Rating: 
Summary: An effort that tries to part the Iron Curtain's deep secrets
Review: I picked up this book having read many books on submarines and submarine warfare, in addition to many Cold-War histories. The end result from having read this book was that I came out wanting more information, since if one looked at the book on the outside, one would expect a bit more than was delivered.With 304 pages offered, I had hoped for most of that to be centered upon the experiences of the Soviet submarine fleet as it grew into a force that caused the West no shortage of concern. However, the amount of material on the Soviet submarine service was understandably limited, and depended heavily upon only a few people who had significant experience at the end of the Cold War, as opposed to the beginning and turbulent middle. What seemed like the last third comes in the form of an unusually informative analysis of Soviet naval doctrine as seen by Admiral Gorshkov, and a primer on the many individual sumarine varieties that were fielded by the Soviets during the Cold War. There were a few semi-lengthy stories about specific incidents, but it repeated what can be found in many other books, including the far more revealing Blind Man's Bluff. It did not have the detail about the daily lives of the crew and challenges such as was found aboard U.S. subs in Big Red. It did have some discussion on the poor construction of the boats and the political interests outweighing sound employment of these critical naval assets, but it didn't dwell too long there. The value of this book is that is one of very few references on the Soviet submarine service, but it is not authoritative enough that it can be consulted often. Still, it does add to the growing list of available sources on the "other side" of the Cold War, and thus sheds just a little more insight.
Rating: 
Summary: Wet blanket effect
Review: I should say at the outset that I'm a big fan of naval historian Gary Weir. His previous books on the technology and politics of building US submarines are excellent. I therefore went into this book with great expectations, which were mostly but not completely met. This book examines the Cold War years from the perspective of Russian submarines and submariners. The book makes the case that Admiral Sergei Gorshkov was undoubtedly aware of the severe shortcomings in the early Soviet nuclear submarines and the lack of effective training and safety. Yet, he exposed numerous seaman to unnecessary danger and health consequences. Perhaps the most stunning revelation is political. Authority for the use of nuclear torpedoes and nuclear missiles was placed in the hands of individual submarine commanders. When asked about the ground rules for the use of a nuclear torpedo during the Cuban Missile crisis, one captain was told by Flag Officers, " Once your face has been slapped, don't let them hit your face again". This vague, cryptic warning effectively shifted responsibility for weapons use onto the captain's shoulders. The book examines plans laid by Stalin for a large Navy, and the subsequent evolution of the Soviet submarine force post WWII. Kruschchev's shift to emphasize submarines over large capital ships led to an expansion of the sub building program. The early Soviet nuclear submarines and the defects adn accidents that plagued them are covered. Soviet trailing and intelligence operations are described, as is the succeeding generations of Soviet nuclear submarines. A final chapter offers insights into the recent Kursk accident. Overall, a very good book, but it could have stood some careful proofreading. As one of several examples, on one page the Alfa is described as able "to dive as deeply as 2,460 feet before reaching its "crush depth"". Four pages later, "it could dive very quickly to nearly 3000 feet...". A number of small technical errors of this sort mar the narrative. Still, it is overall a "good read".
Rating: 
Summary: The Other Side of the Submarine Cold War
Review: I should say at the outset that I'm a big fan of naval historian Gary Weir. His previous books on the technology and politics of building US submarines are excellent. I therefore went into this book with great expectations, which were mostly but not completely met. This book examines the Cold War years from the perspective of Russian submarines and submariners. The book makes the case that Admiral Sergei Gorshkov was undoubtedly aware of the severe shortcomings in the early Soviet nuclear submarines and the lack of effective training and safety. Yet, he exposed numerous seaman to unnecessary danger and health consequences. Perhaps the most stunning revelation is political. Authority for the use of nuclear torpedoes and nuclear missiles was placed in the hands of individual submarine commanders. When asked about the ground rules for the use of a nuclear torpedo during the Cuban Missile crisis, one captain was told by Flag Officers, " Once your face has been slapped, don't let them hit your face again". This vague, cryptic warning effectively shifted responsibility for weapons use onto the captain's shoulders. The book examines plans laid by Stalin for a large Navy, and the subsequent evolution of the Soviet submarine force post WWII. Kruschchev's shift to emphasize submarines over large capital ships led to an expansion of the sub building program. The early Soviet nuclear submarines and the defects adn accidents that plagued them are covered. Soviet trailing and intelligence operations are described, as is the succeeding generations of Soviet nuclear submarines. A final chapter offers insights into the recent Kursk accident. Overall, a very good book, but it could have stood some careful proofreading. As one of several examples, on one page the Alfa is described as able "to dive as deeply as 2,460 feet before reaching its "crush depth"". Four pages later, "it could dive very quickly to nearly 3000 feet...". A number of small technical errors of this sort mar the narrative. Still, it is overall a "good read".
Rating:
Summary: Good, but unorganized and lacking.
Review: Rising Tide is a fairly decent book about the activites of the Soviets during the Cold War, sort of a "Blind Man's Bluff" from the other side. The author undoubtedly had a significantly more difficult time researching this subject, due in part of continuted secrecy of the Red Navy, the overall breakdown of the Soviet/Russian navy, and the sources which he used (which were primarily oral histories from those Soviet Sailors involved.) In spite of these limitations, the book does provide a fairly interesting insight as to how the Soviet submariners viewed the cold war. However, there are several shortcomings that stand out. First, the organization of the book, at times is appaling. in the first few chapters of the book, the authors often try to make the book more interesting by telling some historical anecdote that distracts from the overall theme of the chapter. For example, the retelling the story of the accident on K-19 falls in the "Uncertain Nuclear Begginning" but probably would have been better off in "Death in Depts" chapter. Furthermore, the author tries to fill in space by providing American and German histories and achievements as comparisons. Unfortunately, many of these histories take way too much time and detract from the Soviet theme of book. Many of these anecdotes easily could have been reorganized and placed into different chapters to give the book a better flow. Additionally, while the stories from the submariners are interesting, the book offers little of the technical history behind the creation of the submarines and the nuclear reactors. I was left wondering if the Soviets had their own version of a Admiral Rickover besides Gorshkov, or how did the American react to abilities of certain Russian subs (particularly the Alfa, which the author stated could run at 45 knots and dive to almost 3,000 feet) Other than the actual accidents that happened at sea, you get little of the technical problems that went into submarine design and building from the Soviet standpoint. Finally, one of my disappointments with the book was the lackof information contained within the two appendix. The first appendix contains a commentary on Admiral Gorshkov's history of the Soviet Navy, but never provides a substantial piece of the original text for the reader to get a sense of Gorshkov's views. The author blasts Gorshkov's revisionist history of how the US NAvy took down the Japanese in WWII, but we never get Gorshkov's own words to make a independant analysis. Providing at least some of the orignal Gorshkov text would have been appropriate. The second appendix provides a comparison of Soviet and American subs thoroughout the cold war. While the information and brief synopsis of each sub is interesting, the list is no where near complete. (The author talks at length about the Alfa sub, yet provides no technical information in the appendix.)
Rating:
Summary: Good, but unorganized and lacking.
Review: Rising Tide is a fairly decent book about the activites of the Soviets during the Cold War, sort of a "Blind Man's Bluff" from the other side. The author undoubtedly had a significantly more difficult time researching this subject, due in part of continuted secrecy of the Red Navy, the overall breakdown of the Soviet/Russian navy, and the sources which he used (which were primarily oral histories from those Soviet Sailors involved.) In spite of these limitations, the book does provide a fairly interesting insight as to how the Soviet submariners viewed the cold war. However, there are several shortcomings that stand out. First, the organization of the book, at times is appaling. in the first few chapters of the book, the authors often try to make the book more interesting by telling some historical anecdote that distracts from the overall theme of the chapter. For example, the retelling the story of the accident on K-19 falls in the "Uncertain Nuclear Begginning" but probably would have been better off in "Death in Depts" chapter. Furthermore, the author tries to fill in space by providing American and German histories and achievements as comparisons. Unfortunately, many of these histories take way too much time and detract from the Soviet theme of book. Many of these anecdotes easily could have been reorganized and placed into different chapters to give the book a better flow. Additionally, while the stories from the submariners are interesting, the book offers little of the technical history behind the creation of the submarines and the nuclear reactors. I was left wondering if the Soviets had their own version of a Admiral Rickover besides Gorshkov, or how did the American react to abilities of certain Russian subs (particularly the Alfa, which the author stated could run at 45 knots and dive to almost 3,000 feet) Other than the actual accidents that happened at sea, you get little of the technical problems that went into submarine design and building from the Soviet standpoint. Finally, one of my disappointments with the book was the lackof information contained within the two appendix. The first appendix contains a commentary on Admiral Gorshkov's history of the Soviet Navy, but never provides a substantial piece of the original text for the reader to get a sense of Gorshkov's views. The author blasts Gorshkov's revisionist history of how the US NAvy took down the Japanese in WWII, but we never get Gorshkov's own words to make a independant analysis. Providing at least some of the orignal Gorshkov text would have been appropriate. The second appendix provides a comparison of Soviet and American subs thoroughout the cold war. While the information and brief synopsis of each sub is interesting, the list is no where near complete. (The author talks at length about the Alfa sub, yet provides no technical information in the appendix.)
Rating:
Summary: A few new Russian viewpoints.
Review: The book is adequately researched. The interviews with former Soviet military personnel and information regarding collisions are interesting. Much of the information about submarine activity has already been published. The authors do a bit of hand-wringing and depart from the subject in the epilogue when they attempt to draw parallels between the Kurst and space shuttle disasters and throw in a call for saving the oceans from pollution. They should have saved that for NPR.
Rating:
Summary: A few new Russian viewpoints.
Review: The book is adequately researched. The interviews with former Soviet military personnel and information regarding collisions are interesting. Much of the information about submarine activity has already been published. The authors do a bit of hand-wringing and depart from the subject in the epilogue when they attempt to draw parallels between the Kurst and space shuttle disasters and throw in a call for saving the oceans from pollution. They should have saved that for NPR.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Book Continuing a Recent Trend
Review: There have been quite a few books in recent years based upon first-person accounts of submarine operations during the Cold War. These include several books by retired US Navy Captain Peter Huchthausen (Hostile Waters, October Fury, K-19), several books on the Kursk (A Time to Die is excellent), and Dark Waters, on the NR-1 research submarine. Of course the book that kicked it all off is the excellent Blind Man's Bluff. One thing to keep in mind for all of these books is that for the most part they are based upon interviews, not documents, which are still classified. The problem with writing history based upon interviews is that people remember things the way that they want to remember them, not necessarily the way that they really happened. And memories can fail. So these books are not truly history, but memoirs. Rising Tide was written by Gary Weir and Walter J. Boyne. Weir is a professional historian for the US Navy and has written about the SOSUS underwater listening array. Boyne is a professional aviation writer, and I suspect that Weir did most of the research and writing and Boyne may have polished it up. Despite the fact that Weir is a historian, not a journalist or retired naval officer, the book is not as historically grounded or researched as I would have preferred. It is based primarily on interviews and I found the footnotes to be superficial. While this will not bother most readers, I find that it makes it much harder to look for further information on things mentioned in the books, and it makes it harder to totally trust the information that is provided. We have no way to confirm the stories in the book. (More on this in a moment.) Rising Tide starts out a little slower than some of Huchthausen's books, and initially re-covers much of the same territory--the plight of the K-19, Soviet submarine operations during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a succession of submarine accidents. One problem with all of these books is that because they are often filled with "thrilling stories of the sea" rather than recounts of exactly what the submarines accomplished, it starts to seem as if submarine operations were nothing but daring adventures and near-fatal accidents, rather than military missions that served a clear purpose. The US Navy's submarine service likes to brag that it never suffers accidents, but when one picks up these books it looks like submarines were in constant danger of sinking. Clearly this form of storytelling can leave a false impression of what really happened. Because Weir interviewed many of the same people that Huchthausen did, the stories and perspectives are largely the same, and the reader who has already read those other books will not learn anything new in these sections. There are some differences of interpretation in some cases, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I wish that the authors had specifically responded to them. Why not clearly identify where these books disagree on details? In some cases these are important. For instance, I have seen two different accounts of the near-use of an atomic torpedo during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I would have preferred if Weir had tried to settle the dispute. Another problem with interview-based history is that the people that you interview always come across as brave and smart and noble, whereas the people you don't often look worse. That is true here--several of the commanders are portrayed as "experienced" and "brave." But the now-dead people that they worked for or disagreed with are portrayed as drunks or incompetent. It is important to keep in mind that we are only seeing one side of the story here, and that people who look badly in these stories often did not get the chance to speak. About a third to halfway through the book Weir and Boyne start covering entirely new ground that has not been discussed in previous submarine books, such as a couple of bold multi-boat intelligence operations that the Soviets engaged in during the 1970s and 1980s. There are even photos of some American equipment recovered by the Soviets in 1970, proving that they were successful. The authors make a few comments that are quite intriguing, such as the claim that the Americans with their superior technology could be sneaky and stealthy all of the time, whereas the Soviets had to respond in an entirely different manner, such as brute force intelligence collection. Unfortunately, what the book lacks, however, is the American side of this. It would have been fascinating to see what the Americans thought the Soviet submarines were doing during these periods. But except for a few paragraphs about a US Navy officer doing this or that, we get none of that contrast. (As an aside: Huchthausen attempted to do this in October Fury, even though he is much more of an memoirist than a historian. So October Fury tends to be more balanced and more engaging on the subject of Soviet submarine operations during the Missile Crisis.) One other thing that is missing in Rising Tide are solid American testimonials as to how much better Soviet submarines got during the 1980s. We are told, based on Soviet claims, that the Victor II and III submarines were much better than their predecessors, and even rivaled American submarines. But there is no mention of the Toshiba propeller milling machine scandal, or other Soviet quieting efforts. Comments from long-serving American commanders about how much the Soviets improved over the decades would have been nice. The introduction includes an interesting comment that Soviet society was so brutal that people began to devalue their own lives. They developed a kind of fatalistic approach to their lives and work. This theme is not explicitly revisited again in the book, although the many Soviet submarine accidents seem to support it. It's an intriguing theory that deserves more attention. Finally, the book makes the now-familiar comparison of submarine operations to spaceflight. (Dark Waters did this, so did Blind Man's Bluff--it is now a cliche of submarine books.) Somebody should really explore this analogy better to question its validity. All in all, this is an enjoyable book with some intriguing ideas and new research. The sections on intelligence collection are the most unique and interesting in my mind. Worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Good Book Continuing a Recent Trend
Review: There have been quite a few books in recent years based upon first-person accounts of submarine operations during the Cold War. These include several books by retired US Navy Captain Peter Huchthausen (Hostile Waters, October Fury, K-19), several books on the Kursk (A Time to Die is excellent), and Dark Waters, on the NR-1 research submarine. Of course the book that kicked it all off is the excellent Blind Man's Bluff. One thing to keep in mind for all of these books is that for the most part they are based upon interviews, not documents, which are still classified. The problem with writing history based upon interviews is that people remember things the way that they want to remember them, not necessarily the way that they really happened. And memories can fail. So these books are not truly history, but memoirs. Rising Tide was written by Gary Weir and Walter J. Boyne. Weir is a professional historian for the US Navy and has written about the SOSUS underwater listening array. Boyne is a professional aviation writer, and I suspect that Weir did most of the research and writing and Boyne may have polished it up. Despite the fact that Weir is a historian, not a journalist or retired naval officer, the book is not as historically grounded or researched as I would have preferred. It is based primarily on interviews and I found the footnotes to be superficial. While this will not bother most readers, I find that it makes it much harder to look for further information on things mentioned in the books, and it makes it harder to totally trust the information that is provided. We have no way to confirm the stories in the book. (More on this in a moment.) Rising Tide starts out a little slower than some of Huchthausen's books, and initially re-covers much of the same territory--the plight of the K-19, Soviet submarine operations during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a succession of submarine accidents. One problem with all of these books is that because they are often filled with "thrilling stories of the sea" rather than recounts of exactly what the submarines accomplished, it starts to seem as if submarine operations were nothing but daring adventures and near-fatal accidents, rather than military missions that served a clear purpose. The US Navy's submarine service likes to brag that it never suffers accidents, but when one picks up these books it looks like submarines were in constant danger of sinking. Clearly this form of storytelling can leave a false impression of what really happened. Because Weir interviewed many of the same people that Huchthausen did, the stories and perspectives are largely the same, and the reader who has already read those other books will not learn anything new in these sections. There are some differences of interpretation in some cases, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I wish that the authors had specifically responded to them. Why not clearly identify where these books disagree on details? In some cases these are important. For instance, I have seen two different accounts of the near-use of an atomic torpedo during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I would have preferred if Weir had tried to settle the dispute. Another problem with interview-based history is that the people that you interview always come across as brave and smart and noble, whereas the people you don't often look worse. That is true here--several of the commanders are portrayed as "experienced" and "brave." But the now-dead people that they worked for or disagreed with are portrayed as drunks or incompetent. It is important to keep in mind that we are only seeing one side of the story here, and that people who look badly in these stories often did not get the chance to speak. About a third to halfway through the book Weir and Boyne start covering entirely new ground that has not been discussed in previous submarine books, such as a couple of bold multi-boat intelligence operations that the Soviets engaged in during the 1970s and 1980s. There are even photos of some American equipment recovered by the Soviets in 1970, proving that they were successful. The authors make a few comments that are quite intriguing, such as the claim that the Americans with their superior technology could be sneaky and stealthy all of the time, whereas the Soviets had to respond in an entirely different manner, such as brute force intelligence collection. Unfortunately, what the book lacks, however, is the American side of this. It would have been fascinating to see what the Americans thought the Soviet submarines were doing during these periods. But except for a few paragraphs about a US Navy officer doing this or that, we get none of that contrast. (As an aside: Huchthausen attempted to do this in October Fury, even though he is much more of an memoirist than a historian. So October Fury tends to be more balanced and more engaging on the subject of Soviet submarine operations during the Missile Crisis.) One other thing that is missing in Rising Tide are solid American testimonials as to how much better Soviet submarines got during the 1980s. We are told, based on Soviet claims, that the Victor II and III submarines were much better than their predecessors, and even rivaled American submarines. But there is no mention of the Toshiba propeller milling machine scandal, or other Soviet quieting efforts. Comments from long-serving American commanders about how much the Soviets improved over the decades would have been nice. The introduction includes an interesting comment that Soviet society was so brutal that people began to devalue their own lives. They developed a kind of fatalistic approach to their lives and work. This theme is not explicitly revisited again in the book, although the many Soviet submarine accidents seem to support it. It's an intriguing theory that deserves more attention. Finally, the book makes the now-familiar comparison of submarine operations to spaceflight. (Dark Waters did this, so did Blind Man's Bluff--it is now a cliche of submarine books.) Somebody should really explore this analogy better to question its validity. All in all, this is an enjoyable book with some intriguing ideas and new research. The sections on intelligence collection are the most unique and interesting in my mind. Worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: This book seems to try to cover all aspects of the submarine cold war, without a lot of detail on any particular subject. I found the coverage of the Cuban crisis particularly interesting, but somehow felt as though I had to read between the lines, which was true with all the other subjects covered.
All in all, an intersting book, but not in the league of Blind Man's Bluff.
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