Uniforms and Equipment of U.S. Army Infantry, Lrrps and Rangers in Vietnam 1965-1971 (Schiffer Military History) Hardcover – October 1, 1999

The wealth of knowledge poured into this book makes it an absolute must for anyone who wants to know what was the correct uniforms and equipment used by U.S. forces during Vietnam. The book breaks the different looks into eras of the war, mostly showing the changes year to year. Want to know what diffrences in uniforms and equipment there are between 1965 and 1970? It's in here. For a reenactor like myself, this book is essential. The pictures look to be other collectors, or reenactors wearing their gear for the camera. I'm glad the author did this. Instead of only refering to the mostly black and white pictures from the era, I can see the setups in vibrant color.

My reenacting group passes this book back and forth and it continually gets "borrowed" for long lenghts of time for research. Our impressions have improved dramatically and it is thanks to this book. If you are planning on entering the realm of Vietnam era collecting or reenacting, this book can help you avoid alot the scams of people mislabeling items as "authentic Vietnam era" and can help you decide what time period the items you do have fall under.

The purchase of this book and the assistance it has given me has prompted me to purchase the authors other book about the uniforms and equipment of advisors in Vietnam. I am anxiously awaiting it's arrival at my door.

It must have for those who enjoy reading about the Special Forces !!!

The cover of this book shows all soldiers wearing Tigerstripe uniforms, but inside, there are very few pictures of these uniforms, VERY MISLEADING.

This book should be titled, "The Plastic Spoon in Vietnam", in the first couple of pages, the author emphasizes the spoon in the pictures! Why??? (the spoon is inside the pockets of the uniforms). If the author only did this in ONE picture, then OK which was my reaction but in more & more pictures, no way!

Some of the photos show the male models wearing the uniforms that the author has collected, my problem is with some of the helmets, they look like toys, extremely bad helmets, the author should have put a kid under these helmets, not a grown man, and to make it worse, some of the helmet covers just do not look like they were from the Vietnam era.

The author shows US Army unit insignias, he compares actual US insignias from the Vietnam war with South Vietnamese made copies of the same insignias, and you can see the poor quality of the South Vietnamese made insignias, again, it is ok showing a couple of them but he shows a lot of these, no!

The cover for this book shows LRRP's/Rangers from the Vietnam War, which is VERY misleading, inside there are a couple of pictures of these soldiers but here comes the first problem, in a couple of pages, he REPEATS the same picture...one in color, the other in black & white, and he ONLY does this to the FEW pictures of LRRP's/Rangers. Another problem with the few pictures of these types of soldiers is that the photos show "ghosting" plus some of them show blurring/bad spots, why were these pictures put into the book, absolutely no quality control.

Another thing wrong with the book is the wasted pages showing the author in the US Army during the 80's/90's which has nothing to do with Vietnam. Why did he include these pictures?

The ONLY good part is that the author does show some photos of actual soldiers in Vietnam. (Most are posed with smiles)

This book is NOT recommended by me, the author wastes a lot of pages with bad pictures, the spoon, his time in the Army which was NOT during the Vietnam War.

Having devoured every article Mr. Miraldi has written for `Military Illustrated, Past & Present' I waited months in impatient anticipation when I discovered that he would author a book to be published by Schiffer, the renowned military publisher. Even the rather steep price did not deter me, however, when I finally received the book I found that my hard earned money might have been better spent elsewhere.
Mr. Miraldi seems to have fallen into the trap of over-expanding material to pad out the book. There are a number of faults with not only the material, but the layout of the book. Text referring to photographs often overlaps to following pages, requiring one to continually flip back a page to see what the text may be referring to. Considering the easily followed layout the author used in his magazine articles it is puzzling as to why he did not utilize it here as well.
Miraldi's heavy reliance on the works of Kevin Lyles and Shelby Stanton is evident in the material and confirmed by his footnotes, unfortunately he has opted not to expand on their work for the most part but merely emulate it using items from his own collection. He has borrowed Lyles' style of chronological depiction by year when I feel that if the content would have been more logically ordered by item type (eg. showing transition of the jungle fatigues from OG-107 to 1st, 2nd, 3rd OD then ERDLs.)
Many photographs are wasted. He has included individual close up photos of such inane items such as technical and field manuals, sewing kits, issue bibles - and even the back of a presentation plaque! It would have been better if several of these less important items were grouped together and all placed in one shot. The figure photos aren't all that much better. Some photos appear in different hues and would confuse the beginner collector. Many photos seem to have been done merely using a flash rather than professional lighting (the author even thanks a supermarket 1-hour photo stop in the credits!). Although this works for some photos this tends to create confusing hard shadow outlines and does not properly illuminate all areas of the uniform. Lyles' photos are superior.
Between Lyles and Miraldi, I think every permutation of VN webbing layout and OD uniform has been illustrated! There are some fanciful combinations - a LRP sporting a MP-40, a combat grenadier wearing camo shorts and if Miraldi and Lyles are to be believed, every pathfinder sported a radio and mike/headset and most grunts in 1971 had cut off sleeves and a `Peace' attitude!
There are too many shots of the one figure - an overall perspective can be done in 3 shots - ¾ left, ¾ right and rear. Lyles covered very adequately in 2 shots - Miraldi needed up to 5 shots in some cases! Some photos are even close to being duplicated. There were also too many detailed shots illustrating minor points or points done before. There were also too many individual photos of standard insignia. Insignia comprise part of the uniform but I felt there are already enough publications dealing with them and the photos should be focussed more towards uniforms and equipment. Miraldi has also included many period pictures, some of which are very good but a lot comprise `buddy' photos and contain very little information or show content which has been previously illustrated.
Unlike Lyles, who largely used pristine items, Miraldi has included some `salty' items which does not detract from the overall effect. However, I would have preferred that if he was going to take close-ups of uniform labels that he use mint examples as the faded condition of some of the tags render them close to illegible. Additionally, his examination of the different camouflage employed would have been more credible if he had used mint items for every pattern. I remain unconvinced of his argument of a `Transitional' versus `Brown Dominant' ERDL pattern on the basis that the `Brown Dominant' sample he illustrates looks merely like a faded `Transitional' pattern. At this point Miraldi also states that ALICE gear and `RDF' pattern camouflage were not used in Vietnam but he is only right to the extent in that they were not used in the period covered by his book. Some photos of operations `Eagle Claw' and `Frequent Wind' (the evacuations of Phnom Penh and Saigon respectively) quite clearly show a few US Marines wearing `RDF' pattern helmet covers, uniforms and sporting ALICE pouches.
The footnoting leaves something to be desired. In some cases the footnotes do not correspond to the correct chapters. In several instances the attributed author's name is spelt wrongly (`Lyels' rather than `Lyles') and to top it all off in one instance there is a remark, from the publisher to the author, asking for a missing footnote!
Some positive points must be noted however. I liked the period photos illustrating some uniform points. There were some truly interesting items - the mesh `Delta' boot (illustrated but not explained) and an intriguing ERDL ammunition vest. Unlike previous authors Miraldi also attempts to distinguish Vietnam-era from post-war items.
In conclusion, I would have to say I was disappointed with this book, especially after paying a premium price. It is definitely not a monument to the high standards I know both Schiffer Publishing and the author are capable of. Too much of the material has been duplicated in previous (and cheaper) texts and there is very little new information for the experienced Vietnam collector - I for one did not learn anything new. The author writes that he will be working on further books on the subject and I hope that his future efforts will not be padded out with superfluous material - and employ a proof reader! This book is suited more to those who are starting out in the Vietnam uniform collecting field and I would recommend that the experienced Vietnam collector has a thorough look through the book before committing to buying one.