Sword Point

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Summary: Cold War heats up in Iranian desert.....
Review: Following the success of Team Yankee, a depiction of World War III as seen from company level, Harold Coyle achieved acclaim with Sword Point, a novel pitting the United States and the Soviet Union in armed conflict in Iran.

Set in the late 1980s, Sword Point begins with the peacetime routine of an American Army unit in the middle of a training exercise at Ft. Campbell, Ky. In a scene that mixes Coyle's fine eye for detail and wry humorous touches, Staff Sergeant Donald Duncan's infantry platoon carefully sets up an ambush against an OPFOR (opposing force):

"The ensuing firefight would short but bloodless. The men of both Duncan's platoon and the OPFOR....were using MILES, short for "multiple integrated laser engagement system." Each weapon was tipped with a rectangular gray box which emitted a laser beam every time the weapon was fired. Every man....had laser detectors on his helmet and web gear that would detect the laser from another weapon. When this happened, a buzzer, also attached to each man's gear, would go off, telling him and his buddies that he was 'dead.' The use of MILES ensured that there would be no doubt who won and who lost, a far cry from the days when most training exercises degenerated into screaming matches of 'I shot you' and 'No you didn't.' "

But as Duncan and his men "struggle" through their training exercise, halfway around the world a Soviet armored column rumbles toward the Iranian border in the predawn darkness. The Soviet leadership has decided to invade -- Coyle never really tells us why -- Iran, planning to conquer the country and reach the Straits of Hormuz in four weeks' time. Some of the junior Red Army officers are apprehensive -- the Afghan War has taught the Soviets much about the costs of fighting against desperate Muslims -- but Moscow and the Soviet General Staff don't believe there will be much opposition from Iran...or the West.

But as soon as the Soviets launch their invasion, America mobilizes, and soon U.S. forces head to the Persian Gulf. Within weeks, the news are full of images of combat between the two superpowers as battles are fought on air, land and sea.

But the Soviets are not the only enemy the American forces face in Iran. The ayatollahs still rule the Islamic Iranian Republic, and while they fight fiercely against the Russians, the Iranians welcome the U.S. forces not with flowers but with bullets. And even when Iran's forces are forced to retreat under pressure from both foreign forces, the mullahs who wield power in Tehran pin their hopes on a desperate and deadly gambit that, if it works, will destroy the homelands of the nations the Iranians call the Great and Lesser Satans.

But Coyle's talent lies not just with the description of grand strategy, the tactics and weapons used in war, but with the very human portrayal of his cast of characters. Whether he is writing about Major Scott Dixon of the U.S. Army or Junior Lieutenant Nikolai Ilvanich of the Soviet Army, Coyle wisely doesn't resort to the stereotypical "good guy vs. bad guy" style of storytelling. Yes, this is a novel of war, but Coyle (a former Army officer who served in Desert Storm) has genuine affection for the profession of arms and the men and women who serve their country, no matter which country it is.

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Summary: Sword Point - Superb military fiction based on doctrine!
Review: From Harold Coyle's first novel "Team Yankee," we learned that he could write extraordinarily well while threading much of his work around what was doctrine, at that time, against the ever present threat of a Soviet Union that was perceived to be bent on world domination. Fortunately, history proved this "threat" to have been a misperception.

With "Sword Point," Harold Coyle proved that one, "Team Yankee" wasn't a fluke and two, that he was capable of even more depth in his story and that he is quite capable of delivering the "punch" in the story at the right time. This is why, when I wish to read a story involving mostly ground warfare and the people that must fight it, I look forward to a novel written by Harold Coyle. Although I truly do enjoy a Clancy novel in which he goes through all of the political machinations before during and after the fighting starts, what I truly like about Coyle's novels is that he doesn't spend too much time on that aspect and goes straight into the battles and the people behind those battles.

From the Foreword, through twenty one chapters and the Epilogue, Harold Coyle placed a hauntingly poignant and quite relevant quote for that chapter, from Karl Von Clausewitz to Arthur Wellesley, each quote is "dead on" appropriate to that chapter. Also of great importance to this novel and for the likes of those from Publishers Weekly who didn't quite understand what was happening in this novel, is a brief description of the graphics and overlays used by the military and a glossary to help with some of the more common terminology used in the military.

The premise:

This is a story put to paper prior to the fall of the "iron curtain" that is told, with frightening clarity, of what could possibly have happened if during the later years of the cold war, the USSR had decided that a play for the Straight of Hormuz and Iran's oil fields would've been worth risking, turning the cold war into a very hot one.

It is the predawn hours of May 25th in the Armenian province of the Soviet Socialist Republic and a Soviet Armored column makes an easy break across the border into Iran. They're headed straight for Tehran and further to the Straight of Hormuz, their mission; secure the country by removing those in power in Tehran and gaining control of the Arab nation's oil fields and reserves.

The Politburo knows that the Iranians do not have the military power to stop them and doesn't believe the Americans will get involved. They're of course wrong as the United States immediately begins to mobilize its forces and heads for Iran in order to stop the USSR from gaining control of this key territory and destabilizing the oil industry.

Along with the threat of the USSR gaining complete control of this key strategic area and the implied possibility that they might use chemical weapons against American and allied forces there is the very real threat that the Iranians, being besieged by both the greater Satan Americans who are there to "help" them, and the lesser Satan Soviets, is the threat that they have a crude nuclear device that they wish to attempt to start world war three with.

I highly recommend this novel to any and all fans of this genre! It is truly a classic in the military/political genre. I myself have been in the Army for several years and have read many of the same training and doctrine treatises that Harold Coyle used as a basis for this story and I am thoroughly impressed by his ability to take these training and doctrine manuals and turn them into such a compelling and intriguing tale of modern warfare. {ssintrepid}

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Summary: Sword Point
Review: Harold Coyle's second novel is an action packed military thriller in which the Soviet Union invades Iran for their oil and it's up to the US Army to stop them. Unkown to both sides, Iran has developed a nuclear weapon which they intend to use to kill as many Soviet and American soldiers as possible. Coyle uses very little dialogue but still manages to fully flesh out all his characters, American and Russian soldiers. The only problem is there is not much description of Iranian involvment in the conflict, especially since the battleground is their home soil. It started out slow and there were a couple points where the story got a little boring but overall it is action filled and interesting. Coyle puts the reader right inside the tank. Sword Point continues into the superior Bright Star.

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Summary: A Great Work of Military Fiction
Review: I always felt that this fictional war between the US and USSR in Iran was one of the better Military Thrillers. Coyle's first, Team Yankee, was good also. Personally, I liked this one best and then found his writing to go down hill from here. But again, anyone who likes a good technothriller will enjoy Sword Point. Coyle will then use many of these characters in his later, and in my opinion lesser novels.

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Summary: A competent start to a consistently improving series.
Review: I plowed through Harold Coyle's Dixon series in haphazard disorder. Reading this first installment, I couldn't help but feel that he was still honing his skills in epic storytelling. He focuses narrowly on a rather simplistic scenario, while peopling his story with a huge number of shapeless characters, among whom the principal participants would become more familiar with each successive sequel. Many of his secondary characters start out promisingly only to be neglected and eventually forgotten. Compounding problems is a jumpy narrative that leaves gaps where more detailed exposition would have been better. Sometimes an intriguing thread is started and developed slightly, gaining the reader's interest, only for the story to jump forward several days without resolving preceeding events satisfactorily.

Still, Sword Point is a worthy read, if only for the great combat scenes (an area in which Coyle clearly excels!), not to mention a peek into the origins of people like Dixon, Vorishnov and Ilvanich.

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Summary: A must-read for cold-war techno buffs.
Review: Sword Point is a must read for any cold war afficionado. Here the classic "what-if" confrontation of Americans vs. Russians during the 1980's is realized. Harold Coyle describes in detail how war might have been like on a modern battlefield. Never have I read such a book where technical information was used in such an exciting fashion. Simply put, this book puts a lot of emphasis on the machines for waging war and the men and women that operate them. Though not as in-depth as Tom Clancy might get, Harold Coyle succeeds in feeding the imagination with an exciting story of how war might have been like using the machines that actually exist today. Bottom line: Most reading occurs on the battlefield and away from the political arena and the home front. In essence, this book is about what a modern battle field would have looked like if the cold war had actually gone hot.

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Summary: Decent but not outstanding
Review: This is a decent showing. There's no central character, but that seems to have been intentional: by not focusing too much on any particular individual, we get glimpses of the effect of war on various soldiers on both sides. There are numerous flaws, though, most notably the fact that there seems to be very little reason to set the battle in Iran. Maybe by setting the novel in an "out-of-the-way" country, Coyle wanted to avoid too many preconceived notions on the part of the reader. Unfortunately, since for the most part nothing is done in the book to really set the book in Iran (other than desert battles and fanatic Iranians), the setting is mostly an afterthought.

Further, Coyle doesn't delve as deeply into the motivations of his characters as he did in "Team Yankee", which is a far better thought-out novel. Major Scott Dixon, a recurring character in several of Coyle's later novels, makes his appearances, and there are some particularly moving moments. especially towards the conclusion of the novel, involving dead American soldiers. But the strategy of not spending too much time on any particular character has the sad effect of making it difficult to really care about any of them.

One other notable characteristic is the fact that the reader is never given much of an explanation or rationalization of the US' involvement in a Soviet invasion of Iran. At first, this was a major annoyance, until it dawned on me that Coyle was making a subtle point about soldiers as implements of policy without necessarily understanding those policies or even knowing what they are, similar to Vietnam.

Overall, this isn't as good a novel as his first effort "Team Yankee", which did a better job of exploring the psyche of the line soldier (Coyle's fundamental motif). But it's decent enough on its own. The author has a point he's trying to make, and he does indeed do so.

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Summary: Great book about an Iran war, but where are the Iranians?
Review: This is one of Harold Coyle's best books. It describes a major war between the US and Soviet Union taking place in Iran. This book is actually Coyle's exploration of what it would be like if the American and Soviet army doctrines and strategy were pitted against one another. The story taking place in Iran is not an exploration of what a US-Soviet war there will be like. By taking the story to Iran, Coyle removes virtually any interference from either countries' allies and completely focus between American and Soviet strategies (plus the fact that his previous book, Team Yankee, took place in Europe so it would be rehashing if it takes place there again).

I have one minor annoyance about this book (and the rest of his series). Among them is the fictionalization of current (at the time) names and numbers of Army units and Navy ships. For example, there is no 17th Airborne Division in the US Army. The only airborne division is the 82nd. There is no aircraft carrier named USS Franklin in service in the 1980's. The carrier was an excuse to start the war, and later there's the pyschological appease for the readers in two instances. One of those involve the USS Franklin and a Soviet aircraft carrier. The other is the loss of a planeload of American troops and a Iranian attack on a Soviet tank column.

Coyle is at his best when he describes the characters involved in the battles. The book focuses mostly on the soldiers, both American and Soviet, in the situation they are in. The description of the theatre of war is limited to Iran only. The reactions of Iran's neighbor, what the Iranian civilians and military think of the war is not explored much. And we don't see Iranians collaborating with either American or Soviet forces.

This book is good when it comes to details of troop movements, the battles and the not so pretty sight of war from the soldiers' points of view. However, I feel rather slighted that for a story mostly set in Iran, Iranians are treated only like a footnote here.

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Summary: One Trick Pony
Review: This is the second book by this author that I have read hoping it would be a bit better. I am now sure that about the only thing the author does do well is to provide you with one thing - combat action. If you are looking for a Clancy type lead up and details do not look here, but if you are looking for raw action then this is it. The story does not really do much for you, nor the cast of characters. Reading this book is like watching an auto race on TV, you can do it with only one eye on it and you really are only looking for the crashes - here you are only reading to get from on action section to another.