Misson to Tokyo by Robert Dorr, a quick review.

Mission To Tokyo By Robert Dorr

                                                                     

I bought this book, thinking that I had read so much about the 8th Air Force.  I was very familiar with most of the strategic bombing campaign like Sweinfurt and Polesti.  I saw Mission to Tokyo and thought this would be an excellent opportunity to learn about some of the history of the B-29 raids over Japan.

Robert Dorr uses the same formula of writing that Stephen Ambrose used.  He gives short biographies of the various crew members and tells the reader about their hometowns.  I am sure that you are all very familiar with the writing style.  The author starts out with trials of designing such a complex aircraft teething problems that occurred in the B-29s development. Two of the most glaring problems were the electrical system and the R-3350 engines.   Through the low level incendiary attacks that devastated vast areas of Japanese cities.

A couple of more subjects that Dorr covers.  The first is the development of the B-32 Dominator.  I know of the airplane, but virtually nothing about the B-32.  The other subject that he covers, though it is a short subject.  It was in regards as the only B-29 crew member to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.  His name was Henry Eugene "Red" Erwin, Sr. and that man deserved the Medal of Honor like no other.  I cannot imagine doing what he did.

I was a bit disappointed in the book.  I did learn a lot, but it was not as an enjoyable exercise as I thought it would be.  I thought Dorr really missed the mark while writing about the crew members.  I am insure if he wrote about too many crew mwmbers or did not go in depth enough.  I know I wanted to know the crew members better and I did not get that.  I  also would have liked to have learned more from the Japanese perspective, again there was a little bit, but not enough.

I can recommend the book, but wait until hit hits the bargain self, I wish I had.


Thanks for reading,


Mike

World of Tanks IS-3

  I spend way too much time playing this game, but I do not care.  A friend describes it as TSA(time sucking abyss)  That is all I am going to say.

Thanks for reading.

Mike

Three more WWIII novels

I am sorry for the long hiatus, it was mi vida loca.  The biggest impediment of the last few months was that I got food poisoning and I mean the big E.  For your own references, do not eat at the Chipoltes in Mishiwaka Indiana.

I was going to review the game Maurice, but I did not do so, too much time has past to do the write up properly.  I will say that our group really liked the game.  We did decide that it would not make a very good rule set to use at a convention.  If anyone wants me to elaborate, just ask a qustion and I will try to answer it.

Now onto the meat of this post so to speak.  I wrote some recommendations on some books for gaining material to write modern scenarios.

 http://mikesminiatures.blogspot.com/2012/09/three-great-books-for-cold-war-gone-hot.html

 On the link below on The Miniatures Page, Lookingglassman stated that there were three more in "A visual novel of tomorrow war series"

 http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=280053

 I went to Alibris and promptly ordered all three  None of these books ever won the Pulitzer, they are what they are. They will give one ideas for scenarios.  The first one I read was Helicopter aces: A visual novel of the war of tomorrow by James Bradin.  It as the title suggests, the book is about modern attack helicopter engagements over Europe in a hot war between NATO and Warsaw Pact  forces.  It was enjoyable and really focused toward the latter part of the book, AA engagements between helicopters.

The second book is  A Visual Novel of War Tomorrow: Strike Eagles (Illustrated Novel of Near Future Warfare) by James Coyne.  It is about F-15E pilots and their sorties over Europe in a hot war.  Of the three, I thought this was the best book.  The only complaint that I had with the book, I do not think that the author did enough research.  A couple of chapters are devoted to F-15Es dog fighting MiG-25s at low altitude.   I do not believe that would happen, two aircraft types, one a ground attack/air superiority fighter and the other a interceptor.   The F-15E would smoke the MiG-25 at low altitude.

One usually says last but not least, however this book of the whole series is least.  That book is Armor at Fulda Gap: A Visual Novel of the War of Tomorrow  by John L Cook.  I hated it and could not finish it.  The main complaint I had with this book was that there was too much equipment that was never on the drawing board.  I know, I know, "I want realism in my futuristic novel" does not make much sense.   I have no problem with a piece of hardware that was never fielded, i.e. the Sgt. York.  All through this book there are equipment that more than likely never will be used.  There are robot tanks and robot tracked ATGM carriers.  There are robotic munition carriers too.  I could not get past all of these SciFi equipment in a near future novel. 

 





 In conclusion, these books are certainly worth the $1.99 I paid fort hem, well maybe not the last one.

 Thanks for reading,

Mike