[Adm.Lee]

Originally Posted by Raellus

I'm sure that most of you have read Tom Clancy's "novel of WWIII", Red Storm Rising by now. If not, it's worth your time.
...
I appreciated the build-up to the war a lot more as an adult (I skipped those parts as a teenager). It seemed pretty plausible and was generally well-written.

I remember getting the hardback for Christmas, 1986, so that would have been my freshman year of college. I was an ROTC cadet and taking my 3rd year of Russian. So, I *really* liked the pre-war intel and politics-- intel was one of my dream jobs. I have probably read it 3+ times, the last in July '17.

Likes:

The set-pieces are really good, especially the Soviet capture of Iceland. ...

The Soviet antagonists aren't too cartoonish. ...

I thought that the submarine fight scenes were very well done. The surface ASW bits were pretty good too.

I had Harpoon rules at the time, and solitaired a few ASW fights. All of the above were good elements to me.

Dislikes:

- Anyway, the part that I didn't like was that ... would task the same aircraft with two vital missions.

In retrospect, I agree with you on that one. Clancy liked to flash back and forth between characters, so I'm now surprised this couldn't have been 2 missions, written as separate scenes?

IMHO, Clancy really overestimated the ability of NATO aircraft to operate behind enemy lines. ...
Conversely, in Clancy's telling, NATO SAMs are super effective. ...

No argument that he may have missed the boat here. I think it was his book where the A-10s were pretty ubiquitous?

A Belgian brigade counterattacks and stops two Soviet Category A TDs during the attempted breakthrough at Alfeld. No offense to any Belgians out there, but just look at the respective TOEs, c.1986. I mean, it's possible, but highly unlikely.

Um, yeah, I'd forgotten about that. How long were they stopped?

Clancy mentions the Soviets' comparative superiority in artillery, but then pretty much dismisses it once the war starts. NATO artillery always gets the better of the Red Army guns and rockets. ... I guess the only way Clancy and Bond could rationalize a NATO land victory was by nerfing Soviet artillery.

Not something I'd paid attention to on my last read, but that does seem a little fishy.

I may have missed it, but no WTO units are mentioned as participating in the war. It's the USSR v. NATO. ...

I suspect this may have been a result of sticking to a handful of characters, and IIRC the main Soviet point-of-view character was an Army commander? If so, that could have meant he just didn't deal with WP commanders? Or, if he was a Front commander, that falls apart, since there would be 2-3 EG divisions in his command.

The romance subplot set in Iceland is cringe-worthy in several respects. The Air Force weatherman protagonist's killing of the Soviet rapists with a knife just struck me as uber-macho fantasizing. ...

How does the hovering Hind crew ...? Silly.

And do I even need to mention the sex with a pregnant rape victim? Cringe! Men-writing-women at its worst.

I would only defend the first bit: ISTR the weatherman lost his prewar fiancee/girlfriend to a rapist, so he could have been particularly enraged-- all the revenge fantasies of however many months given a chance to enact? I remember thinking the last part was cringey or a rescuer-fantasy, even at age 18. The middle bit... eh, possible?

Also, there's only one female combatant in the entire book. And one Asian-American. And it's the same character!

Is this the F-15 test pilot who shoots down satellites? It's still 1986 when it's written, what other women combatants might he have used?

Nitpick: the names are so 1980s and vanilla: Smith, John, Mike, Ed, Garcia. Seems like very little thought or effort went into that aspect of CharGen.

It's a fair cop. That's why the war movie cliche includes a Jewish guy, someone with an unspellable Polish name, the Italian guy from New York City, etc., in addition to the Texan and the smart guy. (Just don't be the next one to show off your girlfriend's picture!)

Some of the dialogue is particularly stilted and unnatural. A lot of it is pretty good, though.

Agree on both counts.

I'm interested in reading your thoughts on the book. What worked for you? What didn't?

+ I rather liked Clancy's style of cutting back and forth between several characters and points of view. It does reduce the depth of each character and their arc, but it also allows the reader to learn a lot more about the war as a whole.
(It works very well, IMO, in his thrillers, as you're seeing so many threads and wondering, "Oh, boy, how is THIS going to show up later?"

IIRC, the "main" characters were the USAF weather LT in Iceland, a USN frigate commander, and a Soviet general (Front or Army CG?). We can see the war at sea and in Iceland at the lowest level, then the main event in Germany at the highest level. I remember there are other threads, but not who or where.
+ By sticking to that high level in Germany, he avoids characters with "plot immunity"-- that F19 pilot won't get shot down on mission #3, a tank commander won't have to survive 5 tanks blowing up under them, and so forth.

- Back to the air defenses, I'm currently playing two board wargames by email, with differing conclusions on air defenses. In Red Storm, I've played about 5 scenarios, and SAMs on both sides are more planning nuisance than threat, due to both sides' having jammers and dedicated SEAD planes (NATO being a bit better at the latter). My opponent is certainly frustrated with the game's portrayal of SAMs relative to AAA and fighters. In 1985: under an iron sky, I'm playing NATO's center section, and it feels like NATO's air forces are terrified, since anything I do with them will be swarmed by MiGs or slammed by zillions of SAMs, or both. Maybe later in the first week, but on Day 4, I am way outgunned.