OT - Book (Non Fiction) Review/Recommendations Thread

[Mahatatain]

Originally Posted by LT. Ox

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]

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.

[Adm.Lee]

"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]

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]

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

[Adm.Lee]

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]

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-...-essay-writing

[swaghauler]

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]

You can download a free copy here

http://www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca/dhh-.../index-eng.asp

[Adm.Lee]

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]

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.

[James Langham2]

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]

Originally Posted by Adm.Lee

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".

[Adm.Lee]

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]

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

[Adm.Lee]

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...om_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]

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]

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]

War Books: Major General Mick Ryan's 2018 reading list

[Raellus]

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]

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]

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]

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/201...DK7Zv9Fe9TpTeY
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]

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]

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]

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/m...war-in-ukraine

https://ospreypublishing.com/store/m...ations-command

They're both scheduled for release this summer.

-

[unkated]

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]

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]

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]

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...