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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2012 18:23:55 GMT -8
Doesn't have to be strictly related to guns & ammo, but it doesn't hurt. I'm reading 3 Sips of Gin by Timothy Bax, a memoir of the Selous Scouts fighting in Rhodesia. I'm only about 1/4 way through the book, but it has lots of amusing anecdotes about growing up in colonial Africa. It's also amazing to consider that these guys went out on patrol for two weeks at a time with only 4 man squads in the middle of nowhere. www.amazon.com/Three-Sips-Gin-Memoirs-Adventure/dp/0615455522/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1336184255&sr=8-2
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Post by wckalijkd on May 4, 2012 21:31:34 GMT -8
Read these during the past several months. With the Old Breed: At Pelilieu & Okinawa China Marines both by Eugene Sledge Helmet for my Pillow by Robert Leckie My most recent book is Guns, Germs, & Steel by Jared Diamond I'm about 1/2 way thru this one. Finally getting interesting. First 1/2 was pretty boring. Much respect to the Rhodesians. They got a raw deal. Love your avatar by the way. (The Osprey) I've been doing research on the Selous Scouts, RLI and RAR, "Green Leader", C Sqd/22nd SAS. Rhodesians did so much with so little. True masters of Fireforce. This is an excellent article written by Major Charles M. Lohman, USMC & Major Robert I. MacPherson, USMC. Very in depth and informative. Alot of good info. www.rhodesia.nl/Rhodesia%20Tactical%20Victory.pdf
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2012 11:59:05 GMT -8
Thanks for that report. I printed it out and will read when I get some downtime.
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Post by jmsenk on May 7, 2012 13:57:51 GMT -8
The Rhodesian war saw some interesting use of Airborne units, especially in jungle environments. They would have SAS outfits and small units on standby for when their forward bases went came under attack. They would then drop these teams into the jungle behind the attacking forces in order to cut them off, and essentially just cause casualties in order to add attrition to their enemy.
Like you said, these were small units, usually 4-12 men (depending) and they would lay out claymores and set up ambushes to hit the retreating forces - which were typically cut to pieces. The teams were frequently overrun, or they would scatter and regroup later. Some ballsy stuff going on out there, and a lot of tactical retreats and breaking contact in order to acomplish the very difficult strategic mission of defeating a numerically superior force in a war of attrition. (as we know, ultimately it was not successful)
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Post by wckalijkd on May 7, 2012 18:13:22 GMT -8
During the course of my research (i should start bookmarking all my sources). Mugabe admitted had the war lasted another year, the Rhodesian Armed Forces would've broken the back of ZANU PF and ZIRPA.
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Post by jmsenk on May 7, 2012 20:30:07 GMT -8
During the course of my research (i should start bookmarking all my sources). Mugabe admitted had the war lasted another year, the Rhodesian Armed Forces would've broken the back of ZANU PF and ZIRPA. I'm not surprised in the least. The Rhodesians were some hard boys. Had a buddy I served with who was born in Kenya with dual British/American citizenship. His dad was a veteran of the Rhodesian wars and had some interesting stories to tell. My buddy came to the US Army while his brother went to the British. Quite the military family there.
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Post by wsmc27 on May 9, 2012 9:16:23 GMT -8
What Are You Reading?
Just finished "Trigger Men" Hans Halberstadt
Just starting "Alzheimer's Caregiver's Guide and Sourcebook" Howard Gruetzner
On deck "The Highway War" Maj Seth Folsom, USMC
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2012 19:07:01 GMT -8
So in case anyone was wondering, I finished "Three Sips of Gin" by Tim Bax. It's really an amazing read. The guy manages to keep his British style sense of humor despite the horror all around him. In one anecdote at the end of the book, he meets Mikhail Kalashnikov and tells him he thinks the AK is a lousy weapon, because he had been shot with 9 AK rounds and lived. Kalashnikov was so impressed that he gave the author his watch.
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Post by wckalijkd on May 10, 2012 19:28:50 GMT -8
I thought this video was pretty funny. Cant tell if the narrator is really English or just faking the accent.
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2012 20:01:41 GMT -8
Definitely not English.
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Post by Deleted on May 11, 2012 15:05:37 GMT -8
One more thing about those Rhodesians: It is mentioned in the report linked by wckalijkd that one of the reasons they were so successful is because they were so poorly equipped. It forced them to rely on their wits and be creative in taking the initiative and bringing the battle to the enemy. It's something to think about in our culture of what the Brits refer to (rhymes better w. the accent) "all the gear and no idea."
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2012 20:49:54 GMT -8
Found another interesting looking one: "the Snake Eaters" by Owen West about a group of National Guardsmen & reservists training the Iraqi Army in 2005/6. Hopefully I can make some headway over the long weekend.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2012 14:33:23 GMT -8
Just finished reading "Brotherhood of Warriors" by Aaron Cohen, his account of being an American from Beverly Hills in the Duvdevan special unit. Duvdevan is a unique SF unit that captures and kills high value terrorists by disguising themselves as Arabs and infiltrating Arab cities and towns.
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Post by mqd123 on Jun 3, 2012 7:35:17 GMT -8
Just finished reading "Brotherhood of Warriors" by Aaron Cohen, his account of being an American from Beverly Hills in the Duvdevan special unit. Duvdevan is a unique SF unit that captures and kills high value terrorists by disguising themselves as Arabs and infiltrating Arab cities and towns. I was thinking about getting this book but if you read the bad reviews on Amazon, they're pretty bad. It seems like you either really liked the book or you didnt, there wasn't too much middle ground. What do you think of the book?
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Post by mqd123 on Jun 3, 2012 7:40:10 GMT -8
Not a military novel, it's about the end of our days. I saw the movie, it was so good that I decided to read the book. All I can say is I would hate to be the generation that will have to deal with the end. Here is one review I found on the internet about it: The Road is Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer-winning novel, one which has become even more widely read after its cinematic debut at the hands of director John Hillcoat and actor/survivalist heartthrob Viggo Mortensen. At its core, the aptly-named The Road is another journey novel, with events dictated largely by the main character’s inventory, and his need to keep himself and his son alive. We have no more food, therefore, we must do this. We have a broken wheel on our cart, therefore, we must do this. Under the management of a less confident and expressive writer, it seems like a recipe for reader boredom. But somehow, McCarthy has struck a constant emotional chord that reverberates through the mundane action of The Road like a bass note, holding attention until his well-timed, key moments of action provide the emotional arpeggios of crisis — or, when moments of reflection provide a new emotional low. There are moments of poetry, where McCarthy’s prose reads like a celebration of the wasteland. By acknowledging its moments of beauty, we realize the human need to nourish not only our bodies, but our sense of aesthetic — whether or not you call that “soul.” In a world flattened by a nameless disaster that leaves everything in ashes, small things become incredibly meaningful. Reading this from within our busy, modern, crisis-filled world feels almost like a meditation, and one that reminds us both of what we’ve already lost and what we stand to lose. The Road reminds us that the history of civilization has seldom been the history of success, but rather, of war and refugees, of desolation and the need to survive. What else is there to say about The Road? It’s tempting to pitch myself into a deep analysis of this book’s prose, characters, and subject matter, but the more I reflect on my experience of reading it, the more I realize that analysis won’t contribute to digesting or understanding it. Like the experience of isolation and hopelessness that is its main theme, The Road cannot just be soothed away or grasped by talking about it. It’s better to just acknowledge its impact and move on. I’ve never read a story that’s so simple, yet which imparts such complex emotions on its reader. It’s not a pick-me-up, certainly (I facetiously joked on Twitter that it was an ‘uplifting father-son camping story’). Nor is it incredibly hopeful. But that meditation, that mourning of a world in which we still exist, is an incredibly valuable imaginative experience.
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