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Lions of Kandahar was pretty good, in the same vein as that I really liked No Way Out. Admittedly, there aren't a lot of books on Iraq and Afghanistan that I haven't read.
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May 28, 2013 01:37
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DRONES CURE HAJI posted:Lions of Kandahar was pretty good, in the same vein as that I really liked No Way Out. Admittedly, there aren't a lot of books on Iraq and Afghanistan that I haven't read. did you like this book? http://www.amazon.com/First-In-Offi...ywords=first+in i borrowed it from a friend and its loving crazy, just never see it mentioned here dude shopped for war supplies or whatever at REI and had pallets of us dollars and stuff it was pretty crazy to me
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May 28, 2013 01:39
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Yeah, First In was really really good. I actually just re-read it a little while ago. The guy who took over after Schroen wrote Jawbreaker, it and Kill Bin Laden are both largely about Tora Bora and they're crazy as hell too. The early Afghan war was really interesting to read about. I know people really like Forever War by Dexter Filkins, the first parts of the book about Afghanistan in those days were awesome, but I didn't think the Iraq parts were that great. It's interesting how Iraq was The Big War, but honestly there have been a lot better books written about Afghanistan.
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May 28, 2013 01:43
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I am about a quarter of the way through Matterhorn, a novel about Vietnam and it's really good so far. It gets right down in the trenches with a squad of marines who are getting hosed into all sorts of awful (but believable) scenarios...and I'm making it sound funny but it's (so far) a pretty serious, good novel. Anyone else read it?
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Jun 2, 2013 14:15
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Just wanna pipe in that I bought and read: To the limit. It was flipping awesome. Everyone should read it.
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Jun 2, 2013 14:24
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zokie posted:Just wanna pipe in that I bought and read: To the limit. It was flipping awesome. Everyone should read it. The one I posted about, the vietnam helicopter pilot one? Because yeah it's awesome.
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Jun 2, 2013 14:49
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Matterhorn is loving amazing. Seriously no-poo poo go read this loving book right now amazing.
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Jun 3, 2013 16:34
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The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors http://www.amazon.com/Last-Stand-Tin-Sailors-Extraordinary/dp/0553381482 It’s 1944. "Dugout" Douglas MacArthur is about to invade the Philippine island of Samar, the first step in the Second Battle of the Philippine Islands. Moving to intercept the invasion is the Central Force of the Imperial Japanese Navy, a 23 ship armada including Yamato, the largest battleship ever constructed. The only thing standing in their way, and the only naval force that can protect MacArthur and the US Sixth Army is Taffy 3, a 13 ship Task Force composed of light destroyers and escort carriers, mostly used to guard supply ships. For them to take on the pride of the Japanese Navy in ship-to-ship combat was considered suicide. Yet by a combination of luck, strategic air power and sheer force of battle, the Tin Can sailors prevailed and the IJN withdrew. Hornfisher does a brilliant job of depicting just how badly Taffy 3 was mismatched, and how close they came to losing. Gripping, exciting and easily the finest piece of literature depicting naval action in the Pacific War. BigDave fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Jun 6, 2013 |
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Jun 6, 2013 00:22
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Same event I assume quote:The only time she fired her main guns at enemy surface targets was in October 1944, when she was sent to engage American forces invading the Philippines during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. On the verge of success, the Japanese force turned back, believing they were engaging an entire US carrier fleet rather than the light escort carrier group that was all that stood between Yamato and the vulnerable troop transports.
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Jun 6, 2013 01:30
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Smiling Jack posted:Matterhorn is loving amazing. Seriously no-poo poo go read this loving book right now amazing. I just finished...it really keeps you going till the end. I saw Hawke getting fragged in Cassuidy's place coming... but still, just brutal.
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Jun 6, 2013 05:07
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Looking for a good modern helicopter pilot book. Basically anything newer than Vietnam. I've read a lot about the Night Stalkers so would like something a little different.
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Jun 7, 2013 04:57
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Elendil004 posted:Looking for a good modern helicopter pilot book. Basically anything newer than Vietnam. I've read a lot about the Night Stalkers so would like something a little different. Armed Action is pretty good, about Royal Navy Lynx pilots in Telic 1. Apache by Ed Macy is also readable - it covers this incident https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6qHcd4imKk
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Jun 9, 2013 14:04
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See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism is one I really enjoyed. The author traces his career from start to end. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA was also interesting. It goes over how crazy the DO was (is?) and how Allen Dulles and John Dulles were very big into cover operations and how they almost always got messed up.
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Jun 10, 2013 22:58
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Bright Eyes posted:Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA was also interesting. It goes over how crazy the DO was (is?) and how Allen Dulles and John Dulles were very big into cover operations and how they almost always got messed up. The history of the CIA from its inception until about 1970 or so is a hilarious comedy of errors and outright insane poo poo that basically boils down to "bunch of upper class WASP Ivy Leaguers wanted to play spy, also mad scientist." Well, I guess it would be hilarious if it didn't involve a shitload of people getting killed unnecessarily.
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Jun 16, 2013 18:53
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Bright Eyes posted:Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA was also interesting. It goes over how crazy the DO was (is?) and how Allen Dulles and John Dulles were very big into cover operations and how they almost always got messed up. I read that one a few years ago and found it really interesting. The same guy who recommended it to me recently recommended me The Way of the Knife, which also covers the CIA, but in this case their recent history, as in how they got behind all the secret prisons and drone strikes and whatnot. Very interesting read. I was shocked at a lot of the technology they described in it, since some of it was familiar and I thought was very much classified.
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Jun 19, 2013 14:04
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Three Armies on the Somme, William Philpott. Does a good job of peeling back some of the layers of why things happened. My favorite part: a recently-unemployed Parliamentary back-bencher named Winston Churchill conducting character assassinations of old political foes under the guise of being a war correspondent. Since it hasn't been mentioned, Parshall and Tully's Shattered Sword: the Untold Story of the Battle of Midway serves as a kind of gently caress-you rebuttal to Miracle at Midway. If you wanted bomb-by-bomb analyses of damage, look no further.
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Jun 19, 2013 19:57
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All i know about Air America is from the movie, and reading about Lima Site 38...recommend me a good book about Air America's exploits, please.
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Jun 23, 2013 04:16
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Elendil004 posted:All i know about Air America is from the movie, and reading about Lima Site 38...recommend me a good book about Air America's exploits, please. It's not specific to Air America, but At War in the Shadow of Vietnam (mentioned earlier in the thread) is a very readable but quite scholarly account of the secret war in Laos...so Air America gets discussed a fair amount. Same goes for the Heinie Aderholt biography I mentioned earlier (Air Commando One.) Perilous Missions might be more up your alley...it's a history of Civil Air Transport, which is the "airline" that Claire Chennault (Flying Tiger guy) started up in China after WWII. It quickly morphed into the logistical air arm of the Nationalist forces, and when they fled to Taiwan CAT went with them. At this point the airline started dealing almost exclusively with the CIA, keeping up appearances by flying some above board scheduled airline flights while the majority of its fleet flew covert missions for the CIA in various spots around Asia. They took part in pretty much every East/Southeast Asian war of the late '40s and '50s, including Koren, French-Indochinese War (including Dien Bien Phu), and the revolution against Sukarno in Indonesia. While the airline was owned by a CIA front holding company starting in 1951 there was an on-going dispute between the airline's nominal overt operators and the CIA past that point, which led to the eventual complete CIA takeover in 1957. Two years later the "airline" was renamed to...Air America. The author was working on another book that would pick up where Perilous Missions left off and detail the history of Air America in SEA, but unfortunately he died before it was completed.  There are some other books about Air America out there on Amazon but I haven't read them so I can't comment.
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Jun 23, 2013 17:19
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I just did my annual Tom Clancy re-read.. Started with the classic Red Storm Rising, and finished with The Sum of All Fears. I can't say any of his books are the least bit worth reading or that there is anything redeeming about them. But once a year I get a hair up my rear end and re-read them all and enjoy them immensely for the few days it takes to read them. Then I take a long shower and pretend it never happened. So yeah, that's my recommendation for Red Storm Rising. But this guy said it way better than me: thesurlyspringKAA posted:Well the whole story hinges on the super-secret F-117 being a supersonic fighter/bomber capable of total radar invisibility and the ability to carry and employ tons of air to air AND air to surface weapons. That is to say, the whole story hinges on BULLSHIT and was just fantastical dickwaving by a jingoist. The truest words ever written about Clancy.
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Jun 24, 2013 19:01
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they're milporn and I love them. I forget which book it is, where the US and Canada basically wage "hyperwar" on china or some asian country. Total wankfest, but fun to read.
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Jun 24, 2013 19:05
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Elendil004 posted:they're milporn and I love them. I forget which book it is, where the US and Canada basically wage "hyperwar" on china or some asian country. Total wankfest, but fun to read. I really want to re-write Red Storm Rising, with a better name.. but have it be kinda alterna-history where the soviet union solidified and continued their defense advances that we've seen up until now but on a much larger scale.. and where we got the cold war military we wanted and have the war spark off in Europe. Instead of the cop out Clancy went with though to end and limit the conventional war, I'd basically have it end the way it was supposed to- tactical nukes escalating to strategic nukes. So it'd be like.. first few chapters has the introduction to capabilities and the run up in readiness on both sides, and the intelligence war that both are waging.. Next few chapters the initial hostilities (first strikes by whoever is doing that, etc-- Special Forces raids, SEAD/DEAD etc day 1 stuff) that advance to the Naval War and the large Mechanized forces pushes.. and it tells the whole story from that same Clancy character POV (I.E interesting throw away characters like the pilots and poo poo). Anyway, the whole thing would devolve into the USSR gaining tactical and operational advantage on the ground in Europe leading to action chapters for the Nuclear forces guys (who've been kinda introduced in those first few chapters) and we see how the war would have looked from everybody's POV as it progress (quickly) from tactical nuclear weapons to theater nuclear weapons to a full on strategic force employment. The rest of the book can be about the NCA and nuclear forces surviving and riding out the war and attempting to negotiate an end to hostilities.. have it all end in the bleak death tolls of the war shown first from conventional warfare (which should also be hideous) all the way to the full on holocaust that was committed before the cessation of hostilities. And welp yeah there ya go it's a shim highdea post. To keep it relevant I highly recommend the book "The Last Ship" for nuclear war / post apoc war porn. There is even a very uncomfortable graphic sex scene in the book. Good times.
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Jun 24, 2013 19:22
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That's a $25 paperback with no kindle edition. drat.
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Jun 24, 2013 20:04
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Godholio posted:That's a $25 paperback with no kindle edition. drat. Yeah, at least 15 times a year I'll go to find it on Kindle version and click that whole "Please let this publisher know you want a kindle version of this book!" thing. When i was in 7th grade I took a voluntary weekend school science class thing (Think AP but not as academic I guess?), and we had this super cool teacher who taught us all kinds of neat poo poo bill nye the science guy style. Name was Mr. Cross. He was also really big into tabletop wargaming, and taught us all how to play and poo poo. Really great guy. Anyway, that spring when the book came out he actually went out and with his own money bought us all (Okay there was only 3 kids in the class by that point) a copy for us to read and do a book report on. (We had been learning about nuclear war and reactors and stuff). So anyway, I thought this was the greatest thing ever and I've always cherished my copy.. But our local preachers daughter also was taking the class with us and while she was cool, her dad was decidedly not cool and raised hell because the book gets pretty graphic in places. Cut to Mr. Cross being fired, and the end of the Weekend Science class at my tiny school. Really good book though. It's worth the cost to pickup a copy since a digital version seems like it's never gonna happen. It's almost been turned into a movie / TV show a few dozen times.
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Jun 24, 2013 20:25
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GAS CURES KIKES posted:Yeah, at least 15 times a year I'll go to find it on Kindle version and click that whole "Please let this publisher know you want a kindle version of this book!" thing. Oh poo poo According to Wikipedia it got picked up to be a television show for real! Wikipedia posted:
Those paperbacks may get a tiny bit more valuable. Might even hasten the publisher allowing digital copies to be published. This is a pleasant surprise.. This book is the quintessential late 80's nuclear war / holocaust survival book.. I'm surprised to see it's getting picked up as a series. Hope it doesn't go Jericho too fast. Ten bucks says Skeet Ulrich plays an Ensign, and that he gets paid what amounts to weed money in Skeet Ulrich world to play the part haha.
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Jun 24, 2013 20:30
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I always liked Joe Buff's books about the modern submarine combat. The gist is the germans and south africans band together to gently caress poo poo up, tactical nukes are used on the high seas in huge amounts, and subs are flinging nuclear torpedoes around willy nilly. What amazon really needs is a "this book is book 2 in a series of 5" because I cant for the life of me tell which of Joe Buff's books comes "first" so gently caress it, maybe it's this one http://www.amazon.com/Straits-Power-Joe-Buff/dp/0060594705/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1372102429&sr=8-1&keywords=joe+buff but no promises.
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Jun 24, 2013 20:34
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Elendil004 posted:I always liked Joe Buff's books about the modern submarine combat. The gist is the germans and south africans band together to gently caress poo poo up, tactical nukes are used on the high seas in huge amounts, and subs are flinging nuclear torpedoes around willy nilly. Gonna check his poo poo out on Kindle if they have it.. thanks man, I love this kinda poo poo. It's total garbage from a literature standpoint, but not everything I read needs to be intellectually stimulating.. ya know? And anything with mushroom clouds in it gets my instant approval. I'll post up a comprehensive list w/ reviews of all the Nuclear Post Apoc stuff I've read. I figure Nuclear war and Nuclear Post Apoc are somewhat relevant in a book thread about the military.. Because there is no Nuclear Holocaust without the military!
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Jun 24, 2013 20:39
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Elendil004 posted:I always liked Joe Buff's books about the modern submarine combat. The gist is the germans and south africans band together to gently caress poo poo up, tactical nukes are used on the high seas in huge amounts, and subs are flinging nuclear torpedoes around willy nilly. His books in order of publishing date: 1) Deep Sound Channel 2) Thunder in the Deep: A Novel of Undersea Military Action and Adventure 3) Crush Depth 4) Tidal Rip 5) Straits of Power 6) Seas of Crisis: A Novel Would you say starting at #1 is worth it for this guys stuff, or is that second to last one that you link where you recommend beginning?
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Jun 24, 2013 20:43
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GAS CURES KIKES posted:His books in order of publishing date: Start with deep sound channel, im not 100% sure they're all interconnected, but I think so.
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Jun 24, 2013 22:54
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The novels in the series are: Deep Sound Channel, 2000 Thunder in the Deep, 2001 Crush Depth, 2002 Tidal Rip, 2003 Straits of Power, 2004 Seas of Crisis, 2005 So yeah you've got it right.
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Jun 24, 2013 23:12
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Elendil004 posted:The novels in the series are: Thanks man. Deep Sound Channel is legit war porn, it's solid so far.
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Jun 25, 2013 00:03
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GAS CURES KIKES posted:I really want to re-write Red Storm Rising, with a better name.. but have it be kinda alterna-history where the soviet union solidified and continued their defense advances that we've seen up until now but on a much larger scale.. and where we got the cold war military we wanted and have the war spark off in Europe. Instead of the cop out Clancy went with though to end and limit the conventional war, I'd basically have it end the way it was supposed to- tactical nukes escalating to strategic nukes. So it'd be like.. first few chapters has the introduction to capabilities and the run up in readiness on both sides, and the intelligence war that both are waging.. Next few chapters the initial hostilities (first strikes by whoever is doing that, etc-- Special Forces raids, SEAD/DEAD etc day 1 stuff) that advance to the Naval War and the large Mechanized forces pushes.. and it tells the whole story from that same Clancy character POV (I.E interesting throw away characters like the pilots and poo poo). Anyway, the whole thing would devolve into the USSR gaining tactical and operational advantage on the ground in Europe leading to action chapters for the Nuclear forces guys (who've been kinda introduced in those first few chapters) and we see how the war would have looked from everybody's POV as it progress (quickly) from tactical nuclear weapons to theater nuclear weapons to a full on strategic force employment. The rest of the book can be about the NCA and nuclear forces surviving and riding out the war and attempting to negotiate an end to hostilities.. have it all end in the bleak death tolls of the war shown first from conventional warfare (which should also be hideous) all the way to the full on holocaust that was committed before the cessation of hostilities. Have you ever heard of Arc Light?
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Jun 25, 2013 01:36
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Since it came up earlier in the thread...I'm watching Sea Wolves right now, and it's awesome. A great mix of old guys joking about how old they are, and campy WWII spy/action movie. Plus Gregory Peck, Roger Moore, and David Niven could act in a movie about fungal growth and make it interesting.GAS CURES KIKES posted:Thanks man. Deep Sound Channel is legit war porn, it's solid so far. Did you finish? Move onto the next? Thoughts?
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Jul 2, 2013 19:00
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I don't know if you still care about this Elendil but I'd definitely recommend Phoenix Squadron. The operation described in it is an excellent illustration of why aircraft carriers matter for geostrategy and deterrence.
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Jul 2, 2013 19:15
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:I don't know if you still care about this Elendil but I'd definitely recommend Phoenix Squadron. The operation described in it is an excellent illustration of why aircraft carriers matter for geostrategy and deterrence. Also should be required reading for the idiots running the Royal Navy into the ground.
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Jul 2, 2013 19:20
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:I don't know if you still care about this Elendil but I'd definitely recommend Phoenix Squadron. The operation described in it is an excellent illustration of why aircraft carriers matter for geostrategy and deterrence. The goal of this thread is an ongoing book recommendation/discussion/bitchfest/etc. What are the chances of a kindle version? Since it appears out of print... VVVV: There's not even a link to the book how can I even buy it? Elendil004 fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Jul 2, 2013 |
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Jul 2, 2013 19:20
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Maybe this is a little more your speed, bro.
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Jul 2, 2013 19:47
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Elendil004 posted:The goal of this thread is an ongoing book recommendation/discussion/bitchfest/etc. What are the chances of a kindle version? Since it appears out of print... You could always buy it used.
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Jul 2, 2013 19:52
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Elendil004 posted:
I recommend Sink the Belgrano - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sink-Belgrano-Mike-Rossiter/dp/0552155454 I found it a great read, and it was made up heavily of interviews of people involved in both sides of the conflict. The narrative focuses on the Conquerer's journey from refit as the war started to the sinking of the Belgrano and after.
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Jul 3, 2013 05:47
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Smiling Jack posted:Matterhorn is loving amazing. Seriously no-poo poo go read this loving book right now amazing. Yes. Stop what you're doing and go read this book. OK, now that you've read it and it didn't take long, did it? Page turner, it is. Now you can go read The Things They Carried. It's a series of connected short stories that take place mostly in Vietnam. The writing is beautiful and worth the read if only for his description of the beauty of the country amidst all the death.
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Jul 3, 2013 06:03
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I didn't like The Things They Carried. I had to read it in high school so maybe that was part of it.
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Jul 3, 2013 07:33
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