Customer Reviews

Riverine: A Pictorial History of the Brown Water War in Vietnam - Specials series (6041)

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3 star:		(1)
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If you've ever seen the movie Apocalypse now, you have seen 1 of the many types of river books used by the US Navy for river warfare during the Vietnam war. As shown in the movie, these boats were used to try to stop Viet Cong from smuggling supplies to South Vietnam. There were plenty of ambushes and these small boats were very effective at their job. All of the boats had to have shallow drafts, many had a lot of fire power, but not so much protection.

The organization, equipment and territories that the river boats covered changed throughout the war. Keeping up with all that is very confusing - perhaps the authors should have tried for more of a visual depiction rather than trying to get it all into a 68 page book.

That's why I gave it three stars - by trying to cram so much into a small book, everyhing is tiny - the font size, photos, and it does not leave much room for the equipment used in almost a bewildering array of weapons, variations experiments.

This is a great introduction into the river warfare of the vietnam war. I'd recommend it to anyone who has an interest in this aspect of the vietnam war. I would have preferred more emphasis on the equipment, armor, and capabilities, but there are other readers out there who will be happy with more information on the unit organization, chain of command and structure.