Gun, military, and war book recommendations?

[Treo]

To Hell And Back by Audie Murphy

 

[WTBguns10kOK]

Citizen Soldiers by Stephen Ambrose

 

[Trebor]

Donald Burget was a Paratrooper in the 101st who dropped in Normandy and Holland. He's written several books about his experiences that are worth a read.

I wrote a review of his book, "Seven Roads to Hell" about the Battle of the Bulge.
http://www0.epinions.com/review/Seven_Roads_to_Hell_by_Donald_R_Burgett_and_narrated_by_David_Guion/book-review-4AA4-30F05CC-395144C6-prod1

 

[Old Navy]

As a 30 year retired Military guy I've read hundreds of great books. I don't read fiction 'cause it's a made up story. With so many fascinating real events why bother to read fiction?

To Hell and Back about Audie Murphy's life, America's most decorated soldier ranks near the top.

Rogue Warrior, autobiography of a Navy seal who rose from Seaman Recruit to Commander is fascinating I met Richard Marcinko, the author, and he was a character.

Lone Survivor is a recently published book about the Navy Seal who survived the terrible battle alone in Afghanistan and was awarded the Silver Star.

Everything We Had is a book of stories from Vietnam and is fascinating.

ChickenHawk is an autobiography of a helo pilot in Nam who was later sent to prison for smuggling drugs.

Lots of others that I can't think of at the moment, but tis is enough to keep you busy for awhile.

 

[Prion]

Ask and you shall recieve! Thanks guys, I have enough recommendations to keep me busy for quite awhile. I appreciate all your suggestions. High Roaders Rock!

 

[mm1ut1]

Day of the Jackel is an excellent read. The part about the custom rifle is pretty good.(The original book, not the awful Bruce Willis flick) For light reading try thr Horatio Hornblower series. Although I've never read any I've heard the western writer Zane Grey was meticulus about historical accuracy when describing firearms.

 

[pmeisel]

Two more for you:

Infantry Attacks by Erwin Rommel. It provides a lot of detail about his experience as a junior infantry officer in WW I. Format is basically describe the action (in great detail), then a section describing lessons he learned from that action. It's tactical, platoon/company level stuff. Very interesting reading.

Company Commander by Charles McDonald. His personal diary of taking command of an infantry company in France in WW2 at the age of 22 or so... written immediately upon his return. It reads like a conversation, and he went on to be a rather noted author, with a very readable style. I re-read every 4 or 5 years, I had to upgrade to a hardcover because I wore out the paperback.

 

[Duke of Doubt]

For what it's worth, I'll endorse the two recommendations of Murphy's "To Hell and Back." I read that as a kid; it was a hell of a yarn -- and all true. His style is perfect for the genre and subject, and the vignettes are poignant without being maudlin. The story of how he won the Medal of Honor is riveting. Not just anyone mounts a burning M10 TD and machineguns advancing patrols while calling artillery onto his own position -- "Sir, that's your own position ..."/"I don't give a ****; fifty over, and fire for effect".

 

[Ala Dan]

"Hamburger Hill"
"The Green Berets"
"Stolen Valor"
"White Feather"
"Marine Sniper"

 

[matt-s]

Once an Eagle - while fiction, I am told that it is a favorite of many in the US Army. It cobbles together a lot of real personalities and experiences to define the protagonist Sam Damon.

 

[jhansman]

This is a good one:

https://catalog.amazon.com/abis/detailPage.amzn?asin=0762745088

Interesting history of famous users of famous firearms. Glad it's in my collection.

 

[Slade797]

I recommend anything and everything by or about Captain Sir Basil Liddell Hart, George Marshall, and Cornelius Ryan, as well as JFC Fuller.

 

[Slade797]

"The Things We Carried," by Tim O'Brien, and "Fields Of Fire," by James Webb.

 

[swgunner]

History of the 1911
Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors
SOG: A Warrior's Tour
Raider(it's about a Sgt who conducted more POW rescues than anyone)
OSS A Secret History
The Winter War
A Photographic History Of Naval Gunnery
battle Of The Bulge
Sink The Bismark
Wolfpack Uboat combat in WW2 or something like that, I'm not near my library

pm me if you want to trade any books I have lots.

amazon is your friend

 

[230RN]

GUNPOWDER: Alchemy, Bombards & Pyrotechnics

The history of the explosive that changed the world

by Jack Kelly

Basic Books, New York

ISBN 0-465-03718-6 (Hard Cover $?
ISBN 0-465-03722-4 (Paperback) US~$14.95

I spotted this one on a workmate's desk, looked it over, and was intrigued enough to buy three copies as Christmas presents for myself and my two sons.

It's quite fascinating, and gives a tremendous amount of detail, not only in the influence of gunpowder on history and tactics, but also on the technical aspects of gunpowder. Did you know that when ignited in a closed chamber, the gases would take up 3600 times the volume of the powder? And developed 20 tons per square inch of pressure? (Pages 115-116.)

It's is amazing the contributions that the ever-scientific Antoine Lavoisier made to the production of powder for France. Yet, despite that, he got the guillotine. (But, to be sure, he was also an efficient tax collector.)

There's a lot on the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, and the book outlined a lot of the problems of obtaining and refining the saltpeter and milling the powder.

I was going to write a review of the whole book but that work has been done for me in the form of a review written by Scott A. Farrell, to be found here:

http://www.troynovant.com/Farrell/Kelly/Gunpowder.html

Mr. Farrel's Representative, Mr. Robert Franson at Troynovant.com, was kind enough to allow me to reprint his copyrighted review herein:

Alterations in the course of global history are often brought about by obscure innovations that have locked within them great but unappreciated potential. Such was the case nearly 1,000 years ago when the world was introduced to a unique and nearly mystical compound known simply as poudre. In his new book Gunpowder — Alchemy, Bombards & Pyrotechnics: The History of the Explosive that Changed the World, author Jack Kelly provides a detailed examination of this remarkable concoction as complex and explosive as the titular subject itself.

The book handles its topic in a manner simultaneously comprehensive and approachable. Shattering the many misconceptions surrounding this often-misunderstood compound, Kelly's writing flies forward with the power of a cannonball.

Kelly's history of gunpowder begins, predictably, in 10th Century China where Oriental alchemists revealed the combustible potential of a new "fire drug" in their search for an elixir of immortality — a remarkably flammable blend of sulfur, saltpeter and honey. (The last of the three provided a weak source of carbon that, when eventually replaced with charcoal, yielded a much more potent explosive.) Contrary to the popular myth that gunpowder was never realized as a weapon in Asia, Kelly shows how the Chinese frustrated Jurchen and Mongol invaders in the 12th and 13th Centuries using rockets, primitive flame throwers called "fire lances", and history's first cannons, which the Chinese termed "erupters".

Kelly then follows gunpowder's smoky course from the Orient into Europe, where we quickly appreciate the vast effects this earth-shaking invention had on the world of the Late Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Early Modern period. Not only did gunpowder render the cultural icons of medieval Europe — the knight and the castle — essentially obsolete, it blasted its way into nearly every aspect of Western society in the 15th and 16th Centuries, from science and art to politics and economics.

From the Battle of Crecy in 1346 (possibly the first use of gunpowder on a European battlefield) to the fall of Constantinople and the French incursions into Italy in the 15th and 16th Centuries, Kelly's book reveals how marginal innovations, such as trunnions, iron cannonballs and corned powder, provided kings and generals with battle-winning advantages as they sought to put gunpowder-powered weapons into ever more central roles in warfare.

Kelly also explores the surprisingly diverse non-military developments sparked by gunpowder. Politics were forever altered as monarchs consolidated their authority to achieve the resources needed to equip standing armies with cannon and muskets, sweeping away the remnants of feudalism. Notions of science replaced mysticism as scholars began to understand gunpowder's potency as a chemical reaction rather than a product of the four elements of alchemy. Philosophers, long trained to look toward the wisdom of Aristotle and Plato as the only valid source of knowledge, sought to reconcile their understanding of the universe in light of a wholly new discovery.

Even the worlds of art and literature were affected as gunpowder was used to fuel staged special effects in Elizabethan England, drawing ever-larger crowds to the productions of Shakespeare and Marlowe, and providing dazzling possibilities in new displays of fireworks — a new type of after-dark entertainment so popular it moved Handel to write a sweeping musical accompaniment. Secular questions, too, were raised by the ever-increasing use of gunpowder in the 16th and 17th Centuries: Could this technology that produced smoke, fire and thunder (three things long thought to be associated with the Underworld) be used without the risk of eternal damnation?

Kelly's history of gunpowder also explores applications on the high seas as he steers his remarkable narrative into the waters of the Age of Sail. Sail-rigged merchant ships, previously too slow and ponderous to match the military potential of oar-powered galleys for battles at sea, were transformed into fearsome vessels of war when mounted with banks of cannons. The futility of the Spanish Armada becomes apparent as Kelly depicts the disparity of tactics made possible by gunpowder: Elizabeth's ships were unleashing cannonades against Spanish captains relying on the outdated doctrine of closing for boarding maneuvers; the Duke of Medina Sedona, Spain's naval commander in 1588, might have been the one who coined the axiom, "Don't bring a knife to a gunfight."

Although much of Kelly's Gunpowder is set in the European theater, the scope of his book extends far beyond those boundaries. He follows the reintroduction of gunpowder weapons into the Orient, where the rulers of Japan, China and India struggled with the effects of a familiar technology transformed into an alien tool of conquest. He also reveals the array of beneficial, non-military applications of gunpowder, from mining and industrial production to mathematics and engineering — pointing out, as perhaps the greatest of these, that Isaac Newton used the model of a cannonball in flight to develop his world-changing law of planetary motion.

As America assumed a place on the world stage, Kelly reveals the crucial role gunpowder played in the cause of revolution — from the midnight ride of Paul Revere to the "shot heard round the world", the events of the War of Independence focused largely on American colonists defending their precious stores of gunpowder from British seizure. America's alliance with France became a lifeline as the Du Pont family brought cutting-edge French powder milling techniques to Delaware, where the family's powder-making innovations fed America's growing need for materiel throughout the 19th Century.

By the time of the American Civil War, as vast improvements in weapon design demonstrated the tragic obsolescence of battlefield tactics that had changed little since the days of Napoleon, gunpowder too began to strain against the limits of its abilities, and a new wave of innovation was launched in the search for an artificial "smokeless" propellant. As Kelly looks at the contributions of modern chemists such as Schonbein and Nobel, his chronicle of mankind's first experience with "artificial fire" comes to a satisfying conclusion.

Jack Kelly's prose is smooth and gripping, more reminiscent of an adventure novel than a work of nonfiction. The bright narrative is liberally sprinkled with quotes from towering figures of history such as Francis Bacon, Galileo, Robert F. Stockton, Victor Hugo, and Gengis Khan, giving Kelly's book a truly epic perspective.

Gunpowder — Alchemy, Bombards & Pyrotechnics is replete with images of clanking medieval armies rolling primitive bombards across the countryside of France, creaking tall ships with gleaming brass cannon barrels protruding from their gun ports, and ranks of uniformed soldiers standing ready to volley with muskets to shoulder. Whatever period of history fascinates you, this is one of the rare books that sets the events of the past ablaze and demonstrates how many explorers, adventurers and innovators throughout the ages have, as Shakespeare said, "sought (and found) the bubble reputation in the cannon's mouth".

© 2005 Scott A. Farrell

Mr. Farrel also has a website devoted to chivalry --which might be of interest to those of us who are interested in courtly behavior.

THis is a book that should be on your shelf, whether you shoot King Black or not.

Terry, 230RN

 

[Sunray]

Go look in your local public library. All kinds of good books have been written, lately, by W.W. II vets. Mostly Air Force types, but some Army and Navy.
Brokaw's 'The Greatest Generation' is a good read.
'Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II' by Belton Y Cooper, is an eye opener about W.W. II American armoured operations.
Ambrose's books are heavily slanted towards American involvement in W.W. II only. He ignored every other Allied country's efforts. He plagiarized, even in his doctoral thesis and he was known for making stuff up, too. Didn't interview any transport pilots or consult official records for the Normandy Airborne drops. Read his books, but don't take them as being accurate history.
There's a trilogy about Canadian artillery types in W.W. II, written by George C. Blackburn, M.C. Don't know if you can get 'em Stateside. You can get 'em on-line. Made me stop kidding the arty guys. Those guys could be accurately firing 3 minutes after getting a fire order, from being on a road with towed 75mm Howitzers.
Where the Hell Are the Guns?, The Guns of Normandy and The Guns of Victory. http://www.mcclelland.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=2447
If you have yet to buy a copy of Hatcher's Notebook, you should. It's required reading by anybody interested in firearms.
"...by Erwin Rommel..." Have a copy of Guderian's 'Panzer Leader'. The guy couldn't write worth beans.