I see so much bullshit spouted as fact in general conversation about Operation Praying Mantis (The Operations Room's video is like 25% horse shit), that I can't recommend this book enough. It actually covers the loss of a USN AH-1T Cobra and with it the lives of Captains Kenneth Hill and Stephen Leslie to SAMs from the Iranian LST Lavan, among other details that are either forgotten or assraped in popular retellings.
With The Old Breed is very good if you want to read an uncensored story of the war in the Pacific written by an actual veteran from his own perspective.
Thanks Anon. For a broader view of the US/Iranian conflict, I would add "The Twilight War," although it is mostly from the American side. "Guardians of the Revolution," is good for an Iranian perspective, although it doesn't focus on the US much. "All the Shah's Men," is good too, as it shows how the coup that returned the Shah to power went. It's an interesting play by play, but I think the biggest thing it does is dispell the myth of a US led coup. The coup was certainly backed, but it was mostly the work of a single junior case officer making phone calls and giving out $100,000 in cash, still not a huge amount of money all things considered back then. The coup and riots to support it were all done by Iranians and it seems quite likely it would have happened either way. Not that US action wasn't recalcitrant and unprincipled, just that the idea of the US totally determining Iranian history is sort of baseless.
"The Shia Revival," is good regional context even if a bit biased in favor of Iran.
anything about the Iran–Iraq War.
it makes no sense that Iraq just stopped when they were clearly winning.
>During the 1988 battles, the Iranians put up little resistance, having been worn out by nearly eight years of war.[87]:253 They lost large amounts of equipment.[56] On 2 July, Iran belatedly set up a joint central command which unified the Revolutionary Guard, Army, and Kurdish rebels, and dispelled the rivalry between the Army and the Revolutionary Guard. However, this came too late and, following the capture of 570 of their operable tanks and the destruction of hundreds more, Iran was believed to have fewer than 200 remaining operable tanks on the southern front, against thousands of Iraqi ones.[172] The only area where the Iranians were not suffering major defeats was in Kurdistan.[135]
No problem, and thanks for your recs as well.
As a proud citizen of a glorious Latin American shithole that was supposedly "couped by the United States" 50 years ago, that's more CIA involvement than most of the famous "US-backed coups" in Latin America.
I could go into detail about why people, mostly communists or socialists but not just them, believe the US was behind all of these events. It's more complicated than just propaganda or psyops or whatever. Like a lot of things involving things like this, they involve not so much anything cynical but rather a quite specific world view of things like power relations, history and a person's view on another persons' actions. I could do it but it would be long and most likely very off topic and almost more philosophical than political.
Anyway, I recommend this book, Tunnels of Cu Chi. It's more or less the classic, old history of the Tunnel Rats in Vietnam. It's in part what made them become more known. It's a old, classic book and I'd say it warrants reading even if there's better, more "scientific" books made more recently about them.
>that's more CIA involvement than most of the famous "US-backed coups" in Latin America.
Have you never heard of Guatemala in 1954?...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Springfjord#Napalmed_and_sunk_by_the_CIA
>muh Guatemala
Frick that "democratically elected" bullshit, this is just a cope by tankies.
If you're interested in the trajectory of modern military bureaucracy and the futur of PMCs then I recommend reading Erik Prices's book.
I see a lot of stupid shit on /k/ about joining up with a PMC group or starting one from scratch and I think this book does a good job of explaining the reality of the business.
Also, for whatever it's worth, you make more money and get to see your family a lot more if you're working as a consultant for a large corporation than if you work as a direct employee for a security contractor.
holy shit TWO PEOPLE DIED?!!!!!111!!
Inside Delta Force remains the best military memoir ever written.
Chickenhawk and Low Level Hell for vietnam helo kino is solid too
When I was a little kid, my dad took me to an airshow, and there I saw an old WWII veteran selling autographed copies of his memoirs. IIRC he was a pilot in the pacific theater, and his book was mostly just a collection of interesting stories (some funny, some sad, some plain-old crazy) about his time in the war. It remains one of my favorite books of all time, though I haven't read it for many years. Definitely not "necessary" /k/ PrepHole but I certainly recommend it.
The book is called "Hangar Flying" by Alfred J. D'Amario.
>plane-old crazy
>his book was mostly just a collection of interesting stories (some funny, some sad, some plain-old crazy) about his time in the war
best kind of war book
>The Operations Room's video is like 25% horse shit
You're that anon who never substantiated claims about battle of leyte gulf, aren't you?
No? I haven't looked into Leyte Gulf much at all, so I wouldn't be making claims about it.
Alright. There's a guy who loves revisionist PrepHoletory on here with a hateboner for Ops Room. Just checking if this thread was for that purpose.
Elaborate on what Ops Room got wrong with Praying Mantis, pls?
One of the biggest problems is mentioned in OP; he claims an AH-1T Cobra that was lost to Iranian SAM fire was instead an "AH-6" Little Bird implied to be lost outside of combat.
For other examples, the Joshan engagement's chronology is a bit messed up; he claims Wainwright and Simpson deployed chaff after firing their own salvo, but the accounts I've read have them (or at least the Wainwright) deploying it before. He also severely understates just how closely the Joshan's Harpoon came to hitting the Wainwright, which is important since this engagement has been a key factor in Iran's Naval strategy since; they nearly sunk a Belknap-class cruiser (7,930 tons) with a single La Combattante II fast attack craft (234 tons), and thus surmised that swarms of smaller missile boats would be an effective strategy.
Gulf of Conflict: A History of U.S.-Iranian Confrontation at Sea by David B. Crist in Policy Focus #95, June 2009, p.8,
>The missile passed down the starboard side of the Wainwright—no more than a hundred feet from the ship.
Idib, p.21,
>Iranian officials correctly observed that during Operation Praying Mantis, a lone missile from the Joshan had nearly knocked out the largest U.S. warship in the Persian Gulf. More small boats and missiles, they surmised, would have made the battle a costly one for the U.S. Navy.
Tanker War by Zatarain (OP), p.235
>The incoming Harpoon was sighted by the signal bridge and starboard lookout on the Wainwright as it streaked by, forward to aft, 100 feet off the starboard side of the ship. Anxious crewmen on the ship heard the missile loudly roar by.
The Iran-Iraq War in the Air, 1980-88, Tom Cooper, p.270,
>Nonetheless, the Harpoon passed so close over the ship that the personnel on the bridge were deafened by the roar of the missile.
He also claims that of the F-4s responding to the Joshan, one was damaged and another destroyed. None were destroyed; only one was damaged, but it was initially assumed destroyed by the USN.
kewl and good info.
i'm not folderanon but if you're thinking of a mediafire link, i have it. you'll need a cli tool to download it in full, because mediafire acts weird about loading more than 200 (iirc) items at a time.
we really just need a dedicated thread, some weekend, on how best to reboot the library.
post the link homie
let's try that again, with 50% less derp:
mediafire
https://desuarchive.org/k/thread/59467506/#q59534251
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/uq7ekgz8l9wcz/Books#uq7ekgz8l9wcz
downloading it
https://desuarchive.org/k/thread/59467506/#q59536489
https://desuarchive.org/k/thread/59467506/#q59551037
https://github.com/NicKoehler/mediafire_bulk_downloader
>https://www.mediafire.com/folder/uq7ekgz8l9wcz
People are still using this?
Frick it, have one directory higher.
>have one directory higher
?
truncated link doesn't go higher for me. still in Books/
I forgot the actual link.
https://www.mediafire.com/fswktmwolder/787798ycrhkwd
Bit nitpickety.
i'll pretend to be baited so OP doesn't have to. reee REEEEEE [cited book] is BEST book. why? it AGREES with ME
>this ten minute long video covering a lot of engagements didn't detail EXACTLY HOW NEAR this missile came!! or provide critical in-depth after action review and analysis into lessons-learned what-ifs coulda-shoulda-woulda yadda yadda!!1!
It's a ten minute long Youtube clip made to visually represent one account of the battle solely for normie entertainment purposes, not a fricking dissertation for an informed audience
and? where are we, at this very attosecond? any youtube kids logos round these parts?
whether you take umbrage at a lies-to-children model of a thing is a judgment call. are the fudged parts a structural constraint of the format, or incidental and therefore likely avoidable? is there one particular detail which, tho ponderous, is too important to skip out on? etc.
the bit about the 2 allied deaths is a good example of detail that can be conveyed more accurately without stepping on the youtube format. it's the type of thing that some other channels, ex. Liveth For Evermore, would make sure to give a few seconds of runtime. ops room mentions it in passing at the end of the video, and per OP he gets the type wrong on top of failing to note that the loss may have been the direct result of hostilities [disputed].
doesn't invalidate the vid. just adds an asterisk.
>and? where are we, at this very attosecond?
Before we proceed, consider the following very carefully: was I objecting to OP's complaints in general, or in the context of Ops Room's video on Youtube?
Nitpicks can build up. Also as stated that near miss had lasting impact on the Iranian Navy's future strategy, so it's relevant.
For another article and book see
The one in OP is just the most detailed.
the near-miss piece is interesting. i don't know much (anything) about iran's shipbuilding capabilities during the war with iraq. would they have been in a position to pursue something other than the small boats strategy?
Navy's old CNO had a reading list:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220607221819/https://www.navy.mil/CNO-Professional-Reading-Program/
WE NEED FOLDER ANON TO POST HIS LINK TO THE /k/ READING COLLECTION
WHERE ARE YOU BRO
or does anyone have a mega or mediafire link for k books?
>Base all your info on one book written by one guy
genious.
What are some good drill books that are still relevant today?
Roger's Rules of Ranging comes to mind.
Militias need to be drilled and although formations have changed they're still used on the modern battlefield.
Don't get me wrong. Militias are poorly trained light infantry. Best to stick with skirmishes and hit and run tactics.