well and also recommend them as well for those interested in Market Garden, D-Day and the Battle of Berlin

Raellus - thank you for the recommendation on Beevor - have to check those out

I recommend Max Hastings book on the Falklands War as well

FYI I agree about Monty and is over-reliance on set piece battles - he was lucky to have General Horrocks under his command - without him Monty might not have ever had the reputation he had against the Germans - Atkinson pointed that out in his book about the war in Tunisia

Legbreaker

05-24-2020, 01:40 AM

comped

07-16-2020, 04:22 PM

I'm honestly surprised that the following pair of books has yet to be recommended here - while I've seen the first one discussed in a different thread around when it came out, the latter I couldn't find anything on.

First is - This Is Only a Test. (https://www.amazon.com/This-only-Test-Washington-Prepared/dp/1403965544) One of two excellent books on nuclear preparedness during the cold war, this book in particular doesn't just talk about facilities, it talks about plans - everything from the Presidents, to SCOTUS, and even 9/11. I have, for a while now, been attempting to find more research on SCOTUS' part in COG to send his way, as it's rarely mentioned the book - I emailed the author and he even admitted that I basically found as much as he did in terms of modern-ish research on that particular topic - given it was published only 5 years after 9/11, he probably had even less at the time of writing. It's a really good book though. Harder to find.

Raven Rock (https://www.amazon.com/Raven-Rock-Governments-Secret-Itself-While/dp/1476735409) is a far easier to get ahold of book, that treads much of the same ground as the other, while also being quite a bit more of a commercial success. It's really long, and quite detailed, giving a real sense of how the COG machine built up from the early days of the bomb on forward - and how sometimes, things didn't always go to plan. It also includes far more on the period after 9/11 (since it was published 15+ years after), and it benefits from this distance, and release of additional documents in the decade since the previous work, to expand the picture greatly. It's is not, unlike This Is Only A Test, written by a history professor, but is still worth reading particularly if you're interested on the more modern, post-cold-war side of things.

Legbreaker

07-16-2020, 09:54 PM

Found this while looking for resources and seems somewhat relevant to current events. Haven't read it yet, but it's on my list.
https://www.amazon.com/Plague-Wars-Terrifying-Reality-Biological/dp/0312203535

Finished it a couple of days ago. What an eye opener! :o
Loads of good info which could be easily used in T2K as well. There's a section detailing many of the biological weapons which looks almost in the same format as the diseases in the BYB!

4395

Legbreaker

12-27-2020, 09:18 PM

Whole bunch of book reviews in this newsletter.
4565

Raellus

03-04-2022, 02:50 PM

I recently read Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War, by Mary Roach (2016). I focuses on science's efforts to help the fighting men and women of the US military deal with explosions, heat, loud noises, diarrhea, shark attacks, and damaged... members. It's tone is light and humorous, for the most part, but it does get serious at times (when discussing soldier's wounds below the belt, in particular). Nothing in the book screamed Twilight: 2000! but it was a pretty fun, somewhat informative read nonetheless. The focus is on contemporary military needs and interests, but it includes some interesting stuff on historical military R&D as well.

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Homer

03-05-2022, 12:08 PM

Some of Dan Bolger’s books are excellent for small unit vignettes and possible scenarios. “Dragons at War” and “The Battle for Hunger Hill” are about NTC and JRTC rotations, but give a lot of insight on Army operations. “Death ground” showcases each type of infantry with a vignette and some analysis. We used the ranger raid in desert storm as a basis for a one off merc cadre scenario with the PCs taking the roles of leadership in a platoon sized force.

Raellus

03-30-2022, 03:06 PM

Osprey has a new Elite series title out, Soldiers of Fortune: Mercenaries and Military Adventurers, 1960-2020

The author addresses both foreign volunteers in military units (mostly in regards to Rhodesia and South Africa) and mercenary companies/PMCs. The illustrator, Peter Dennis, is one of the better ones (IMHO) currently working for Osprey, but his work here looks a little rushed, and some of the color plate subjects seem like poor choices (lacking in interesting and/or distinct details).

Still, for one interested in mercenaries, or thinking of running a historical merc campaign, it's probably a worthwhile resource.

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Raellus

03-30-2022, 06:53 PM

It's an upsetting read, but I recommend Alpha: Eddie Gallagher and the War for the Soul of the Navy. It's about a rogue SEAL team chief accused of war crimes. It exposes a "pirate" sub-culture in the SEAL teams- a group of operators who value killing just for killing's sake, pretty much above all else. It also highlights the institutional cultures of "brotherhood" and "loyalty" that allows said pirates to literally get away with murder, and the Navy's attempts to restore genuine honor to the teams.

It doesn't seek to excuse such behavior, but the book does posit that America's never-ending War on Terror- in which SOF troops are deployed again and again, and are exposed to violence (both as witnesses and direct participants), and trauma (physical, like TBI, and psychological)- often creates callous killers who are no longer of capable from differentiating between right and wrong (or just don't care to).

I'd never thought about it before, but the book made the point that SOF often attracts people who, quite simply put, want to kill. In a warrior, this isn't necessarily a bad trait, but when said individual is more interested in killing than rules, law, and morality, it's a problem.

I think it's a valuable book because it illustrates how "marauders" are usually made more often than born, and how easily they could appear in any national army, not just the forces of the bad guys, in a T2k scenario.

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Adm.Lee

04-05-2022, 01:17 PM

Completely agree on Alpha. I read it last fall, and should have posted it here earlier.

Raellus

07-06-2022, 04:06 PM

Tribe, by Sebastian Junger (author of War, a previous rec here, and A Perfect Storm) is short (about 150 pages ) and thought-provoking.

Most salient, re T2k, is an examination of the phenomenon of societies in crisis (London during the Blitz, New Orleans during Katrina, and others) tending to show more social cohesion instead of less*. Violent crime rates go down, so do rates of mental illness (especially depression) and suicide. Class divisions tend to blur. Instead of hoarding, most people share.

This well-documented historical trend tends to belie Hollywood's portrayal nihilistic post-apocalyptic scenarios where people are inherently selfish, unethical, and violent (think, Walking Dead, Mad Max).

The truth is, shared hardship creates a sense of community that simply doesn't exist any more in modern western societies. We may be materialistically rich, but we are relationally poor (a good chunk of the book focusses on how and why this sad social state came about).

Junger also examines why combat vets (combat being the ultimate community builder, at the small unit level) often struggle after returning to "The World" (which increasingly deemphasizes, or even undermines, community).

*Another book that I read not so long ago that examines this theme is Human Kind (A Hopeful History) by Rutger Bregman. It doesn't discuss war much (if at all, really), so I didn't mention earlier, but I recommend it to anyone who needs an uplifting non-fiction read.

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Tegyrius

07-07-2022, 05:05 PM

Rebecca Solnit's A Paradise Built in Hell explores similar themes, though I'm not sure I recall it as being particularly academically-sound writing.

Rae, how would you say Junger's observations line up with the postwar societal issues we see in Savage Continent?

- C.

Raellus

07-08-2022, 12:33 PM

Rae, how would you say Junger's observations line up with the postwar societal issues we see in Savage Continent?

It's been a while since I read Savage Continent, but I don't think the two book premises are incongruous.

Junger's point is that there is more social cohesion, more solidarity during a crisis, but usually only during, not after. He points out (and I neglected to mention) that as soon as the crisis is over, that social cohesion is usually lost pretty quickly. He gave an example of a town in Peru that was hit by a devastating landslide in the 1990s (IIRC). With road links to the outside world severed, the survivors, of different classes and ethnicities that, traditionally, hadn't gotten along, put aside their differences and worked together to stay alive. They didn't turn on each other. Once the road links were reestablished, cooperation ceased and old divisions reappeared. He interviewed several survivors of the siege of Sarajevo who looked back at that time almost wistfully, and bemoan the state of the city today, because, to paraphrase the pervading sentiment, "back then, everyone was in it together and now, everybody's out for themselves".

In Savage Continent, we're seeing the immediate aftermath of a crisis. Nations were recovering, or forming, and the immediate mortal danger of bombings and battle were gone. The machinery of state still existed (or was hastily constructed) and, in the case of the USSR, took advantage of the devastation of the war to seize and consolidate power. Refugees existed in a sort of liminal state- often, they were stateless- and were frequently used as pawns in the emerging geopolitical struggle of the nascent Cold War. There was still a lot of bad blood between war enemies, scores to settle. For example, the Soviets didn't care about German or Polish DPs. Also that cohesion is intra-community. No examples of embracing outsiders were given. During the Blitz, Londoners felt and demonstrated increased solidarity with one another, but they had very little sympathy for Dresdeners in 1944 (and vice-versa). In Savage continent, DPs were often considered outsiders and so didn't benefit from any increased, crises-derived social cohesion in their respective "host" countries.

I'm not sure either another explicitly made this point, but I think they would agree that there are different degrees of crisis. The immediate aftermath of the WWII, which much of Europe in ruins and millions of DPs is clearly a crisis in and of itself. But I think Junger would argue that it is a crisis of less magnitude than the war itself- i.e., the closer to existential the crisis, the greater the community cohesion. As the danger lessens, so does the cohesion.

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ToughOmbres

07-10-2022, 01:02 PM

The defector-turned-author Viktor Survorov's Inside the Soviet Army made quite a splash back in the day. Suspect approximately 50% is accurate-but it makes for an interesting read.

Ronald Spector's Eagle Against the Sun is still one of the best one-volume treatments of the Pacific War against Japan. Much more recently Spector's After Tet: America's Bloodiest Year in Vietnam is another good tome and deserves more attention than it received at publication.

Cheers.

Raellus

08-28-2022, 02:11 PM

JHart

08-31-2022, 09:58 PM

I'm currently reading, Spearhead (Adam Makos), about the famous Cologne tank duel, caught on film during the waning days of WWII.

It gives good insight into the day-to-day life of a tank crew (both US and German), as well as the nuts and bolts of armored warfare. I think it would be quite helpful for someone planning to play an AFV crewman in T2k, or Ref'ing a campaign in which tanks feature- probably even more so than something like Team Yankee.

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I just read that a couple of months ago. I'd recommend The Panzer Killers: The Untold Story of a Fighting General and His Spearhead Tank Division's Charge into the Third Reich by Daniel Bolger. It gives a high level view of the division and General Rose's leadership. Spearhead provides the complimenting GI's view.

bobcat

09-30-2022, 09:49 PM

i do like the book Small Wars Big Data as it explains how the application of violence impacts civilian reactions during low intensity conflict like you would see quickly becoming the norm across many theaters in a post TDM world.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078SHYNSR

Homer

10-01-2022, 08:52 AM

Doomed At The Start by William Bartsch. About the USAAF in the Philippines 1941-42. The conversion of aviation to provisional infantry, shoestring maintenance, and morale in the face of complete hopelessness are all pretty compelling reading.

Raellus

06-27-2023, 06:18 PM

Osprey's relatively new release, Soviet Naval Infantry 1917-1991 is a follow-up, of sorts, to 2020's Soviet Airborne Forces 1930-1991. Both books have some pretty germane info on organization, employment, and, especially, uniforms and weaponry. The illustrations aren't bad, although I greatly miss Ron Volstad (the best illustrator of Cold War-era uniforms, IMHO). 1985's Soviet Bloc Elite Forces cover both formations in a lot less detail, but is still worth it for the other Pact nations' "elite" units it covers (and it's illustrated by Volstad to boot- not his best work, but still better than pretty much every other Osprey illustrator past and present).

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Raellus

03-14-2024, 07:05 PM

The Shortest History of War by Gwynn Dyer is a general history of warfare published in 2022 (it's coda addresses the Russian invasion of Ukraine proper). It's 256 pages long and an easy, surprisingly fun read. It's sparsely illustrated, but includes infographics, some of them quite insightful. The chapter on nuclear warfare was particularly interesting, from a T2k point of view.

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castlebravo92

03-14-2024, 09:25 PM

Started reading Putin's Playbook: Russia's Secret Plan to Defeat America by Rebekah Koffler

https://www.amazon.com/Putins-Playbook-Russias-Secret-America-ebook/dp/B07ZZJ8HF4/

Koffler was a DIA analyst, originally a Russian from Kazakhstan. The part I've read so far is pretty alarming. For example, she covers Russian meddling in US elections. Contrary to the CNN / DNC "Russia collusion" story, Russia did not assist Trump in any meaningful way (and FBI investigators admitted this in closed testimony to Congress). In fact, the Steel Dossier almost certainly contained intentional Russian disinformation.

What the Russians did, however, was work to undermine BOTH candidates with the intent of sowing discord and ultimately crippling whoever was/is President politically...something they are continuing today by playing both sides of any given ideological divide (pro-immigrant / anti-immigrant, BLM / anti-BLM, pro gun control, pro-2nd amendment). Basically, any ideological divide they are stoking the flames on both sides to drive Americans further apart. The biggest area where they probably have had the most success is with a decent number of conservatives either becoming ambivalent about Ukraine or downright hostile to Ukraine and supportive of Russia.

...

Politics aside, Russia has considered itself effectively at war with the US since 2010. The Russian form of warfare is "hybrid warfare", which many people in the West have taken to mean "non-kinetic", but in Russian thinking includes kinetic options (and Russia has attacked the US indirectly using proxies, although the attack on a US outpost in Syria using a Wagner mercenary battalion went very, very badly for them). Completely anecdotally, but have a former co-worker that was a helicopter crewman that used to ferry around some HSLD guys, and he told me a few years ago that he went to a funeral for one of his army buddies that was KIA in Syria and they were fighting Russians.

Then again, in all fairness, based on recent news reports, the US and the CIA has been HEAVILY invested in anti-Russian clandestine ops in Ukraine since 2014.

I really wish there was more info on what changed with US thinking between 2012 when Obama laughed off Romney's statement that Russia was the USA's biggest threat and Obama telling Medved he would have more options "after the election", and 2014 when the US apparently helped stage a coup in Ukraine and also began undermining Assad (a Russian/Iranian client).

However, it seems like the US IC has shifted from ignoring Russia to indexing strongly against Russia, and this might explain why the IC worked so feverishly to keep Trump out of office in 2016, undermine him when he was President, and again worked to keep him out of office in 2020. Not that Trump was legitimately compromised by Russia, but simply couldn't be trusted to "tow the line" with regards to treating Russia as a hostile nation, and that ultimately represented a perceived existential threat to the state.

This got me thinking that one of the more nefarious things Russia could do would be to assassinate Trump before the election. If Trump were to be assassinated, a *significant* portion of the American right would believe, without a shadow of the doubt, the Democrats, the "Deep State", and Biden/Obama were behind it, and it might kick off a wave of political violence we haven't seen since at least the late 60s, and maybe ever.