[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 first read it at age 15. I last read it about 10 years ago. On a whim, I picked it up again a couple of weeks ago for another read-through.

The follow "review" contains SPOILERS:

Likes:

The set-pieces are really good, especially the Soviet capture of Iceland. I know that the book was inspired by Clancy and Larry Bond playing wargames (using the Harpoon system). I wonder how much of the set-piece battles was modelled on the Harpoon campaign and how much was the product of pure invention.

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.

The Soviet antagonists aren't too cartoonish. Some of them are downright sympathetic.

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

Dislikes:

The one set-piece that didn't quite work for me was the "Frisbees in Dreamland" episode. I liked the idea of targeting the Soviet Mainstay AWACS using stealth aircraft. IIRC, the F-19 used Sparrows for the kill, but I wonder if HARM or ALAARM would work against aerial targets. The latter would require no radar guidance, so they wouldn't trigger radar/threat warning receivers. Anyway, the part that I didn't like was that on the same mission, the titular F-19 was also tasked with lasing a bridge for a LGB strike. I found that super unrealistic. No one in their right mind would task the same aircraft with two vital missions. If the F-19 got shot down or damaged attempting the first mission, it couldn't perform the second. Silly, IMHO.

I can't fault him for this, but Clancy also got the stealth fighter way wrong. He calls it an attack fighter, but gives it air-to-air capability and afterburners. He also describes it with fixed external weapons pylons instead of an internal weapons bay. The former is not nearly as stealthy. Also, it's a two-seater (that's forgivable).

IMHO, Clancy really overestimated the ability of NATO aircraft to operate behind enemy lines. He gives NATO air superiority over the front on day one of the war, completely ignoring the sheer numerical superiority of the Red Airforce. More egregiously, IMHO, Clancy seemed to think that Soviet SAMs and AAA wouldn't be a significant problem for NATO strike aircraft. No Soviet fuel depot, bridge, artillery battery, tank farm, or HQ is safe from airstrikes during the war. NATO is never in danger of running out of combat aircraft.

Conversely, in Clancy's telling, NATO SAMs are super effective. Soviet tactical airpower and strike capabilities and effectiveness are sharply curtailed as a result. IRL, the Soviets had many more SAMs than NATO and, qualitatively, many of them were on par, if not better than their Western counterparts.

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.

"Three men in a jeep" (with a TOW) is, IMHO, totally OP in the book. Apparently NATO's soft-skinned mobile AT teams are immune to Soviet artillery. More on that below.

Early on in the book, 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. Any time Soviet artillery is mentioned after the build up, it's getting destroyed by airstrikes or counterbattery fire (and in one friendly fire incident, drops a vital bridge that the Soviets are trying to capture). I guess the only way Clancy and Bond could rationalize a NATO land victory was by nerfing Soviet artillery (and omitting the rest of the WTO- see below).

I may have missed it, but no WTO units are mentioned as participating in the war. It's the USSR v. NATO. The East Germans are mentioned objecting to planned Soviet use of chemical weapons on German soil but that's it. Warsaw Pact units are conspicuously absent on the ground and in the air. I guess the Kremlin gave them all the war off?

Again, Western intel on new (at the time) Soviet aircraft was incomplete, but the SU-27 would have been a better choice than the MiG-29 for the defense of the captured Icelandic airbases, due to the former's superior range and radar. He also apparently didn't know about both aircraft's infrared search and track systems, which would have given them an edge in engagements where "radar-silence" was being observed (these feature prominently in the book).

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. According to the very well-respected, On Killing, using a knife to kill is much more difficult psychologically (given the almost intimate proximity of killer to victim), yet the protagonists execute three Soviet prisoners with knives instead of their rifles or pistols. And shots had already been fired, so it wasn't even a stealth requirement. Rambo much?

How does the hovering Hind crew not notice the protagonist's camo clothing when he's spotted fishing. A clumsy boob-grab is enough to fool them? Silly.

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

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

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.

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

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Yeah, so my dislikes list is a lot longer than my likes, but overall, it's a good read. It makes me want to play Harpoon again and, of course, gets in the T2k mood.

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

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