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Special Forces in Afghanistan  2001-2003: War Against Terrorism

Special Forces in Afghanistan 2001-2003: War Against Terrorism

List Price: $37.95
Your Price: $23.91
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Poor translation and innacurate details
Review: 1. The book appears to have been tranlated from French to English very poorly. I estimate 80% of the sentences have obvious grammatical errors and/or mispellings.
2. Many of the detailed facts specifically in the timeline section are innacurate.
3. I intended to use the book for research on Spec Ops role for an Afghanistan Campaign analysis. I didn't use anything from this book because it lacked factual credibility.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Not for the specialists
Review: A coffee-table book packed with pictures. If you are looking for highly specialized infos, give it a miss. If you want loads of pictures (including reconstructions) and some background infos, go for it.

The original text was obviously in French and the translation is not always 100% but it remains readable.

Good infos on non-US units and interesting pictures taken by the in-house "RAIDS" reporter, Yves Debay.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent Military Read
Review: At last a book that mentions the Australian involvement in the recent wars in the Afghanistan and Iraq.
SF: War Against Terrorism not only mentions the Australian SASR, 4RAR (Cdo) and loggies, it also features plenty of high-quality pictures snapped by Australian Army PR photographers.
The book covers each country who provided troops, and gives detailed pics of their kit and uniforms - and action pics. It's a delight for military train-spotters and not bad reference material.
I can't speak for the US facts - but surely the facts used would have been obtained via official channels.
As for facial obscurity - if your photographers take full-face shots and your department allows them to be released - and they're in the public arena, you can hardly blame the author.
Nice work Mr Micheletti, look forward to the next book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent Military Read
Review: I recently purchased this book, and after reading the several reviews you see before you, I've come to several conclusions. One being that the book has been translated wonderfully. You have to understand that languages cannot be exactly translated. Two is the one picture showing U.S. Special Forces and SAS is not a mistake, if you read carefully, you'll notice two individuals kneeling and another in a prone position. Those two are SAS in 'civvies' (undercover) assisting the American operators.
The book provides excellent photographs for all of those who want a superb display of the tactical gear worn by the various Coalition Forces operating in Afghanistan. I viewed the website and only a scarce few are shown in the book.
All in all this is a great selection if you're looking for a book with magnificent crisk color photographs of the soldiers and their military gear!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: We are all involved in the war against terrorism
Review: In a very real sense we are all now involved in the war against terrorism - ordinary civilians as well as the kind of elite special forces described in such detail in this book. So we all ought to be fully aware of who our boys are in this fight and how we can best support all they do. The more we know about what they do the better and books like this one are a great start. Christopher Catherwood, author of CHRISTIANS MUSLIMS AND ISLAMIC RAGE (Zondervan, 2003)

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Tip Of Spear ? SPEC OPS ? Afghanistan
Review: Outstanding tribute to coalition SPEC OPS Forces fighting in the "STAN". This is the first time in history that Special Forces are responsible for winning a conventional war with a few hundred operators and in less then forty-nine days they put an end to the Taliban regime with the fall of Kandahar. Book covers that story in word and pictures. All major operations and high lights of selected missions are covered. Book details all the major and minor coalition SOF units from Australia (SAS), New Zealand (SAS), Turkey (Special Forces), Danish (Commando), Norwegian (Commando and Rangers), German (KSK), French (SSAG), and Canada (JTF-2), as well as American SOF. That is just some of the countries and units covered. The book does not forget anyone I can see, they have also sections on CIA commandos, Search and Rescue units, Psy-ops and civil affairs The book explains the unit function/organization and its participation in STAN. Now what makes this book better then other titles on Special Forces, well for one this title focus on Afghanistan and the units operating their giving this book much more focus, now I must also say this book is not meant to be an exhausted historical text but a detailed synopsis of the events in STAN. The books winning point are the illustrations and color photos, there are literally hundreds. Most are unpublished but I did notice a handful you can easy find online, but this in no way takes away from the book for the other photos make up for them few. Another interesting feature is the book has numerous reenactment photos of operators in full kit, displaying gear and weapons used by each unit. This would be ideal for collectors, gear-nuts, historians, air-softer and as already said reactors. The photos are generally studio shots of models wearing a particular countries kit and weapons, with multiple angles with text descriptions. I must say that these portions of the books photos are superb. The book has its flaws, some pictures are described wrong as well as some of the finer points of selected units but as a whole for what the book was intended for it did quite a good job and I highly recommend it to anyone one seeking information on the elite units that fought in STAN, and as a final not some of the units covered here I have never seen in print else were. This is by far one of Eric Micheletti best work to date.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Riddled with errors
Review: Well in addition to getting most of the operational details incorrect in this book many of the photos (of the US SOF at least) seem to be randomly attributed to different units operating on the line. His section on Delta Force and DEVGRU are so inaccurate it's like reading fiction. My personal fav is a picture of US Army Special Forces with a caption that says SAS. How do I know those guys aren't SAS? You can find the pcitures on the DOD website!

What's more, Micheletti has chosen not to block out the faces of the soldiers on most pages of this book. So whoever buys this book gets a good look at active duty men working in the field who can now be identified by their enemies and put in danger of retribution. This puts these men and their families in danger. Any operator will tell you this is just wrong.

Almost every image in this book can be found online at http://www.militaryphotos.net and in most cases, with the faces obscured.

Do not support this book. Do not buy this book. It is a comedy of technical errors in addition to being a threat to the men who do this work for real.


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