OT - Book (Non Fiction) Review/Recommendations Thread

[ToughOmbres]

Survorov's Inside the Soviet Army

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]

Spearhead

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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[JHart]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[CraigD6er]

I've just finished Battlegroup by Jim Storr. It's a good study of the tactics and equipment that would have been used, primarily by NATO, had things gone hot. The author looks at the differences between different national doctrines, and whether existing formations were the right size and composition. Storr's views are fromed by time spent in the British Army and years of wargaming, tweaking units to achieve the best results.

https://www.helion.co.uk/military-history-books/battlegroup-the-lessons-of-the-unfought-battles-of-the-cold-war.phpsid=41098a6427a7ef964883bf5a730213da

[ToughOmbres]

The Doomsday Scenario

The Doomsday Scenario by L. Douglas Keeney (MBI Publishing, 2002)

This is the declassified (in 1998) version of the 1958 Emergency Plans Book during the 2nd Eisenhower administration, with notes and annotations.

Good (albeit somewhat dry) reading; NOTE: According to the author the actual plans folder was declassified, then subsequently reclassified in 1999 by the USAF but not before copies were properly released and published in Keeney's work.

Good, short read for T2k purposes and some discussion of nuclear weapons effects as well.

[Raellus]

Nuclear War: A Scenario

Just finished Annie Jacobsen's, Nuclear War: A Scenario. It's probably the most terrifying thing that I've ever read, any genre. I've read reviews claiming that the scenario presented is far-fetched and unrealistic- I'm not sure that I agree with that, but I think, even if fair, that criticism misses the point of the book. The scenario serves mostly as a means to examine US- and, to a lesser extent, Russian and North Korean- nuclear weapons technology, strategy, operational use, and, scariest of all, effects (short and long-term). In that, the scenario is very successful. Nuclear War is remarkably informative. Once I started reading (yesterday), I had a really hard time putting it down.

My only gripe is the author's writing style can be a little breathless at times. Overwrought. Lots of short, choppy sentences. Repetitive. Mostly for emphasis. (Like the way this paragraph is written.)

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[ToughOmbres]

First Clash by Kenneth Macksey

I just finished First Clash: Close-up Combat in World War Three by Kenneth Macksey. Originally commissioned by HM Canadian Government and then released as a training aid for officers. Fictional scenario of the 4th Canadian Mechanized Battle Group/Brigade confronting and slowing Soviet forces.

Quite good, probably better than Duffer's Drift as a training aid for officers. Pretty slim character development, nice look from a Canadian lens (OC, Officer Commanding instead of CO for the US Army). It is a quick read with summaries and points/lessons to remember at the end of each chapter. I would recommend it.

Macksey's Kesselring: The Making of the Luftwaffe is quite good as well although now a bit dated. It suffers slightly from being in the post-war awe of the Wehrmacht but Macksey presents a balanced view of Kesselring not just as Luftwaffe officer but on the ground in Italy and North Africa.
He tackles Saint Rommel and takes Erwin Rommel down a notch as well. There was always more than just a whiff of jealousy among post-war German memoirs (and Rommel wasn't around to defend himself if fairness). Kesselring took Rommel to task for being "aggressive and overbearing to the point of boorishness when dealing with subordinates" as well as "crass" when dealing with the Italian military who "required a more diplomatic touch."
Perhaps the most excoriating appraisal comes at the end of the North African campaign when Macksey noted "when there were no more laurels to be had, Rommel pleaded illness and retired to hospital in Germany." Ouch. No one is more hated than honest man-Plato