"1970s WWIII fiction" Topic

Most of the books I can find on WWIII were written in the 80s, with the exception of Hackett, can any one give me a couple of titles from the 70s and earlier.

Damn, I know I have one written in 1978-ish, can't remember the title though. I will attempt to find it when I get home and post the title. I believe it was written by a member of the NATO general staff, so it was more academic then a normal story (it was written as a summary of the war 'after it happened'), but still an interesting read.

-Will

Was it the late great planet earth??

There was that one about the Canadians in WW3. Can't recall the name, though and my googlefu is not up to it.

World War III – John Hackett
First Clash – Canadians at War (McKinnon?)
Red Army – Ralph Peters
Red Storm Rising – Clancy

Team Yankee – Harold Coyle

Hackett really kicked off the genre, and then the others contributed.

Allen

"Chieftains" by Bob Forrest-Webb (1982)

There are gazillions of pre-1980s WW3 books, however most of them are of the nuclear apocalypse genre – Dr Strangelove, Failsafe, On the Beach, The Satan Bug, Indoctrinaire etc.

If you want an amusing book featuring actual combat then have a long hard look for 'The Blue Ants' – a yellow peril novel about China trying to take over the world, including such practical weapons as atomic trench mortars….

The book that scared me at about age 12 (1959) was "Alas Babylon" by Pat Frank. Found a copy in a used book store and it was still disturbing.

Well, if you want to delve into the apocalypse genre instead of military fiction, that's a different critter:

link

Allen

First clash is by Kenneth Macksey and his post 80, like Redo storm rising and Team yankee (no one has notcied the Abrams in them?). Also World War 3 by hackett is post 1980

Hi

"the Texas/Israeli War". Don't remember the author. But a lot of Fun. It started as a "Tractics" campaign run by some geeks in texas, the GM wrote it up as a novel, and it sold well.

Rocky

So it seems that pre 80's books are rare.

From the books I have read over the years, ones dealing directly with the classic East-West military clash seem to have started with Hackett, as Allen stated, and then the genre grew rapidly in the early 80's til the end of the Cold War (the "Techno-Thriller" craze).

Lots of Post-Apocalyptic fiction before then, but not a lot of WWIII military fiction.

'First Clash: Combat close-up in World War III' Kenneth Macksey 1984

Try this discussion on what WWIII would have been like in the 1970s: link

I did some looking at " Armoured Fighting Vehicles of the World" Christopher F Foss Copyright 1977. Vehicles still in service at that time. Norway M24s, East Germany T34s, Portugal M4s, Greece M20s & M8s, Turkey M3s Halftracks. Also in " Armor of the West" Concord Publication 1992 on page 4 it STILL has Norway's M24 Light tanks done in a two tone Green & Black. Who know what else was Kicking around at that time in the 1970s. This was just in Europe. Look at what keeps turning up in the Balkans even today. I once heard from somebody who came back from there who at a Mission meeting was told to " Be aware that the German 88mm is still an effective weapon "

Actually, I'm pretty sure Hackett was originally circa 1979, I took mine on Reforger that year.

And there is the "Zone" series, I think that started in the 70's, although it may have extended into the early eighties.

Whoops- The Zone #1: Hard Target by "James Rouch", zebra Press, 1980.

Well, close.

Were the Zone books any good?

Jony663 – I love the Zone books and read them ever so often.

There actually was a book written in the early 70s about a future war. If I remember correctly it was titled, "WW III" and had a picture of a GI and a fierce looking monkey on the cover and came out in 1974. I read it decades ago when I was young. The war had the US and China fighting each other over in Asia and China had trained monkeys to go out and kill US Soldiers. This is the one part I remember vividly about the book because it reminded me of all the "Planet of the Apes" movies.

Holy Crap RockyRusso! I forgot "The Texas/Israeli War"! I remember reading that as a kid. Whats funny is that right now Im trying to find quite a few books that I read when I was way younger. That is one Ill have to look for. We have one of the world's largest used bookstores here in Portland Oregon. Robert

Here is a little on the book,
link

Andrew Kempees. You may be interested in this thread if you may have missed it :),

TMP link
"WW2 vehicles in use past the war?"

I did not realize this thread was three years old until I got ready to reply.

‘The Third World War – August 1985' General Sir John Hackett and other Top-ranking NATO Generals and Advisors copyright, 1978.

Found a hard-back copy at a book sale for $1.00, just had to buy it. It has been close to twenty years since I read it last.

Although Macksey was writing in 1984, the 'tech level' of First Clash is directly translatable into the 1970s – NATO is working with Leopard 1 and M60 tanks, plus M113, TOW ATGMs, Blowpipe SAMs, M163 Vulcan ADA, M48 Chaparral SAMs, A-10s and unarmed OH-58 Kiowa scouts. The Soviets meanwhile I working with T-72 tanks (for which, read T-64), BMP-1s, BRDM-2s, Mi-1 'Hare' scouts and Mi-24 'Hind' gunships.

It's also interesting that both 'First Clash' and 'Chieftains', as well as some other lesser-known books, are set within the parameters of Hackett's overall WW3 scenario.

Funny story .. I read The Third World War by Hackett, I was working off some time for county (oops) ata recycling plant and they were keeping all the books that came in, when i was done with "my time" they said take what you want, and I zeroed in on that book imediatly, had not heard of it before but I already read Red Army by Peters, both great books.