"'The Red Effect' by Harvey Black - thumbs up from Sparks" Topic

Thanks to a heads up from this thread,
TMP link
I ordered and devoured this latest addition to the 'what if' Cold War Gone Hot' pantheon. Or, in the case of this first volume in what I hope will be at least a trilogy, 'Cold War Warming Up quick smart'…

Whilst the English is not quite 100% and may ruffle a few Grammar Nazis' feathers, the writing, in terms of action, plot, and characterisation, is spot on. The accuracy of depiction of the BAOR characters and formations seems 100% too, which you might expect from a former British Army Intelligence Corps 'Green Slim'er.

(To the extent of describing those '58 pattern Mugs that were big enough to climb into should you need a small dinghy at short notice, and always seem to be thrust into one's frozen mitts full of hot sweet tea at the most opportune moments…)

This volume leads to the Balloon going up, and finishes with a Royal Green Jackets 'Black Mafia' Battlegroup getting pulverised by a horrendus 3rd Shock Army stonk – so far everything is going great for their lead Operational Manovuevre Group….

However the main part of the novel deals with the intelligence build up and SAS stay behind parties getting into situ.

The only possible criticism I might have is that those who weren't familiar with the West German scene in the 80's may not understand the Allied Powers acts which allowed Western uniformed patrols to roam around the Eastern sector, and vice versa, subject to a little unofficial harrassment. Hence when the BRIXMIS patrol gets captured, the Russians content themselves with confiscating the film and a giving them a good seeing to, (and not in a good way) rather than sending them to somewhere cold and unpleasant to mine salt…

Thoroughly recommended by this Cold War tragic, and looking forward to the next installment….

Excellent, mines is en route from amazon. Hadnt realised its part of a series. Itll be good to read one of these that doesnt end with the bomb going off just when its getting good.

Ordered

Me too (been there, done that sort of moment…)

Grabbed this on your recommendation, what I fantastic read. He really nailed the details. Just reading the tank stuff brought back memories.

I have to say, I was really disappointed by this book – as Sparker says it ended just when it was getting into it's stride. And it isn't that long a book – so I'm a bit surprised it was felt necessary to divide it into three parts – perhaps Harvey Black should have just kept plugging away to the conclusion.

Overall, an excellent effort though.

Got it, read it and agree it is good. Also harvey's site is good and his blog posts very insightful and interesting.

Along with Stopping the Red Tide, it got me back into WWIII gaming.

So, is he writing a sequel to where he left off?

Are there any other similar books/novels that detail armored combat in Cold War Europe well?

About the only one I can think of, which I enjoyed, was WWII, but that was released 20+ years ago.

I'd love to see some written from various points of view, e.g. the West Germans, British, Americans, Danish, Swedes, Norwegians, Soviet and WP, etc., if any of those are available.

Detailing of individual units, battles, etc., from the sharp end would be nice, for use for wargaming scenarios.

How do these fit in with Hackett's trilogy?

Mako11 – I recommend "Red Army" by Ralph Peters. Very well written in a similar vein to Red Storm Rising, but solely from a Russian perspective. A nice antidote to the NATO quality over quantity argument.

+1 on Peters' 'Red Army' – a classic of the genre. Great inspiration for anyone who games as the WarPac commander!

Red Army is outstanding. (As is anything by Ralph Peters!)

Also Steven Zaloga's faction book 'Red Thrust' is good – each Arm of Service chapter is headed up by a fictional short story illustrating his analysis.

'Team Yankee' by Harold Coyle, 'Chieftains' by Bob Forrest Webb, thankfully now back in print.

'First Contact' by Kenneth Macksey is outstanding, a 'Post War' 'history' of the 4th Canadian Mech Bde Group opening actions in WW3. Originally a CA training publication, but eminently readable and with many wargamable scenarios along with maps, photos of the terrain, analysis and so forth. Systematically wargaming my way through these scenarios is on my bucket list once I can put together a suitable mob of similarly minded Cold War tragics!

Bought it and read it a couple of months ago, not bad and eagerly awaiting the sequel(s)