hjohnso@hubcap.clemson.edu (Barry Johnson) (08/02/89)
From: hjohnso@hubcap.clemson.edu (Barry Johnson)
I was wondering what the net's opinion is on the quality and accuracy of
the books written by Thomas Clancy : The Hunt For Red October,
Red Storm Rising,
Patriot Games,
The Cardinal of the Kremlin.
I have a relative at the Air Force Academy who says that Red Storm Rising
is required reading as a study in air combat doctrine. Also, upon asking
a boomer captain in Seattle about Clancy, he said that Clancy was pretty
damnned accurate on a lot of points, but it was his job to not let anyone
know which points they were or were not. Tell me what you folks think of
this novelist. Thanks...
Barry Johnson
Info. Systems Development
Clemson University
Clemson S.C. 29631 Internet : hjohnso@hubcap.clemson.edu rbeville%tekig5.pen.tek.com@RELAY.CS.NET (Bob Beville) (08/03/89)
From: Bob Beville <rbeville%tekig5.pen.tek.com@RELAY.CS.NET> In the _Reader's_Digest_- May issue, there was an article on Tom Clancy... how he couldnt join the service because of poor eyesight... but that didnt stop his enthusiasm or love of things military. On a dull day around the office he started writing _The_Hunt_for_Red_October_... The article says he was visited by some agency officials ( ONI and CIA ???) to enquire about his amazing accuracy of weapons, tactics,' strategy, etc. He showed them public-accessible documents and proved what a good researcher and combat strategist he was. The article claims some Soviet Embassey officials got a number of copies to forward to Moscow. I bet there is some required reading going on over there,too. He was also the technical consultant for the studio that made "THFRO" into a movie using USS HOUSTON up at Port Angelus, Wa. this summer... After visiting the Retail Store of the Govt Printing Office in Portland ( and in other major cities), I am no longer surprised at the publications available on Soviet military thought, with maps of scenarios, a manual of photos and description of every land weapon, every aircraft, every naval vessel class, etc... of the Soviet Armed Forces. Other no-longer-surprise books: A profile of terrorists and terrorist behaviors of every incident in the last 'x' ? years. Some stuff on the Isrealis, Turkey, Iran and Iraq... So you could believe the stuff is available; all you need is a plotline... Clancy is credited with the creation of a whole new book genre: the ' techno-thriller '. _Clear_and_Present_Danger_, his next book after _The_Cardinal..._ is coming out in hardback this month. that's -OWARI- from GLOWWORM-7-9-4 best regards, rbeville@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM Bob Beville, Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR 97077 ... and Ramius read the flashing signal unaided: "IF THE WHALES DON'T EAT YOU..."
jwm@stda.jhuapl.edu (Jim Meritt) (08/03/89)
From: jwm@stda.jhuapl.edu (Jim Meritt) In article <8752@cbnews.ATT.COM> hjohnso@hubcap.clemson.edu writes: }From: hjohnso@hubcap.clemson.edu (Barry Johnson) }I was wondering what the net's opinion is on the quality and accuracy of }the books written by Thomas Clancy : The Hunt For Red October, } Red Storm Rising, } Patriot Games, } The Cardinal of the Kremlin. } } }I have a relative at the Air Force Academy who says that Red Storm Rising }is required reading as a study in air combat doctrine. Also, upon asking }a boomer captain in Seattle about Clancy, he said that Clancy was pretty }damnned accurate on a lot of points, but it was his job to not let anyone }know which points they were or were not. Tell me what you folks think of }this novelist. Thanks... His descriptions of the interior of the SURFLANT Headquarters and the Pentagon were right on... "In these matters the only certainty is that nothing is certain" - Pliny the Elder These were the opinions of : jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu - or - jwm@aplvax.uucp - or - meritt%aplvm.BITNET
budden@manta (Rex A. Buddenberg) (08/04/89)
From: budden@manta (Rex A. Buddenberg) I read Red October while at Naval Postgraduate School in a communications curriculum. Clancy was quite accurate about his descriptioins of SSIXS and ELF to a point. But every time I ran into something that didn't wash, I had to stop and think...'O yeah, that answer is classified.' The one inaccuracy in Red October is that Commanders in the Pentagon do NOT get listened to like that! I've also read Red Storm and Patriot Games. The technical depth is less and he doesn't do quite as well in that area. The unfortunate part of Red Storm is that he didn't get as good a fix on the Maritime Strategy as he should have... Couple years ago, heard Clancy at a luncheon. His best anecdote was about his technical beckgrounding. Keeps pretty thorough files of unclas literature so he has traceability -- for both classification and accuracy reasons. And he sends the manuscripts to the Navy before they publish. One manuscript (can't say which) brought a Navy captain down to visit him with the message that he had some classified information in the manuscript. After a defense of his traceability, Clancy relented, agreed to be a good citizen and said 'tell me what is classified and it's gone from the book'. The captain replied that he couldn't -- it was classified! Roomful of Coasties loved that line. Concluding, Clancy is a good read and he does pretty fair research as novelists go. But I'd never use him as an exclusive reference -- he needs some leavening in the technical areas due to the reasons noted above. Rex Buddenberg
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (08/04/89)
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) >From: hjohnso@hubcap.clemson.edu (Barry Johnson) >I was wondering what the net's opinion is on the quality and accuracy of >the books written by Thomas Clancy ... (I assume we're mostly talking about THFRO and RSR, as PG isn't very military. I haven't read TCOTK yet.) The books are good and are *mostly* accurate. He made some guesses from published information that were good enough to cause some unhappiness in security circles. I am reliably informed that he also made some errors. I spotted a few myself, without benefit of classified knowledge, and there are probably more. Considering the non-trivial number of military training establishments that make the books required reading, it's pretty clear that he does a very good job on capturing the atmosphere of things -- what it would be like in general. I'd be very wary about taking his word for specific technical details, though. My one serious beef about Red Storm Rising is that the equipment almost always works. It fails once or twice for plot reasons. A real major war would probably be a nightmare of failures, poor performance, and patchwork repairs on gear that has never seen sustained combat before. Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
ehr@uncecs.edu (Ernest H. Robl) (08/09/89)
From: Ernest H. Robl <ehr@uncecs.edu> While I have enjoyed the Clancy novels, particularly Red October, I think he is much too optimistic about all military hardware working correctly at the critical time. Although my own military service is now 20 years back, I don't believe things have changed that much. One of my jobs in Vietnam (1969-1970) was writing the daily combat summary for the I Corps (the northernmost quarter of South Vietnam). Each day, before dawn, I would go through the field reports and produce a report, which, with much editing, was finally released in a much sanitized form to the news media. We were never allowed to use any actual numbers for U.S. casualties -- they were usally described as "light" or "moderate" -- and anything REALLY heavy had to be sent by teletype to Saigon for clearance at MACV. One of the most surprising things to me -- which was really never reported -- was the number of aircraft and other pieces of equipment that, in Army parlance, were DIPped. DIP stood for "destroyed in place," meaning that a piece of equipment that would otherwise have been repairable or salvagable was destroyed (usually with high explosives) to keep it from falling into enemy hands. With aircraft this was usually done to destroy the radios and navigation equipment. Some of these aircraft went down in unfriendly territory after taking ground fire. Others, however, simply encountered some type of mechancical problem and made a forced landing. If there was no heavy-lift helicopter available to lift out a UH-1 that had gone down, it was blown up rather than leave it unsecured over night. (Your tax dollars at work) -- Ernest -- My opinions are my own and probably not IBM-compatible.--ehr Ernest H. Robl (ehr@ecsvax) (919) 684-6269 w; (919) 286-3845 h Systems Specialist (Tandem System Manager), Library Systems, 027 Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham, NC 27706 U.S.A.