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Rating: 
Summary: Used by marines in Iraq
Review: I haven't read this book, but saw it mentioned in an artical about Marines who stormed Falluja 11/2004. The officer there made his subordinates read it, among all else to underscore the need for troops to cover the armored vehicles while storming a city.
Rating: 
Summary: How To Lose the PR War
Review: This book is a very workman like review of the war, not a personal memoir, but a just the facts kind of book. The author examines the two different combat periods during this civil war and basically runs down all the mistakes and pretty horrible things that the Russian military did. The book gives the reader a good idea of the difficulties any military operation would face in an inter city fight against gorilla or paramilitary troops. It is not a pretty picture. In a slight way you almost feel sorry for the difficulties faced by the Russian military but then you turn the page and the author details out the leveling of an apartment block or set of houses by artillery just to get one sniper and you sober up rather fast. I also found the details of the tactics used by the Russian forces to be an interesting detail given that the majority of the wars the US has been in over the past 30 years have been fought by militaries trained, supplied or controlled by the USSR / Russia. It gives you a better feel for how a Baghdad street fight might have played out. The authors take the view that about the only area the Russians did worse then protecting innocent civilians is in the area of public relations. The first mistake the Russians made was that they let the press loss with the troops for the first time ever. The Russian military has always been closed and controlled so when the rains are dropped you can only imagine the time of headline grabbing stories were sent back from the front lines. Well the Russians figures out that they were starting to look bad in the world press so they went about mistake number two - a complete shutdown of the press. Well the press did not much care for this and turned it into the next biggest story out of the war. Basically the Russians did nothing correct on the public relations front. Overall the book is interesting and gives the reader a view a story that is not very well known.
Rating:
Summary: How To Lose the PR War
Review: This book is a very workman like review of the war, not a personal memoir, but a just the facts kind of book. The author examines the two different combat periods during this civil war and basically runs down all the mistakes and pretty horrible things that the Russian military did. The book gives the reader a good idea of the difficulties any military operation would face in an inter city fight against gorilla or paramilitary troops. It is not a pretty picture. In a slight way you almost feel sorry for the difficulties faced by the Russian military but then you turn the page and the author details out the leveling of an apartment block or set of houses by artillery just to get one sniper and you sober up rather fast. I also found the details of the tactics used by the Russian forces to be an interesting detail given that the majority of the wars the US has been in over the past 30 years have been fought by militaries trained, supplied or controlled by the USSR / Russia. It gives you a better feel for how a Baghdad street fight might have played out. The authors take the view that about the only area the Russians did worse then protecting innocent civilians is in the area of public relations. The first mistake the Russians made was that they let the press loss with the troops for the first time ever. The Russian military has always been closed and controlled so when the rains are dropped you can only imagine the time of headline grabbing stories were sent back from the front lines. Well the Russians figures out that they were starting to look bad in the world press so they went about mistake number two - a complete shutdown of the press. Well the press did not much care for this and turned it into the next biggest story out of the war. Basically the Russians did nothing correct on the public relations front. Overall the book is interesting and gives the reader a view a story that is not very well known.
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