|
I'm phone posting, so I'll keep it brief: The book of Pentagon Wars is pretty incredible. It covers the politics of procurement of the Sergeant York, Bradley, and F-111. The falsified testing, changing requirements to suit the preferred bid, cramming in untested technology, it's really incredible. It also talks about the Fighter Mafia and the teams behind the F-16 and F-15 and how they fought tooth and nail to keep their designs intact. The interaction between generals who were with bombers and WW2 and guys who were the early jet fighter pilots was pretty interesting too. I have shelves and shelves of this stuff, so I'll see what I can get around to. Anything by David M. Glantz is pretty good. One of the first western historians to read the Russian archives and write histories of the Ostfront not based on Wehrmacht memoirs. Stumbling Colossus is fantastic and explains the state of the Red Army on the eve of Barbarossa. The fact that for all the Tank Fright of KV's and T-34's in German accounts, many Russian crews had spent at most a few hours with the new machines after training on tankettes and that there was essentially no 76mm or 152mm ammunition outside of Moscow.
|
#
¿
Sep 13, 2016 09:58
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 21, 2024 09:10 |
|
|
Burning Beard posted:I really like Glantz. He can be a bit dry at times. Here, have a free PDF of his work on the Soviet Invasion of Manchuria I have a paper copy. Highly recommend! What stands out to me is the Soviets moving armoured formations through terrain that everyone thought was impassable. Mountains, deserts, swamps. The kind of stuff that most officers even now would shake their heads at and say was no-go or at best slow-go terrain. They achieved strategic, operational, and tactical surprise and then encircled an area larger than Western Europe, while destroying the last intact units of the Japanese Army. Really amazing stuff.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 13, 2016 16:00
|
|