Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/November 2022/Book reviews




 * By Nick-D

The 25th book in Osprey Publishing's 'Air Campaign' series covers the aerial aspects of the 1991 Gulf War. It was written by Richard P. Hallion, who has had a diverse career as a historian, academic and aviation museum professional.

This is rapidly becoming my favourite Osprey series, books like this being the reason why. Written by someone with expertise in the topic, it packs a lot of information into its 96 pages. Hallion provides a good account of the opposing forces and how the campaign played out. This includes good quality analysis of why the on-paper impressive Iraqi air defences were rapidly defeated, and how the coalition forces used air superiority to effectively win the war before the ground campaign began. A point made somewhat in passing that's relevant to recent events in Ukraine is Hallion's observation that the air campaign was effectively a test of late Cold War-era Western and Soviet technologies and doctrines, with Western aircraft and tactics proving far superior.

It's hard to fault this book, but the obvious thing to note is that the length is just too short to do this topic justice. Osprey really should allocate more pages if they're going to commission serious works like this one. The book is also not as well illustrated as most Osprey works.

Overall though, this is a very useful book that provides insights into late Cold War and modern aerial warfare.

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