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Rating: 
Summary: Nice treatment - good book
Review: I actually have a paper copy published prior to this one by GPO (I think). If anyone is worried about price, they may want to investigate purchasing that edition. Great book. It's nice to read about the Naval part of the war instead of just the Army part. Notice in most books, there isn't even a map showing the gulf itself - just the land masses!
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but pricey
Review: The book covers quite a bit of the build up before combat. The begining covers some interesting history of the Gulf and it's oil production. This helps us fully understand what brought us to war there in the 90's. Most of it concerns operational/longistical aspects of the Sheild/Storm. I would have given it 5 stars for glossy pages, more photos, and more detailed operational descriptions of the navy ship's day to day action in the gulf, especially the Battleships. I've read some of these stories in other books. One thing I can say is that it changed my mind on a lot of things that I incorrectly remembered about watching the war on TV.
Rating:
Summary: A thorough history of the Naval dimension of Desert Storm
Review: This is an overall thorough, but very dry account of the US Navy's involvement in the Persian Gulf War. The authors, as part of the Naval Historical Center, obviously had incredible access to firsthand sources, and it shows. It does offer some good insights and presents a "warts and all" perspective at times. The book opens with a brief and useful historical overview of the Navy's presence in the Gulf and the run up to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. While the story of how the US Military arrived at its plan to fight the war is interesting, the account of the logistics of the buildup is somewhat tedious. I realize logistics are the backbone of any military operation; but it just wasn't that interesting except as part of an official history. The authors deserve credit for addressing the problems the Navy faced: a lack of integration with the other services, infighting among the Generals (Army and USAF) and Admirals, and an ill-conceived mine laying operations that cost two pilots their lives, for example. It avoids being "whiney" about slights during the air campaign from an Air Force dominated air warfare command structure, yet is somewhat bogged down in details about tasking orders and control systems. This book will probably only be interesting to the more die hard Naval historian and students of Joint Military Operations for lessons learned. For a good account of modern Naval Warfare, I would be more inclined to recommend Admiral Sandy Woodward's "One Hundred Days" about the Falklands War.
Rating:
Summary: A thorough history of the Naval dimension of Desert Storm
Review: This is an overall thorough, but very dry account of the US Navy's involvement in the Persian Gulf War. The authors, as part of the Naval Historical Center, obviously had incredible access to firsthand sources, and it shows. It does offer some good insights and presents a "warts and all" perspective at times. The book opens with a brief and useful historical overview of the Navy's presence in the Gulf and the run up to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. While the story of how the US Military arrived at its plan to fight the war is interesting, the account of the logistics of the buildup is somewhat tedious. I realize logistics are the backbone of any military operation; but it just wasn't that interesting except as part of an official history. The authors deserve credit for addressing the problems the Navy faced: a lack of integration with the other services, infighting among the Generals (Army and USAF) and Admirals, and an ill-conceived mine laying operations that cost two pilots their lives, for example. It avoids being "whiney" about slights during the air campaign from an Air Force dominated air warfare command structure, yet is somewhat bogged down in details about tasking orders and control systems. This book will probably only be interesting to the more die hard Naval historian and students of Joint Military Operations for lessons learned. For a good account of modern Naval Warfare, I would be more inclined to recommend Admiral Sandy Woodward's "One Hundred Days" about the Falklands War.
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