Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/June 2021/Book reviews




 * By Nick-D

This very large book is one of the works published to mark the centenary of the Royal Australian Air Force. It provides a short history of each of the large range of aircraft types to have been used by the RAAF, organised by their serial number. I usually read books I review here from cover to cover, but haven't done so here. It would be physically difficult to do so given how chunky the book's 610 pages are (which apparently weigh in at 2.19 kg), and it's not really the point of the volume given that it's a reference work.

A range of similar books on aircraft operated by the RAAF have been published over the years, most notably Stewart Wilson's 1990s-era  Military Aircraft of Australia and books on trios of particularly noteworthy types. The RAAF Museum's website used to also have a summary of the service history of each aircraft type, and www.adf-serials.com.au is very useful but possibly not a reliable source for Wikipedia's purposes. This impressive book surpasses these efforts, and brings the story up to date.

The breadth of the book is very striking. Even the most obscure aircraft types get at least a page, and most get at least two. Types operated in large numbers or whose service was particularly noteworthy get quite detailed treatment. Each entry provides a summary of the development of the aircraft and its technical specification, how the RAAF acquired the type, and their history in RAAF service. Most entries are well researched, and include interesting facts I haven't seen elsewhere. While this is essentially an official RAAF work, it isn't an exercise in boosterism and many of the entries include some sharp criticism of the suitability of aircraft or how they were used.

The main limitation of the book is that it appears to have been written by a great many authors. As a result, there are some inconsistencies in style between entries, and the quality of some is disappointing. It was concerning that the entry on the F/A-18 Hornet included a fair bit of text taken from our McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet in Australian service article, but I didn't spot similar issues in any of the other entries on aircraft covered by 'in Australian service' articles. Tighter editing would have helped here.

In summary, this is a very useful book which deserves a (large and suitably reinforced) place on the bookshelves of anyone interested in Australian military aviation.

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 * By Hawkeye7

Back in 2012 I reviewed another book on mission command, Transforming Command: The Pursuit of Mission Command in the U.S., British and Israeli Armies (2011). It chronicled how the US Army managed to make the concept incomprehensible, and how the Israelis, while starting from a position that they already practised mission command, gradually backed away from it. In that review I wrote: "Mission command - yes, we have an article on the topic, it just isn't very good - is a concept long associated with the German Army, which calls it Auftragstaktik. Put simply, mission command is a style of command whereby the commander gives a statement of intent, and subordinates conform to that. An army employing mission command is theoretically capable of responding to the changing circumstances of a battle very rapidly, as no time is required for orders to be passed up and down the chain of command."

(It will probably come as little or no surprise that the article has not been improved much in nearly ten years despite . The title has been lower-cased though.)

This book is an anthology that chronicles the Australian Army's experience with mission command. The chapters are arranged chronologically, starting with one on the Great War by Peter Pedersen. It is followed by one on the Second World War by Peter Dean and the Korean War by Meghan Fitzpatrick (the choice of a Canadian historian here is inspired). Starting with Bob Hall's chapter on Vietnam, the book seamlessly switches gears from historians to veterans (Bob Hall and John Blaxland being both). Hall personally moves from the historian's perspective in mid-chapter to that of the platoon commander he once was. Thereafter, accounts draw on personal experiences.

Each chapter deals with the concept in its own way, and from its own perspective. Those familiar with the style of writing of other armies may find the approach of the Australians to be unusually blunt and confronting. "Our doctrine needs work" is the conclusion of one (p. 365); it is clear that the concept of mission command is not yet clearly understood. An interesting observation is that the Australian Army lacks the vocabulary to engage in discussions of doctrine. The difference between mission command and hands-off command is frequently misunderstood. Others detail long lists of deficiencies, supported by first-hand accounts.

While I'm not recommending this book for the general reader, it belongs on the Chief of Army's list.

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 * By Hawkeye7

It's hard to imagine any discussion of nuclear weapons without the word "secret" coming up at some point. Indeed, the advent of nuclear weapons created the security regime that, in the United States at least, remains with us today. This book chronicles how it all came about. It's a history of the atomic age, but with a difference. It is often said that secrecy is incompatible with a free society, and with science. Neither is actually true. For all their talk about sharing information, scientists also partake in secrecy to protect the primacy of their work, because there is neither fame nor fortune in being the second to discover something.

Alex Wellerstein is a professor of Science and Technology Studies at the Stevens Institute of Technology. His passion is nuclear secrecy - the cloak of secrecy that surrounds the design, development and history of nuclear weapons. This was the subject of his doctoral. That it took ten years to appear in book form makes me feel a little better about mine. Like many before and since, he has been intrigued and captivated by the mysterious world of the nuclear arsenal. This passion comes across in his engaging prose, familiar to readers of his blog, which is a good port of call for all the latest information on nuclear technology. One can obtain a security clearance and enter the mysterious world, but once you do that the mystery becomes a secret, and you can't tell anyone.

This book explains why the secrecy is fundamentally flawed, but also how and why it still carries on regardless, cognisant of its own contradictions. Wellerstein examines the impact of security, but it remains elusive and hard to pin down. Did espionage and security breaches help the Soviet Union and other nations like India and Israel develop their own nuclear weapons? Certainly; but the extent of the impact is hard to measure. This book provides a roller coaster ride through three quarters of a century of security that many will find interesting, engaging and entertaining.

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Various recent works