RogerBW's Blog

Twilight 2000: Survivors' Guide to the United Kingdom 03 November 2020 - 6 comments

This 1990 RPG supplement by Peter Phillipps portrays a Britain after World War III. Well. Up to a point. It is a famously bad book.

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Viper Strike, Keith Douglass 08 August 2016

1991 military fiction; second in the Carrier series. A complex plot sees Burmese, Thai and Chinese renegades orchestrating a breakup of SEATO for purposes unclear at first. Carrier Battle Group 14 is going to get caught in the middle.

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Carrier, Keith Douglass 04 August 2016

1991 military fiction; first in the Carrier series. An American intelligence ship and her crew vanish on the high seas; the North Koreans admit nothing. Carrier Battle Group 14 is sent in to get them out.

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Afterburn, Keith Douglass 24 October 2015 - 4 comments

1996 alternate-world military fiction; seventh in the Carrier series. "Tombstone" Magruder is still CAG aboard USS Thomas Jefferson, which is sent to the Black Sea for peacekeeping operations in the context of the ongoing Russian civil war.

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The Loss of K-219 02 December 2014 - 3 comments

The Soviet ballistic missile submarine K-219 suffered an accident in the Atlantic, and later sank, in October 1986.

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Lockheed D-21 22 October 2014

The D-21 was a supersonic reconnaissance drone used briefly in the 1960s and 1970s.

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One Hundred Days, Admiral Sandy Woodward and Patrick Robinson 16 July 2014 - 2 comments

In 1982 Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands; a Royal Navy task group was sent to take them back. This is the memoir of the task group's commander.

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Red Army, Ralph Peters 27 June 2014 - 1 comment

The invasion of Europe, seen entirely from the Soviet point of view.

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HMAS Melbourne 20 June 2014 - 3 comments

HMAS Melbourne was the Royal Australian Navy's last aircraft carrier (to date).

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Trinity's Child, William Prochnau 15 June 2014 - 2 comments

The USSR launches a limited nuclear strike against the USA. Things get worse.

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The Third World War: The Untold Story, General Sir John Hackett 06 June 2014 - 5 comments

Some time in the 1980s, the USSR invades Europe.

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Red Storm Rising, Tom Clancy (and Larry Bond) 30 May 2014 - 2 comments

Some time in the 1980s, a terrorist attack on oil infrastructure leads the USSR to invade Europe.

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Northrop YF-23 24 May 2014 - 2 comments

The YF-23 was a prototype that competed against the Lockheed YF-22 to become the USAF's Advanced Tactical Fighter in the 1990s; the Lockheed plane won.

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Yakovlev Yak-38 11 May 2014 - 9 comments

The Yak-38 (NATO reporting name "Forger") was the Soviet carrier-borne fixed-wing aircraft of the Cold War.

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Lockheed XV-4 Hummingbird 03 May 2014 - 2 comments

The XV-4 was a prototype V/STOL aircraft built for the US Army.

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Northrop Flying Wings 27 April 2014

The YB-35 and YB-49 were flying-wing bomber prototypes built during and in the wake of the Second World War.

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Martin P6M SeaMaster 21 April 2014 - 2 comments

The SeaMaster was to be a flying-boat strategic bomber for the U.S. Navy.

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North American XB-70 Valkyrie 15 April 2014 - 2 comments

Yeah, I pretty much have to do this one, don't I? The Valkyrie was to be a Mach 3 high-altitude nuclear bomber.

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North American A-5 Vigilante 07 April 2014

The Vigilante was a carrier-borne supersonic bomber.

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Armageddon Mode, Keith Douglass 05 April 2014 - 3 comments

Third in the Carrier series. "Tombstone" Magruder is a naval aviator aboard a Nimitz-class carrier, as the USA gets involved in a major conflict with India.

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BAC TSR-2 03 April 2014 - 8 comments

The TSR-2 was to be a highly capable low-and-fast bomber and reconnaissance aircraft. It was famously cancelled in 1965.

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McDonnell Douglas A-12 Avenger II 31 March 2014

Not the ancestor of what would become the SR-71, this A-12 was to be the US Navy's very own stealth bomber.

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Tailsitters 28 March 2014 - 2 comments

One of the desiderata of an air defence system is to put defending fighters close to the high-value targets. That way they don't get decoyed away by diversionary attacks, giving the enemy bombers a clear run, because they're dedicated to protecting a specific target; nor do they need massive endurance (adding to weight), if they don't need to make long-distance flights.

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Time to declare a new wargaming period 25 March 2014 - 8 comments

For convenience, wargamers tend to split history into periods with broadly similar weapons and tactics.

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Vought F7U Cutlass 22 March 2014

The Cutlass was a high-subsonic carrier-borne fighter, flying off Essex and Midway-class carriers.

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The Last Ship, William Brinkley 18 March 2014 - 3 comments

After the total nuclear war, the captain of a missile destroyer leads his crew through the irradiated world and towards a new life.

I am going to talk about plot details, so if you care about not knowing that sort of thing you probably shouldn't read this review.

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American Parasite Fighters 14 March 2014 - 2 comments

One of the great scars on the American military-aviation psyche was the unescorted bomber. As the men who'd been on the front lines during the Second World War became the leaders of the Air Force, they tried to do something about it.

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Convair B-58 Hustler 11 March 2014 - 6 comments

The Hustler was not just the first aircraft to be named after a pornographic magazine (this is a lie, it first flew nearly twenty years before that was thought of), it was the world's first operational supersonic bomber.

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Convair B-36 Peacemaker 08 March 2014 - 2 comments

The Peacemaker was the world's first intercontinental bomber, and the largest mass-produced piston-engined aircraft ever built.

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