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Kicking things off is General Sir John Hackett's The Third World War written in 1978 (with a follow up The Third World War: The Untold Story 1982). Written as a history book I loved this book as a teenager but haven't read it in decades. Telling the history of a war in August 1985 I need to dig it out asap.
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Another not read in a number of years in Harold Coyle's Team Yankee, recounting the battles of a company sized US armour unit in Hackett's war. Another I enjoyed immensely at the time that needs digging out and re-reading. Coyle subseqently wrote a number of other hypothetical war books with the US and Soviets fighting in the deserts of Egypt, the US fighting Mexico and a great, if slightly far fetched US v German troops in The Ten Thousand (essentially a reworking of Xenephon's Persian Expedition). The latter of course allows you to pitch Leopard II's against M1A1's so could provide some fun.
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Kenneth Macksey wrote a superb Operation Sealion book, Invasion, that I used to get out of the library a lot as a teenager. He also wrote First Clash detailing the Canadians efforts against the Soviets in West Germany and I have a copy somewhere that I can't recall reading.
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There are of course others like James Rouch's Zone series set on an NBC wasted battlefield a few years in to the war and authors like Larry Bond who write some great techno-thriller alt-histories but set in Korea, South Africa etc but these are too divorced from the eighties NATO-WarPac slugfest I am currently interested in.
I have read and enjoyed every one of these books - I was a Fulda Gap/WW3 gamer nut in the late 80s/90s as well. Still have some of these and recall Red Army being right up there with Red Storm Rising. When I was in my early Navy Days I was thrilled to do an exercise with USS REUBEN JAMES from the latter book!
ReplyDeleteNowadays this genre is too much like work to enjoy on the table so I play SF/VSF and earlier historicals instead :-) But I'll be watching with great interest!
A great list- I've read all of them except Red Army- I'll keep an eye out for that one. Could I suggest Zaloga's Red Thrust too if you've not read it.
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Pete.