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REQUEST: Good aviation/military books

Fog

Fog

Old RIOs never die: They just can't fast-erect
None
Contributor
Catmando said:
We were aware of Operation Bolo a few years later. But I never knew much about it until I recently read Old's book. [AF and the Nav never shared anything!] And now I'm pissed! Although Naval Air was far ahead of the Air Force at the time, I now decades later have learned what I should have known back then, and what Olds belatedly learned - That there was an almost instant translation of enemy fighters' and their controllers' transmissions available to us, but never given!

We were never told, because of OPSEC. Halfway through 1972 I belatedly learned – and probably not should have learned - what Olds had learned 5 years earlier to his anger, when I visited our Red Crown controllers on the USS Truxton. That fruitful visit set up a smaller, Bolo-type deception a few days later that worked because we now knew the bad guys had similar technology and translators. It nearly got me a MiG.

The Spooks saved a lot of Intel that we in the arena could and should have used. Unfortunately and apparently, Vietnam was not worth showing our hand. They saved that particular intel for a future showdown with the Soviet Union.
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What you implied (but were too polite to say) is that the DOD/National Intel power structure didn't think fighterpilots' lives were worth risking letting that capability become known to the Russians and Slopes
 
CommodoreMid

CommodoreMid

Whateva! I do what I want!
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Super Moderator
Contributor
HercDriver said:
In honor the recent death of Pulitzer prize winning journalist and author David Halberstam, who died on the 23rd of April, I recommend:

The Best and the Brightest: His book about the whiz-kids who surrounded JFK (Robert McNamara, Dean Rusk, McGeorge Bundy) and the entry into Viet Nam. A classic. He was also one of the top reporters during the Viet Nam war.

I'm also going out on a limb and recommend some poetry; Barracks Room Ballads: by Rudyard Kipling. Here was someone who through his writing of the common British soldier (Tommy Atkins in that era's parlance) and the conditions he experienced brought about reform and better treatment. Poems like "Tommy" that discuss the publics wartime regard/peacetime disregard for the common soldier:
..."For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck him out, the brute!”
But it’s “Saviour of ’is country” when the guns begin to shoot;
An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please;
An’ Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool—you bet that Tommy sees! "

The well known "Gunga-Din", and one of my favorites, "The Young British Soldier", which is from the viewpoint of the seasoned vet speaking to the neophyte and ends with:

"When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier of the Queen!"
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Thread resurrection, but this made me chuckle a bit. Everyone one this board with wings is quite familiar with Barrack Room Ballads, in a most unfortunate sort of way....
 
CommodoreMid

CommodoreMid

Whateva! I do what I want!
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Another good book is The Long Gray Line. It follows West Point's class of 1966 from their plebe year until 20 years after graduation.
 
Uncle Fester

Uncle Fester

Robot Pimp
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Super Moderator
Contributor
Thread revival!

About halfway through When Penguins Flew and Water Burned. Author was a B-52 Nav type, joined in the twilight days of SAC and in time for Desert Storm. Really gets into the weeds about how to fly the BUFF, which would be of interest to this crowd. I always find it interesting to see how the other tribes do business. Though I've lost count of the number of times I've rolled my eyes at the author's Air Forceyness.

In that vein: Apache by a Brit Army RW guy, flew in Afg. Interesting stuff, talks a lot about the day-to-day of their mission in the Sandbox. And not least because he was the guy who pulled this off.
 
MIDNJAC

MIDNJAC

is clara ship
pilot
That buff book was a good read. Crazy to think of them ingressing @500' on the early nights of the war dropping qty 10 million. That must have really scared the shit out of the republican guard
 
MIDNJAC

MIDNJAC

is clara ship
pilot
Recovering LSO said:
http://www.amazon.com/Red-Eagles-Americas-General-Aviation/dp/1846033780

Red Eagles - Pretty good historical account of our acquisition and use of MiG-17/21/23s from late 70s through late 80s.
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Great book. There is another one coming out (as in another book about the Red Eagles) which is supposed to be much more thorough and less biased source-wise. Looking forward to it. Anyone else put 2 and 2 together and notice that the chief test pilot for Lockheed on the JSF/F-35 was one of the Navy reps in the Red Eagle program in the early days? Pretty cool.
 
MIDNJAC

MIDNJAC

is clara ship
pilot
I think it can be said since the Zoo is unclass now.....there is an older MIG-29, presumably one of the program MIG-23's both indoors as well as a MIG-17 gate guard and a Fitter from somewhere in the mideast (can't recall). After having sat in the Flogger, I can't imagine how anyone could get any work done in there, aside from sleeping because there isn't a damned thing to see aside from panel upon panel of switches, CB's, and weird crap. Notably, the AA-10 Alamo is a freaking huge missile.
 
Catmando

Catmando

Keep your knots up.
pilot
Super Moderator
Contributor
Recovering LSO said:
http://www.amazon.com/Red-Eagles-Americas-General-Aviation/dp/1846033780

Red Eagles - Pretty good historical account of our acquisition and use of MiG-17/21/23s from late 70s through late 80s.
Click to expand...


The "Constant Peg" and adversary squadron he talks about appeared (late '70s) about a decade after the NavAir's TOPGUN! It was formed because of the miserable showing by AF Tac-air in Vietnam. [And jealousy? - You betcha!] The Navy beat them by a decade or more in refining Air-to-Air tactics.

Back in the day (late '60s), the AF was forbidden to fly dissimilar. Although we had acquired a number of enemy MiG aircraft through various means, the Air Force did not initially fly against them. But you bet, the Navy did, especially after the Ault Report! And we quickly learned a lot. Not so the Air Force.

Both the VF-121 F-4 RAG, VX-4 and Top Gun had pilots who had flown against these code worded "types" over "there" in the Nevada desert, and then they taught F-4 crews how to defeat them... in the late 1960s, long before "Constant Peg" and indeed with spectacular results in the 1972 air war.

Check these links.... it will save you buying the book:

http://area51specialprojects.com/video/havedoughnut_technical.swf

http://area51specialprojects.com/video/havedrill_tactical.swf

http://www.amazon.com/Scream-Eagles-Dramatic-Account-Fighter/dp/0743497244

http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Documents/2010/June 2010/0610doughnut.pdf
 
J

jayastout

New Member
If you're interested, Stackpole Books is offering the Kindle version of The Men Who Killed the Luftwaffe for free on Amazon during the next few days.
 
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