Customer Reviews

Special Warfare Special Weapons; The Arms and Equipment of the UDT and Seals from 1943 to the Present (v1)

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Kevin Dockery, an expert in SEALS history, has given us the unique opportunity to visit the elite's weaponry which has been kept in the dark. Anyone interested in reading the increasingly growing SEALS material, will definitely enjoy this book. It places the SEALS weapons consonant to what is mentioned in the books. This weapons encyclopedia clears a fog existing in the elite's pocketbooks that are available to us through amazon.com. Kevin is without questions, the master writer and a knowledgeable historian in elite's forces belic activities. I am always looking forward to his books. P. Mendez, Jr., MD

What a great book! Excellant pics, history of rare and classified weapons up to heavy weapons. Downside, needs book volume 2 on grenade launchers, machineguns and sniper weapons. SEALs used very unique weapons IE: Stoner 63s, Chopped M-60s, experimental grenade launchers and unique sniper stuff that a book series like this would be great!! Still, this books is a great addition to anyone's library on SEALs and Spec Ops.

Received my book a few days ago and am very pleased with it. The author does an excellent job of explaining the uses of various weapons, their strengths and weaknesses, popularity, etc. He explains their parts and operating systems in a way that a layman can understand. Lots of rare photographs add a lot to the text, although some of them are too dark to notice many of the details the author points out. One thing I particularly appreciated are the quotes throughout the book from actual SEALs who commented on the weapons.

My only complaint, and it isn't really even a complaint, is that it's a bit thin. The author did an excellent job discussing the most mission critical gear, but I feel that some was left out as well. As another reviewer said, there are no real Machine guns or sniper rifles listed. I can understand leaving machine guns out since they weren't usually SEAL specific, but MG's like the Stoner system and specialized M60 variants should have been added, in my opinion, along with a few sniper rifles.

Another interesting topic, which I can see the reasons behind being left out, is explosives. Since it is the backbone of the SEAL/UDT teams operations, I would have liked at least a cursory mention of them.

Overall, still an excellent book. I just feel it could have been expanded on.

Dockery's book concerning the special weapons used by SEALs is truly remarkable. Quality photos and informative texts will please all interested in this branch of the military.

Although the book deals with a lot of weapons, yet sniper rifles, explosive charges and machine guns (M63, M60E3, M249) are not dealt in this book in detail. That's a shame, since these weapons are IMHO an important difference between a special operative and your regular grunt. No doubt one could fill a second volume with it. Also special warfare usually requires (besides execellent training of body and mind) special equipment, which again makes the difference, but this could be beyond the scope of this fine work.

One thing that I noticed, when Dockery explains the operational history of the M4 (rifle) with M203 (grenade launcher), he tells us that this is a very popular combination with the teams and under the right circumstances whole squads have been armed with the M4/M203, yet he doesn't show us a photo of this weapon. That's odd.

I would like to stress one more time that the book is very good in showing which weapons where used when, and how the special weapons evolved through time. This is unique and I encourage Dockery to write a second, just as outstanding, volume to fill in the gaps.

Mr. Dockery has a great deal of experience with special weapons, and has also done a great deal of reserch in the weapons which ranges from hands on experience, the storage rooms of armorys and museums, and first hand input from the manufacturers themselves.

I myself questioned what I thought could be the breadth of Mr. Dockery's information, and then discovered from dealings with him that he is certainly the best I have seen on identification, history, and knowledge of the weapons.