Mr Bob Forrest-WebbChieftains

Though the Cold War ended some 25 years ago, there is both entertainment, scholarly, and personal value in reading novels from this era. The classic may arguable be Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising, but there are several others by other authors such as Harold Coyle.Why read these? First, it puts into some perspective the “War on Terror”. Current politicians will have you believe that this conflict is the gravest the US and the West has ever faced. Oh, how their memories are selective! Never in history has such a “global” conflict threatened so little.Chieftain is one of many novels that emphasize this – unintentionally. The combined US losses in Iraq and Afghanistan, KIA, from 2001 to present are in the 7000 area. World War 3 novels don’t provide any casualty figures, but you can guess from the action that 7000 is about an hour’s fighting along the German front. These novels essentially portray brigades being wiped out within one or two days of combat; a believable figure given that the Hot War would have involved upwards of one to two million soldiers on each side in the first days of the conflict. This doesn’t include losses to strategic strikes, the war at sea, and any anti-civilian attacks.This novel, Chieftain, however, while accomplishing the goal of demonstrating how terrible for both sides World War 3 would have been, suffers from some significant flaws which suggest in some ways that it both needed a better editor, a bit more drafting, and updating.First, while it is called “Chieftain” only about half of the novel concerns anyone involved with these British tanks. There is a side story about a rear-area Scimitar unit, an M1 Abrams unit (bizarrely called X1 Abrams), and even random “scenes” of senior commanders. The book would have definitely benefitted from sticking with a core set of characters in a Chieftain brigade.Moreover, several of the storylines sort of start and then never finish – such as the Abrams one. Background stories rambled on too long; ok, sure, Sergeant so-and-so has a girlfriend, private so-and-so joined the army after a tough youth, etc. This could be explained in a paragraph or two, not 3-4 pages in the middle of the “battle” action.I was not a tanker, but from what I can tell the tactical aspects of the battles were fine. The novel suggests that NATO would have had a distinct defensive advantage, which is a reasonable guess.**spoiler alert** Eventually the novel breaks down into unconventional warfare and ends abruptly. Here, it might have benefitted from returning to one of the characters who was far behind the lines, so he could “narrate” what had happened.Realistically, however, it isn’t clear how a general East-War would not have devolved into a full-scale nuclear war. The two scenarios were surprise massive-launch and gradual escalation as part of a conventional conflict. This novel like others cover the latter. Films such as By Dawn’s Early Light, War Games, and The Day After present nuclear war as sudden, no-warning conflict.Here again, for the most part, this is not something we have to worry about in the GWOT – and we should be thankful rather than rail about how our civilization is on the verge of extinction.Liam H Dooleywww.liamhdooley.com

This book disappoints in a number of ways: First of all it proceeds from the somewhat "the sky is falling" scenario of an 80's era war between the USSR and NATO as rather infamously sketched by John Hackett, a retired British General officer who ended his career with a war scare book of scenarios for a successful Warsaw Pact attack on Western Europe.What Hackett and Bob Forrest-Webb - the author of this book failed to account for was the growing technological advantage possessed by NATO vis-a-vis the USSR at war's supposed outbreak. The Chieftain, the M1 Abrams and the Leopard all had significant advantages over their cold war contemporaries from the Warsaw Pact, many of whose national armies operated Korean War vintage T55's. Likewise, American, British and French air forces had considerable advantages in both technology and training. War, in the end, was avoided because the USSR recognised that the bulk of the Warsaw Pact was best suited for keeping its constituent nations under control, not for an all out war against a united Europe and America. Such a war could only end in an escalation to a self-defeating deployment of NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical) weapons.Besides numerous technical errors (mis-named and sometimes never deployed weapons systems, like the Rockwell XFV-12), the book, especially the first half, is confusingly written with indistinguishable characterisations, confused motivations and little technical insight. While it steadies down to a single "lead" character late in the book, as a whole the book provides little insight into the causes, conduct or technology of war, and instead follows Hackett's banal and predictable formula for an inevitable NATO loss to a monolithic Warsaw Pact on an NBC strewn battlefield.Another reviewer said: "This is like an outline of a story that was submitted by a publishing house and sold." I can't help but agree. Several others compare it to "Team Yankee" by Harold Coyle, a far better book also relating to Hackett's prognostications. Coyle is a far more competent author, and Team Yankee a far better written novel.The book ends with a bang - literally - as the USSR, which was winning the war, suddenly and without explanation begins use of tactical nuclear weapons. The first such explosion is described and the book quite suddenly and without explanation ends. All and all this inexplicably sudden ending represents not a fit ending for a sad book, but the sadly ineffective writing of an only marginally competent author.

I just finished reading it this afternoon and (beware this contains spoilers) I must say it is one of the most depressing books I have ever read. Hated the ending, hated the fact that most if not all of the main characters died, at least some should have survived. I could take a couple dying but every character you get attached to getting killed is too much to take. I don't recommend this book to anyone for the reason that it is so severely depressing. I wish I had never read it. That said it has a decent plot and I really did get into it for sure but found several mistakes regarding the American side of things such as him saying an Abrams tank had a 25mm Bushmaster chain gun in addition to its main gun which I know to not be true, it just had machine guns in addition to the main gun. That's just one example. I could overlook the American mistakes were it not so damned depressing. I had no problem with Ralph Peters's 'Red Army' and thoroughly enjoyed it even the ending where NATO lost and the Warsaw Pact won. At least everyone didn't get killed. In sum I cannot recommend this book to anyone because I would feel guilty that I was leading them into something that would make them terribly sad and depressed. I can't stop thinking about this book and I wish I had never read it.

Between Red Army's chilling (if implausible) account of a hydra-headed Soviet juggernaut and Team Yankee's somewhat implausible accounts of AMERICA WHOOO! rampages through Soviet armour, Chieftain's is probably one of the most tactically plausible books written about a cold-war-gone-hot scenario.It depicts Western forces beaten, falling back, units destroyed, people taken prisoner and subject to interrogation. It depicts casualties to silly accidents as well as enemy fire, as well as the thoroughly brutal nature of mechanised warfare. It also depicts the Soviets as beatable, as capable of being stopped, as both fallible and clever, dangerous opponents. It also has a realistic depiction of escalation to NBC warfare.The book, sadly, ends rather strangely and abruptly, making it almost an inverse of Ralph Peter's Red Army in that it is a less-compelling human story, but a better war story.

This book treats the Soviet attack with a bit more respect than Team Yankee. The early chapters, with Nato forces falling back in an attempt to slow the Soviet juggernaut, has a ring of authenticity. However, this is thrown away in the laughable chapter where the tortured British officer goes full Rambo on a whole troop of Soviets. I could not believe that the book had done such a complete 180 spin and thought I must be misreading it...but sadly not. Utter nonsense from a book that made such a good start.

Chieftans is a speculative fiction piece on the Cold War going hot in 1985. It was written in the early 1980s and hasn’t dated well. Like Game of Thrones everyone dies, but in less interesting and more predictable ways.There are good points to Chieftans. For the most part the characters are believable and likeable. Bob Forrest-Webb clearly has done his research, and understands British Army soldiers and officers. That aspect of the book was excellent. One of things that didn’t quite work for me though was that the book was clearly researched/written about four or five years before it was set (it was first published in 1982). This means that some of the kit wasn’t deployed, or had its name/designation changed on deployment. There was also an aspect that kit works better in the brochure than it does in the field. I was a teenager in 1985 and was trained by the British Army a few years later in some of the kit being written about. So I found it a little hard to suspend disbelief in places.That said, it works well as a very personal account of life at the sharp end. Research from WW2 experiences are extrapolated onto the mid 1980s. Some of this results in a couple of anachronistic bits of dialogue, something most folk won’t notice. There are references to getting a wound stripe (not since WW2), and a threat to put someone on a fizzer (valid 1940s/1950s). There’s also the promotion of the troop sergeant to WO1 to command the troop, there was a WW2 practice early on of using warrant officers in place of junior officers, however it was discontinued early on. Other than that the dialogue fits my own experience with British soldiers.The battles are seen mostly from the perspectives of a single Chieftan tank crew, although their CO features a bit, as does a stay-behind unit and an American Abrams crew. There are errors as well as smooth operation, most of the viewpoint deaths happen through mistakes and/or bad luck. Although I found the Warsaw Pact artillery taking out tanks with indirect fire to be rather too effective. Short barrages seem to knock out entire squadrons, admittedly direct hits should have that effect, but a divisional artillery stonk shouldn’t be that effective on armour.Given the publication date, and the focus on the soldiers at the very front, the book is a clear product of the times. The Soviets are clearly the bad guys. They start the war (not explained how, but it doesn’t need to). They use chemical weapons to unlodge defensive positions. Then, when the main characters unit repulses the Soviet advance on day 3, they use tactical nukes. The Chieftan crew aren’t explicitly killed, but the way it is left they’re only seconds away from it. Even though the Chieftan survives the blast, it catches fire.

This book was ok, a work of fiction for sure but it almost bordered on fantasy, propaganda/disinformation.A copy of Janes Defence weekly would have been beneficial, but sadly research evaded the author.The plot was good but the execution was poor, just as it got to the good plot device, everyone died.It was like the author had an urgent dental appointment, and needed to finish the book and get out the door.I was disappointed, this could have been an epic.

This is a a work of fiction written in the early 1980's, a time of straightened finances, high drama in Cold War relations and deep, deep cuts in the defence budgets. If you might remember, John Nott was sometimes referred to as "The Mad Axeman". The plot consists mainly, but not exclusively, of following the fortunes of a Chieftain tank crew during a full-on invasion of Western Germany by the Warsaw pact. It's all very exciting, if somewhat pessimistic, stuff. The book ends oddly almost as if the author got fed-up writing, or as though he'd dug himself such a deep hole there was no way to continue. A quite unsatisfactory end in my view. Worth the read nevertheless.