ROLLING THUNDER: Jet Combat From WW II to the Gulf War [ILLUSTRATED] (Hardcover)

by Ivan Rendall (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Over the course of the last half-century, warfare has been completely transformed by jet aircraft and aerial combat. This is a tale that has been often told, but rarely as eloquently and insightfully as by RAF veteran Rendall (now a TV producer and writer). Working from the premise that jet-dominated Western war strategy may soon be eclipsed by computer-driven combat, Rendall evokes both the mystery and the power of the deadly but, for some, romantic airborne machines. (A jet fighter, he writes, is "like a stunningly beautiful and dangerous courtesan.") Rendall's vivid battles scenes, often reconstructed from original reports or testimony, are interspersed with knowledgeable technical discussions as he takes readers through 50 years of fighters, beginning with the Luftwaffe's Me 262s and the USAF's answering X-I (in which Chuck Yeager became the first pilot to fly faster than sound). He then surveys jet warfare in the Korean War, the early years of the Cold War and Operation Rolling Thunder, America's 1965 entry into the Vietnam War. Chapters on the wars in the Middle East and computerized aviation lead inexorably to the Gulf War, to which Rendall accords his authorial standing ovationAa response that aviation-loving readers will be happy to bestow on this book.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
In the last months of World War II, air combat saw the introduction of jet-powered fighters; from then on, with continuous improvements to airframe, components, and armament, air warfare's course to the present was set. Rendall, a writer and TV producer who served in the Royal Air Force, presents a thorough, straightforward history of his complex subject's trends and turning points that is well told, immediate, and nicely aimed at an aviation-related readership. Using the Korean, Vietnam, Israeli-Egyptian, Falklands, and Gulf War air actions, Rendall illustrates how having the edge in technology and training has produced battlefield success and speculates on the future of air combat, in which the fighter pilot, ironically, may be relegated to a "virtual" cockpit on the ground. A wide-ranging history; for public libraries and all military and aviation history collections.AMel D. Lane, Sacramento, CA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; 1st Printing edition (May 19, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684857804
• ISBN-13: 978-0684857800
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,492,116 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fascinating View of Air Warfare Development, July 25, 2003

By	C. Ryan (Winthrop, WA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book analyzes the evolution of jet air superiority warfare from the German Me-262 of 1944-45 through the mid-1990s. More than being a mere compilation of aircraft performance statistics, photographs and macho war stories (all of which are somewhat lacking), Rolling Thunder analyzes the major jet air superiority campaigns to date - late-WWII, Korea, Cold War bomber-intercept development, Vietnam, Israel's 1960s-80s conflicts, the Falklands, Desert Storm and post-Desert Storm in the Balkans and the Iraqi "no-fly zones".

I do NOT agree with other reviewers who compare it unfavorably to more narrowly focused books or complain about focus on the U.S. Air Force (there's a lot about German, British, Israeli and non-Western air forces) And let's face it: the U.S. Navy did not have good enough jets to maintain air superiority in Korea and in Desert Storm the Navy only downed two Iraqi jets compared to 30 for the USAF (and half of THOSE were accounted for by one unit!). The number of misspellings, typos and date errors is relatively minor and NOT distracting from the overall book quality.

Besides well-written complex narratives explaining how tactics and weapons use evolved over time, Rendall emphasizes the importance of human factors in achieving battlefield air superiority. While it's important to have the highest quality aircraft and weapons, it's still - to date, at least - pilot ability and tactical leadership make the ultimate difference. This is most strongly illustrated by Israel's ability on many occasions to establish air superiority - with air-to-air kill ratios of 50-to-1 - even with comparable aircraft and Britain eventually beating back Argentine aircraft that outnumbered them by more than 6-to-1.

One of Rendall's most thoughtful insights is the fundamental advantage of Western culture's celebration of individual excellence, competition and initiative. Non-Western air forces, most significantly the Soviet Union, relied heavily on central ground control of large numbers of aircraft and mediocre pilots rather than letting a small number of superior pilots and air warfare leaders act with individual initiative. Soviet training showed its spectacular weaknesses in the annihilation of its client states' air forces, most notably Egypt, Syria and Iraq.

There's a fascinating description of declining Soviet pilot skill levels during the 1970s-80s due to their leftwing obsession with a form of pilot "affirmative action". Rendall says that to ensure weaker pilots would not be "left behind", and thereby reflect badly on the pilot selection/training establishment, the Soviets systematically reduced pilot training standards. They had many outstanding pilots, but their average pilot skill level steadily declined even as their aircraft performance and weapons quality increased.

At the end of the book I understand how Western - especially American/Anglo - air forces came to dominate their actual and potential adversaries. However the incredible cost of developing and deploying new aircraft is almost beyond the range of even the United States - an F-80 cost $90,000 in 1946 and today's fighters can cost more than $30,000,000! And if the United States ever loses a couple of AWACS at the same time during combat the air battle will quickly descend into total confusion. Finally, Western air forces and other superior military capabilities have driven our adversaries to employ suicide bombers and other asymmetrical tactics not easily countered by conventional forces (Saddam Hussein is probably the only person in the world dumb enough to take on the U.S. armed forces (twice!))

I REALLY enjoyed this book and recommend in the highest possible terms to anyone interested in modern warfare, late-20th Century international conflicts and the history of technological development. Rolling Thunder's weakest point is its unfortunate title, which was the name of an air campaign that, despite pilot skill and gallantry, was notably ineffective while losing and resulted great aircraft and aircrew losses due to strategic, political and leadership flaws at the highest levels of the U.S. military and civilian government.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars a good single volume history of air combat tactics, June 15, 1999

By A Customer

This single volume history of air combat tactics since the advent of jets in World War II is a very good overview of the topic. The author, an RAF veteran, is conversant with the aircraft and the changes that jet technology caused in the arena of air combat. It is technical without being overly so, and there are excellent accounts of combat action, particularly in the sections on Korea and the Israeli wars. It is an excellent companion volume to Johnny Johnson's "Full Circle," (published around 1965) and Edward H. Sims's "Fighter Tactics and Strategies," (published in 1970), that deal with fighter aircraft combat. Mr. Rendall takes us to the Gulf War. This is the American edition of "Splash One," and has a few distracting typos. What I can't understand is why the publisher chose to use the name of an ill-managed and unsuccessful American bombing campaign in Vietnam as the title! Simply calling it "Jet Combat" would have been much better and far more accurate about the contents.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Of small value, superficial and inaccurate., August 5, 2000

By A Customer

Ivan Rendall is a British television producer and his book is as superficial, incomplete, inaccurate and misleading as his medium. Its real value is as a series of vignettes of various fighter engagements. Do not buy it as a history of "Jet Combat from World War II to the Gulf War." It isn't.

Rendall's work is so USAF-centric, and "pointy-nose" focussed it could have been written by the fighter desk of the USAF's Public Affairs Office. Thoroughly ignored is any aircraft bearing an "A" or "B" prefix even if it is a jet. In addition, aircraft bearing the markings "USN" or "USMC" are only mentioned grudgingly.

As a result a major piece of the history of "jet" combat in Korea is ignored, including the USN's and USMC's vital roles in providing effective close air support to prevent the collapse of the Pusan perimeter. Subsequent historial investigation has revealed USAF close air support to have been ineffective, with North Korea and Chinese survivors going so far as to state that they "feared the blue planes the most." This critical effort is instead coopted to USAF F-84s.

The tremendous contributions of A-4 and A-6 fliers in Vietnam are almost entirely ignored. So too AV-8B, A-7 and A-10 fliers in the Gulf War. To all appearances, only F-100s, F-105s, F-4s, F-111s fought in Vietnam, and F-117s F-15s and F-16s in the Gulf. The crucial role of USN F-8 squadrons in showing the way to the reinstitution of gunfighting and the formation of Top Gun during the lull in the Vietnamese air war is entirely absent. So too is any mention of the F-8's unrivaled kill ratio in that conflict. Instead, Rendall's only nod to the USN is to document Cunningham and Driscoll. One suspects that had they not been the very first aces of that war, they too would have been ignored.

The two Gulf of Sidra incidents, and Operations Eldorado Canyon and Praying Mantis are not even mentioned.

His understanding of electronic warfare and precision munitions is pathetically bad. Once again he is blindly USAF-centric, laboring under the misconception that the E-3 and the E-8 are the sole hubs of the constellation of aircraft involved in electronic missions. His descriptions of precision weapons' guidance are very poor and misleading. His description of Gulf War Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses is particularly bad, and displays an ignorance of the geography, the weapons' capabilities and the techniques employed.

Once again he utterly misses the contribution of the USN, which provided better than half of the SEAD sorties that destroyed Iraq's air defense systems, and misattributes USN SEAD tactics to USAF aircraft.

The proof of the work's superficiality lies in the bibliography, which reads--with few exceptions--like a listing of works on jets which were available at Rendall's corner bookstore. His writing is almost exclusively from secondary sources and "picture books."

If you're interested in Vietnam jet combat, buy Michel's "Clashes," Tillman's "MiG Master," and Nichols and Tillman's "On Yankee Station." The last is listed in Rendall's bibliography, but he appears not to have read it (Cunningham and Driscoll's exploits excepted). For the Gulf War, I recommend Murray's "Air War in the Persian Gulf" and Friedman's "Desert Victory."