Reddit mentions of Red Army

I could never get into Clancy, no matter how hard I tried. I always feel like I'm reading a Wikipedia article on a piece of military equipment.

The hands down best fiction book on the Soviet way of war is the Red Army by Ralph Peters, he captures the Soviet military mindset perfectly. The barely controlled chaos one would expect in such a war is faithfully described. It's the "little" details, like say traffic jams, that would play a huge role, but are overlooked by most authors without a military background.

It's simply great, I couldn't recommend it enough.

https://www.amazon.com/Red-Army-Ralph-Peters/dp/1451636695

I need to read it again.

Favorite military book for me, read once and then again on station, was Red Army by Ralph Peters, available on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Red-Army-Ralph-Peters/dp/1451636695

Great, guess I'm on another tank battle kick. Good a time as any to re-read Red Army.

What do you mean by modern? What kind of material do you want?
Do you want to include Grozny and Chechnya? Afghanistan?

I actually do have a few things that come to mind, though unfortunately most of it (all?) is written by the opposite side's perspective.

This PDF is a summary of lessons learned by the Ukrainians during the conflict with Russia, dated 2015. It relies solely on Ukrainian sources, but it does talk at length about what the Russians are doing, and includes the most recent use of Russian combined arms warfare.

Red Thrust by Zaloga devotes a surface level scenario to every branch of the Soviet army during a late-80s conventional war. While it wasn't written by a Soviet, it certainly has a fair bit of research behind it, and it makes a nice primer. I actually posed a tactical question to the sub about the book earlier, the comments here are quite insightful.

Fangs of the Lone Wolf is written, similar to Red Thrust, as a series of tactical vignettes from the Chechen wars, albeit entirely from the Chechen perspective. In it's attempts to be thorough, however, it cannot help but cover Russian tactics.

Weapons and Tactics of the Soviet Army is a much more thorough work than Zaloga's. It's only downside is that it's written by Westerners during the Cold War. It primarily focuses on company sized units and above, and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a bit dull at times, but it's professional level material, and very good for that.

Although it's only a web article, perhaps this post about the Soviet tactics used in Afghanistan could be of merit to you?

Lastly, a personal favourite of mine is Red Army by Ralph Peters. It takes the typical WW3 techno-thriller and flips it on it's head - it is solely from the perspective of the Soviet ground forces, and is a remarkably down to earth and human war novel. While hardly a technical work, Peters is no fool when it comes to either military matters or writing, and the novel is a delight.

I was reading this WW3 novel; Soltau was one of the objectives for OPFOR (on its way to Weser river) and OPFOR destroys Luenberg as a propaganda thing

Yes. Ralph Peters found it so bad that he wrote his own! It's much better!

Amazon link

So what type books do you suggest on the subject? I have heard these to are pretty good novels about the hypothetical ground war in Europe. http://www.amazon.com/Red-Army-Ralph-Peters/dp/1451636695/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=2JK25VZ6ZNS08&coliid=I3MYN941OLF33Q

http://www.amazon.com/Team-Yankee-Harold-Coyle/dp/0425110427/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=2JK25VZ6ZNS08&coliid=I1F8NGLSHARZST

This one?

I also thought Red Army was pretty cool but that was ages ago.

Another great book on this topic but from the POV of the Soviet Union in WWIII is Red Army:

http://www.amazon.com/Red-Army-Ralph-Peters/dp/1451636695

That book and Red Storm Rising are two of my favorites.

I really liked the book Red Army by Ralph Peters, I rank it right up there with Red Storm Rising.


It never covers the reasons for the war, it is pretty much just from a military perspective although it dances around from the privates, to mid level officers to the generals. And as the title implies, it is primarily from the point of the view of the Red Army, and I think it does a fantastic job at humanizing them (even though I will always root for the US, I did feel bad when some of the characters died).