Favorite fictional Military War Story Books

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
This thread will be about SD member's favorite fictional military war story books.

Please, no profanity, or links to R-Rated or explicit material.

Also spoilers are fine...just point out that you are about to give them so members can avoid them if they want.

Otherwise, a brief synopsis and why you think it is so good would be helpful.

I will start out.

One of the best modern war story books I have ever read about both modern war at sea (in this case specifically involving a US super carrier CSG pitted against three Soviet groups, Soviet subs, and regiments of Soviet naval air) and land warfare, is called "The Sixth Battle."


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Read my review at that link on Amazon.

Hehehe...it is so good that about every 3-4 years, I take it back out and read it again.

So there's a start for this thread, feel free to provide your own referrals.

Another I liked, which, based on the recommendation from a friend I read long ago, buying the hard cover soon after it came out, was "Red Storm Rising," by Clancy...but I will leave that to someone else to review.
 

Scratch

Captain
Another I liked, which, based on the recommendation from a friend I read long ago, buying the hard cover soon after it came out, was "Red Storm Rising," by Clancy...but I will leave that to someone else to review.

I in fact have that book, somewhere. I read it several times many years ago.

When I was a kid I once came across a book in a store that had a tank on it's cover and was about armored stuff. I though it was cool, I was interested and I got it. It was in fact "Armored Cavalary" by Tom Clancy. That one specificly is a documentary basicly, on the US 3rd ACR.
That, however, some time later got me started with pretty much all the "Jack Ryan" novals.
Somewhere in bewteen I ran across Red Storm Rising. With a few of those Clancy novals, I actually started getting them in english to have some "real world practice" with my language skills.
In fact, I think I scared my teachers a little when at some point it became apparent that for some reason I was really apt with english vocabulary for military and weaponry terms ... :)

I'm actually not really sure right now, but I think RSR is the english version also. Last time reading it is really too long ago to properly remember it's content, though.

Here's what I remember, if you want to know:
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It starts out with a terrorist attack (in the mid / late 80s?) on a major soviet refinery. That leads to a profound shortage of oil in the SU wich eventually leads soviet leaders to decide to get it somewhere else. From the middle east, and by force. To prevent western interference there the SU decides to attack and defeat NATO in Europe first. Faking an attack on some school boys in the Kremlin and blaming it on a NATO country, they hope to spilt up the alliance and then defeat them.
The ensuing war is essentially the content of the book.
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I think to "model" that war, Clancy teamed up with a computer programmer writing a Sim to calculate certain results. That "Sim" would later become the "Harpoon" game / sim series.
There's a bit of new hardware, but mostly the two sides fight with what they had at that time.
I just remember that it was really fun and interesting to read and see how it would go.
I may have to look for the book again, just to read it once more.
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Clancy worked with the Harpoon community on a number of his novels and scenarios.

I used Harpoon III to model warfare in my
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.

I have made that entire novel available to SD members as a PDF ebook for free:

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Anyhow, in Harpoon III (and the others as well) there is a neat database capability where you can model numerous aspects of weapons systems and sensors and then add them to the game.

Harpoon was used by the US Naval War College for some time.

Red Storm Rising is a classic World War novel.

I still have it, and like The Sixth Battle, take it off the shelf and re-read it every now and then.

But I actually like The Sixth Battle better...though it is not on a world-wide scale.
 

SamuraiBlue

Captain
Not really my favorite but Kawaguchi Kaiji had started a serialized visual novel about a military conflict between PRC and Japan where PRC invades Senkaku, Yonaguni and Ishigaki isles.
This takes place as military tension had gone up between the two nations and Japan had developed an aircraft carrier JS Ibuki with an air squadron with the help of the US Navy.
Although in Japanese here is the first and second installment below.

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Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Not really my favorite but Kawaguchi Kaiji had started a serialized visual novel about a military conflict between PRC and Japan where PRC invades Senkaku, Yonaguni and Ishigaki isles.
This takes place as military tension had gone up between the two nations and Japan had developed an aircraft carrier JS Ibuki with an air squadron with the help of the US Navy.
Although in Japanese here is the first and second installment below.

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Does he have an English version...or at least an English transcript?
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
It will probably be a few years before the Licencing transfers over here, Then It will likely be a Graphic Novel which is more of a Omnibus version Probably form Viz Media who owns Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions Co., Ltd. and Who Previously published Kawaguchi Kaiji's earlier Big Comics Tile Eagle: The Making of an Asian-American President
If it's popular enough it might get a more traditional form of Novel in the form of a "Light novel" Which will still have some of the Artwork.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Okay, so I picked up Ghost fleet by P.W. Singer and August Cole, I cut through it in about two days. For a 379 page book (not counting end notes) not bad I figure.
Fairly well thought out with a verity of technologies and concepts and trends on the cutting edge and sometimes bridging into media myths to. This is told from a American Perspective. Very pro PRC readers may take offense at some of it.

::::Spoilers Spoilers Spoilers Spoilers:::::

This was a very navy centric approach as the name Ghost Fleet would attest. Centered primarily around Captain Jamie Simmons and his father Chief Mike Simmons aboard the USS Zimwalt, but also bridges into occupied Hawaii, and a short trip into Near Earth Orbit.
The title Ghost fleet references the US Naval Reserves Moth ball fleet of ships held in case of absolute emergency. Much like Jeff's book the opening of the war involves deployment of a secret weapon the the form of a unique guidance system used to target "Stonefish" DF21D series AshBM. This system uses space based high energy photons to track the Cherenkov Radiation produced by the power reactors or American SSN, SSBN and CVN warships
This leads to the Navy having to pull out these older retired ships and refit for duty. However the Ghost fleet is not quite as old as you might think. The story seems to be set in post 2024 yet alot of brand new ships like the Zimwalt seem to have been retired prematurely. The navy is described as having 9 Carriers and much of the story seems almost as if they retired everything else but the LCS.
Additionally the involves extensive cyber warfare including hacking of both hardware and Software used in a verity of military equipments. I found this very novel, the story and the world it is set in are a beyond wired world. People in the book are regularly using "Viz Glasses" smart glasses, multiple characters are "Chipped" and implanted. A female character in it even has smart tattoos and a smart boob job that adjusted to the desired cleavage.
Along side the cyber are mentions of chemical augmentation. Chinese Marines are described as exceedingly muscular and with acne signs of steroids. All the characters are using Stims or stimulant gummys, as well as other performance enhancing supplements.

Much is in fact realistic based on trends and developments that are real time in this Monster energy 4 Loco world of ours.

There are however a few stretches though in example one of the devices the Author uses has the Chinese directorate use is to use exported microprocessor chips in the electronics of the US Military F35 and presumably others via building systems and traps that when exposed to the seekers of Chinese military arms like air to air missiles. The chips broadcast a homing signal.

The trouble I have with this is that although possible to a degree, its highly unlikely particularly since the US still manufactures a large number of processor chips. This is I feel one of the failings in the book that the Author falls into the trap of. They do the same thing on rare earths, its not that the metals are unavailable out of the PRC its that the PRC has gone out of its way to saturate the market.

Speaking of the PRC, in the book it's dead. The Chinese are referred to as the Directorate. This is apparently one of the major points in the story. In the future as described, a Dirty bomb or a low yield atomic bomb (they use the term for dirty bomb but the effects sound more like a crude nuke) has been detonated in Saudi Arabia. This has shifted the whole of the middle east and pretty much destroyed the oil market. The US has become the worlds oil exporter along side Venezuela,Mexico, Russia and Parts of Africa. In the chaos of the event nations rose others faulted and the CCP faced a large uprising against them, which over powered the conventional internal security apparatus demanding that the leadership call in the PLA, however rather than back the CCP the PLA cut a deal with selected industry and economic leaders then pulled a coup against the CCP establishing the Directorate with the Presidium board composed of a mixtureof civilian and military at its head and the CCP ground under its feet.
This overthrow leads to a number of the Chinese American dispute roots. Remarkable is that at no time in the whole of the book is Taiwan mentioned. Nor Korea for that matter. Indonesia has collapsed into failed states. NATO breaks at the first sign of trouble.

Russia is a wild card in the story. At first seemingly at a knife edge vs The Chinese, the two still drop everything and turn on the US. Save for a Russian Scifi fan General in the Russian Chinese Embassy who is feeding Intel to the US.
Finally there is the Hawaiian front where you have the story of Major Conan Doyle USMC leading the NSM resistance and Carrie Shin who after loosing her fiancé in the invasion becomes a one woman terror campaign as she serial kills her way through the Chinese male occupation force.
All and all though it took some interesting turns a good read if a bit troubled at times.
 
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