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