Customer Reviews

Every Man a Tiger: The Gulf War Air Campaign (Study in Command)

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Clancy really did a good job with this book. I have also read the first book in this new series he is putting out "Into the Storm - A Study in Command" and I have to say that this book is much better. One would think that as it is the second book, maybe he learned how to put together a non-fiction story in a more readable and interesting way or maybe the co-author was just a better writer. Clancy has teamed up with the General that was in charge of the air war in the Gulf War, and has a done himself a favor getting someone as inteligent and engaging to work with.

The book is basically three parts, the first section talks about the Generals career in the Air Force, the Air Force development from Viet Nam to the Gulf War and a touch of the politics involved within the different military branches. The second section of the book deals with the build up to the air war. The final section deals with the air war both the stand-alone part and as a joint effort with the ground war.

The author does not give you an action packed, inside the cockpit type of story. What we do get is the process for building up the forces, developing a plan, working with the other countries and military forces and finally the execution of the plan. I found the discussions of target selection and the relationship between the air and ground element to be the most interesting. Overall this is a well-written and constructed book. It has a lot of value if you are interested in the Gulf War or just how current U.S. battles are planned and fought. From watching the nightly news you can see that many of the same processes and tactics discussed in this book were used with the current U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan

General Chuck Horner, with the writing help of Tom Clancy, crafted a wonderful book that tells the story of how to organize, equip, deploy and employ massive yet diverse airpower during the Gulf War in 1990-1991.

There are three parts and fifteen chapters in this book. The first third focuses on the past (1960-1989) for Chuck Horner and America's Air Force before Desert Shield. The focus is on the unique climate amongst pilots, especially fighter pilots (Horner's primary skill set) and the entire aviation community. The emphasis Horner places on teamwork is striking, and shows the importance of every airman who contributes to launching and aircraft and its payload down the runway and into the skies. This part of the book also describes the strategic vision of Air Force leaders in the 1970's as they sought to apply the lessons learned from the Vietnam War, and reemerge from the post war malaise as a coherent fighting organization.

Throughout the first part are snapshots of what Horner was trying to create in the chaos that followed the Presidential decision to reinforce Saudi Arabia to deter further Iraqi aggression and finally expel Iraq from Kuwait. Horner, who became Commander in Chief, Central Command (Forward) CINCCENTFWD noted that everywhere he initially went, the staffs' "efforts lacked order and focus...missing essential details such as basing logistics and sortie rates." Horner's essential task was to understand the intent of General Schwarzkopf and the National Command Authority, and to focus the effort of the CENTCOM team to deploy and employ forces in a logical way that would accomplish the national strategic goals. In short, Horner had to translate strategic guidance into operational constructs that would provide specific guidance for tactical commanders while simultaneously forcing them to address and crack the individual nuts.

The second part of the book focuses on the CENTCOMFWD role in building and fighting the "halt phase" of the Gulf War. Everything from the tyranny of time, to building a coalition with forces of dissimilar training and equipment is covered. Of greatest interest, though, is the building of the plan for executing the war against Iraqi forces. The original genesis of the plan as a result of CENTCOM's Internal Look exercise and Gen Horner's discussion of airpower with Gen Schwarzkopf are covered. How to integrate Marine Corps air assets is covered. The transfer of the CHECKMATE plan to CENTCOM was problematic due to the clash of personalities, but ultimately worked. The influence of Clausewitz is everywhere evident in the planning phase-how to measure the will of the enemy, the simple things are hard, etc. Finally, the translation of all this down to sortie rates and targeting processes is covered in great detail, suggesting that General Horner was one tired man by the end of Desert Storm.

The last part of the book details the actions during the attack phase, "Desert Storm." Every detail from bridge busting, and artillery and tank killing, to SCUD chasing and sustaining sortie rates is covered. The assessment piece of the targeting cycle is criticized, but air based assessment is never as accurate as ground based assessment (but ground assessment is much riskier-everything has its tradeoffs). The integration of tactical air control parties with flanking units is discussed in detail. Lastly psychological operations are discussed, and Gen Horner candidly admits that it is very difficult to measure the effectiveness of operations aimed at psychologically disabling the enemy.

General Horner's bottom line, perhaps, is that "the impact of airpower on the enemy was underestimated, and the ability of airpower to destroy a deployed enemy was overestimated." If you want to understand how a modern air campaign is embedded into an overall campaign plan, Every Man a Tiger is a must read.

This is an excellent book. Both the first half, describing the life and career of General Horner, and the second half, detailing the planning and execution of the war in the gulf are engrossing and kept me reading. This book gives a good look at how a theater-level conflict is planned and the many parties that are involved.

I would highly reccomend this to anybody who has an interest in the U.S. Air Force or national security strategy.

I worked for Gen Horner during most of his time as Commander of Ninth Air Force/USCENTAF. I also deployed with him to Riyadh during Desert Storm. I can tell you that everything Gen Horner says is right on track, and that Gen Horner the person is as honest as the day is long.

I enjoyed this book. Gave great and compassionate insight on inner workings of Desert Storm and USAF. Gen. Horner is someone I would have loved to serve under, tough but unbelievable compassion and dedication to the task set before him. Very enjoyable and captivating read.

If you are looking for a Jack Ryan techno-adventure, this ain't for you, bucko. Other reviewers seem to have failed to look at what they bought. Like Clancy's book with Fred Franks about the US Army, this one looks at the 20 years during which the US Air Force stumbled out of Viet Nam and re-created itself into a winning military force. Yeah, Iraq wasn't the Soviet Union, but they used their weapons and, most importantly, their tactics. This behind the scenes look shows that what George Marshall said 60 years ago is still true, "The plan is nothing - planning is everything." This book peers into the plans, means, and methods of modern air war. Read it with that in mind, not Jack Ryan, and you'll be glad you did.

From brilliant action depictions to incredibly boring statistics that do nothing for the overall history. Far from being Clancy's best work, this book intends to put general Horner as the guy with all the solutions, while his own boss (Schwarkopf)and his peers from the other armed branches are simple spectators to his great air show. Granted, Horner will go in history as the commander of one of the most effective air assaults ever witnessed by human kind and beyond a doubt will be held as one of the responsible for giving air power the predominance it enjoys now; however the cult to his personality is excessive while his mistakes are minimized. Sometimes is not easy to ignore Clancy's strong bias, which are tolerable in his fiction works but have no place on historical accounts. This book will go into the shelves to stay there, collecting dust along with the mediocre OpCenter series

While I was in the Air Force during Desert Shield, Desert Storm and some of the follow-on actions, I never got close to the action (I did long-range research). Although I went to as many of the classified briefings (a bit more graphic than CNN) about air war progress as I could, there was no way to convey the enormity of the task that Gen. Horner was given. More than anything, this book gave me much insight into the "other" Air Force that I rarely saw: the combat units.

I have a much better appreciation now for what the folks in those positions faced, and why the majority of generals MUST be pilots. I am still amazed that the coalition Air Forces maintained the pace they did for so long.

One things I had hoped for, and missed, was some serious comment on the real Patriot intercept rate and more information on all the rumors we heard about incredible stories of shot-up aircraft returning to their bases, having survived much more than their designers expected them to.

Though the high-level activities and maneuverings were very interesting, I was most interested in his recountings of actual bits of the war itself, at the pilot level. In the end, I lost a lot of respect for Gen. Schwarzkopf (sp?) and his ego regarding ground force targetting, but I gained admiration for our fighting air forces.

A very good read for Air Force and Gulf War afficianados.

Clancy and Horner have done an excellent job in portraying the USAF from the depths of Vietnam to the glory of Desert Storm. Horner's final thoughts make the reader understand the work done to hold a Coalition together. This book also sits well with the fact that it is not at all too technical, and does not leave the reader scratching his/her head.

I've read other negative reviews on this book but it was definitely worth the read, and I'd highly suggest it to anyone in the armed forces or anyone intrigued by their inner workings. I doubt someone with little interest in the Air Force would really get much out of this book but, like I said, if you are in the armed forces you'll love it and it'll make a lot of sense to you.