(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best military aviation history books

I'm currently reading Contact! Britain! and although I'm something of a pacifist, I'm finding great inspiration from the stories of women really pushing boundaries on what's acceptable for women's work.

The women who I admire tend to change often.

Always at the top of the list though is my sister because she's one of the most impressive people I've ever met.

Wings by Tom D. Crouch is good. He was the curator of the National Air & Space Museum (Smithsonian), and it's basically a history of all development of flight and flying machines.

If you liked The Right Stuff, I'd also recommend Man on the Moon. It's more specific to what follows the Mercury astronauts obviously (Gemini and Apollo), but it is quite good.

The Right Stuff movie is pretty good, too, if you haven't seen it. It's on Netflix Instant View (or at least was as recently as a few months ago).

Had they gone through with this, it would have for sure made carrier life different, since you can get a 130 anywhere you want with mid air refueling. But as you can see, it really mucks up flight deck operations.

If you have any love for the Herc, I highly recommend this book. Herk: Hero of the Skies My dad bought me a copy back in the late 80s early 90s when he worked at Lockheed after retiring from a USAF career with the Herc (he later went back to work for the USAF as a civilian...again with the Herc.) Best damned plane flying, and I'll fight anyone over it. 😎

Sea Assault was an excellent book about this battle. Although factual, it read like a Tom Clancy thriller. If you enjoy it, Black May was another great WWII submarine read. Very much in the Red Storm Rising pantheon.

https://www.amazon.com/Sukhoi-30-Super-Manoeuvrable-Family-30MKI/dp/1903630592

A day's read, but extremely well written and researched. One of the best (and only) books I've seen devoted solely to the 30-series.

If he liked the story of Wojtek, check out also these, they're WWII but more adventure than martyrological gloom:

• "Dywizjon 303" (English edition here ) and "Dziękuję ci, kapitanie" (English ) by Arkady Fiedler
  
  
• basically anything by Janusz Meissner
  
  He could also give a try to the Pan Samochodzik series by Zbigniew Nienacki (starts with "Wyspa złoczyńców"). It's aimed at younger teens, but the protagonist is adult. Quests for precious historical artifacts with James Bond vibe.
  
  Greetings for your grandpa! :)

I've got that book sitting on the foot stool right next to me. I love it. There are some fantastic stories from flight test to the various detachments. I recommend anyone looking for a good reference on the A-12/SR-71 and their missions pick up this book. Amazon link

I got an interesting book on this a while back.

It goes over some of the reasons they intercepted the Hog Wild, such as assuming that the B-29 was on a photo mission over Korea and possibly could gain intelligence on the Japanese nuclear program (which may be the reason the Soviets got the bomb so quickly).

http://www.amazon.com/Fork-Tailed-Devil-Military-History-Ibooks/dp/0743413180

This is a great book that covers pretty much everything about the P38, including Glacier Girl. Really a great plane.

Are you already a Marine Reservist or are you thinking about joining?

I'm trying to shape my response to the right audience.

Your post history sounds like you are ANG, so forgive me if my response tells you things you already know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_of_the_United_States_Marine_Corps

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps_Light_Armored_Reconnaissance

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4th_Light_Armored_Reconnaissance_Battalion

https://www.amazon.com/Marine-Expeditionary-Clancys-Military-Reference/dp/0425154548


http://www.marforres.marines.mil/Major-Subordinate-Commands/4th-Marine-Division/4th-Light-Armored-Reconnaissance-Battalion/


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> What job codes do they have at that unit?

Grunts. Armor Mechanics. Radios. Intelligence.

> What vehicles do they have at their disposal?

LAV's; LAV retrievers maybe; 5-tons; Humvees

> Do they ever work with aircraft from other units?

No organic air assets in a LAR Bn to my knowledge.
They are not prepared to assist with Air either.

I've been out a long time. I suppose it's possible they have access to lightweight drones now.

> Are they considered a good unit?

LAR elements are good units, in the general sense.
I was active duty. We generally hate reservists.

LAI / LAR are light weight Tanks. They are generally more mobile than big fat Abrams, and are savagely lethal against Infantry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAV-25

Our LAVs are completely outmatched by any proper tank, since unlike an M2 Bradley, the LAV doesn't have a TOW Missile Launcher.


> Do they ever go overseas for their AT?

AT as in Annual Training? Not likely. USMC has a HUGE training facility at 29 Palms California.
LAVs are expensive toys to move around.

> How do people make it there during a winter shitstorm?

Make it where?
Standard USMC procedure for enduring cold weather involves a woobie and shivering, combined with "sucking it up".
The Marines are NOT known for well-funded logistics. Marines make do with what we have.


> I imagine some people live quite far since there aren't too many units in New York. Will they put you up in a hotel if you're >3 hours away? Please feel free to throw anything else in.

Those are all legit reservist questions, and I'm sorry I have no idea.

Three favorites on my shelves:

The British Pacific Fleet

The Fast Carriers: The Forging of an Air Navy

The Rise of American Naval Power 1776-1918

A book to avoid:

Enterprise: America's Fightingest Ship and the Men Who Helped Win World War II

Maybe it's because I like my books more academic, but felt like it was neither dry enough to be a solid history and not enough of a narrative to be something like Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors.

The links all go to Amazon (which I don't think is sketchy unless you're a publisher)

That was a great read :) if anyone feels like reading more like this, I strongly suggest you have a read of this.

Your title:

> How Gaijin has made it almost impossible to verify the Javelin, or anything else for that matter.

What do you think this implies? Because to me, within the context of your endless spergfests, this is claiming in a roundabout way that Gaijin intentionally creates flight models that are "impossible" to verify on purpose, which simply isn't the case.

Passages within the post:

> But when it comes down to the nitty gritty, most values that are crucial to determining how an aircraft performs are hidden behind values that bear no relation to the real world.

This illustrates my point that FM code values aren't a 1:1 representation of what you see in a datasheet.

> But it's frustrating as you cannot just get out a calculator and verify, using available formulas, and all that other junk if the flight model is performing accurate to the input data (Which as far as length/wingspan is concerned is correct).

Again, verifying what I've said.

> So, I've been in and had a look. And I am still suspicious as hell, but I have to concede that at the moment without knowing exactly what all of these values relate to and exactly how they are used within the game engine, I have to begrudgingly take gaijin's word that they just input the data and didn't do any sort of fiddling with values to create a different outcome.

The only reasonable portion of your post, which anyone with a functional brain (i.e. not you) could have deduced without the need for a shitpost.

> So now it unfortunately has to be focused on Gaijin using the pilot manual and the "That's not an accurate representation, it's just government meddling!" that comes with it.

Yes, everyone who has been bug reporting the Javelin and discussing the FM in the aircraft/bug report threads has already arrived at the conclusion (with admittance from tech mods and therefore devs) that the reason the Javelin is gimped is because Gaijin is following the extremely restrictive manual to a T. The reasons behind this will be explained in a post I'm currently writing and acquiring sources for. You know, a quality post based on actual sources and documentation rather than a shitpost based on facts I've pulled out of my ass.

> As a cheap parting shot I went through the wing area calculations and it came up to 85.98. Not the 86m2 that you can find on the internet......Hold on..... That area of "Elevator" looks a bit strange.... 2.5 it says. And the "Stabilizer" is 6.5.

So your proof for a particular aspect of the FM is a parameter that has a 0.02% error (according to your own calculations) compared to the true value of 86 sq. meters...lol

FWIW, the datasheet lists the correct, "true" value that is also verified by the manual and the best available secondary source. For all intents and purposes, 85.98 m^2 is the same thing as 86 m^2 total wing area. Which leads me to my next point...

> CONCLUSION: The lack of an all flying tail is legit in the flight model. Forget what I said earlier about having to accept gaijin not fiddling with numbers to gimp the Javelin......

No dear Hasperg, an insignificant difference in total wing area is not proof that the lack of an AFT extends beyond the visual model... Elevator powerloss is the defining metric (among others) that'd tell you if the AFT is correctly modeled. But again, since you cannot compare the raw powerloss value to IRL documentation for reasons I've explained before, even looking at that parameter in isolation is tenuous at best.

Note that I'm not saying the elevator performance of the Javelin is necessarily correct, I'm just waiting to acquire performance data for the FAW.9 so I can correctly test it against the in-game performance.

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So as shown, I've unfortunately had the displeasure of reading and comprehending your entire post.

I'm glad they're going to make another series about the book Masters of the Air by Donald Miller.

It could be almost as good as Band of Brothers...it's an excellent book, I highly recommend it.

You're welcome. If your interest in the Pacific theater is broader, you may also consider "Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway" by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully. It revisits the battle of Midway from the Japanese perspective and is excellent.

Other extremely good works are John B. Lundstrom's The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway and The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign: Naval Fighter Combat from August to November 1942. Despite the appearance of these titles, they are not dry academic works, but full of interesting facts and quite fun reading.

Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-194 by D. M. Giangreco is an excellent work examining the end of the war in the Pacific, what the impact of strategic bombing was (nuclear and conventional), how the US and her allies planned to invade Kyushu and Honshu, how much the Japanese knew and how far developed their preparations were, and reasonable estimates of how events would play out if the invasions had actually been carried out. He examines how the details of each sides' plans would play out, the impact of nuclear weapons in the tactical role, how actual weather conditions and events would impact the land and sea portions of the campaigns and more.

I own all of the above and recommend them whole-heartedly.

A brief search also gave videos of several speeches/talks by Jon Parshall, but I haven't viewed them yet. Given the quality of his and Tully's work in Shattered Sword, I plan to watch each of them now.

I've never found a truly good single-volume book on the design/development of the aircraft carrier in general, but I've found a couple that are excellent for specific nations.

US Aircraft Carriers: A Design History by Norman Friedman is... well, the history of US Aircraft Carrier design, from pre-WWII to the supercarriers.

British Aircraft Carriers: Design, Development and Service Histories by David Hobbs is the same thing as the previously mentioned book, but covering things like seaplane carriers, amphibious assault ships, and even Project Habbakuk (gee, why would that interest me?) as well as traditional flat-tops.

> the historcal advisors said something but nobody must have cared.

I know one of the advisors for the film and that was essentially correct. They had a story they wanted to tell and the production was busy, so there wasn't a lot of time to review after some of the larger issues got worked out. I remember a different interview than this one, but that's the best I can find with the time I have tonight.

I just want to add that you could be an elite athlete and train like David Blaine for cold water endurance and still fail BUDS. They will force you to fail and get repetitive use injuries and then they will watch how you respond. I think many men go into military service with the idea that they will simply be the strongest most conditioned athlete and that will pull them through. Often the strongest become the most tested. When I was in MCRD San Diego I watched a 6 foot 6 inch peak conditioned, pro cage fighter with all the dick swagger of Jon Wayne get his ass beat on a daily basis by Drill Instructors. Until one day he was at the top of a climbing rope and a DI that really had it out for him shook him till he fell and severely injured his back. He was in a hospital and then a separation platoon and then gone. The induction phase of any military service comes with a whole host of mind fucks so that the DI's and leadership can see how you will respond. What are you made of besides your physical prowess? Do you give up? How do you give up? Do you take a leadership role? Do you follow? How do you follow? Can you let us build you up after we tear you down? I really don't think there's anyway to truly train for this but as I'm sure you already have take a look at the BUDs Class 234 video series with an eye for the mental component; and if you get a chance read Marine by Tom Clancy I know it's a book about a different branch of the military but he talks a lot about the mental strain aspect. I wish you all the best.

Unsung Eagles - This isn't specifically about fighter pilots, more about the pilots who never got recognition, or those that performed roles that were vital to the war effort, but were never covered. For instance, one chapter is about a demonstration pilot who was in charge of flying stateside for friends and family of soldiers as well as soldiers at home to demonstrate our air power and boost morale. Another is about a P-47 pilot who every day, all day, patrolled the English channel at low level looking for downed pilots. It's a fantastic read.

The First Team - This is a more academic book about the first carrier naval conflicts in the Pacific up to and including the Battle of Midway. It's a great non-fiction read if you're looking to become more knowledgeable on air combat. It can get dry (like some pages just listing who died, and charts on casualties), but they're easily skippable.

The First and the Last - Haven't actually read this, but it comes highly recommended and is next on my list after Stuka Pilot (listed below).


I also second everything that /u/Redlyr said.

Gossamer Odyssey by Morton Grosser follows the Gossamer Condor and Gossamer Albatross (first successful human powered plane, and first human powered plane to fly across the English Channel). Fantastic read, with lots of good technical details.

>where did you get that figure from? USNI says the magazines of the Nimitz-class can hold "1,954 tons of aviation ordnance."

Norman Friedman.

Friedman's US Carriers: An Illustrated Design History has a chapter on the postwar upgrades for the Essex, Midway, and even CVE classes, including what was carried out, what remained plans, and the bureaucratic processes that drove it all.

For example, there was actually a postwar proposal to give CVEs angled flight decks, but they couldn't drum up money for it: http://i.imgur.com/dvMIsqr.png

The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign: Naval Fighter Combat from August to November 1942 because /r/AskHistorians recommended it in response to my question.