Interest check-- Red Storm Rising/ NATO vs. Pact GB

Dragon gunners actually practised on motorized Tamiya Shermans which were set in motion on the chow hall floor. Guess who built the model tanks?

Heh.. Yepper.. I'm guessing you did, lol.. I did the same thing for my unit, although I didn't motorize anything.. I built a fair number of kits for ID models so the guys wouldn't keep boloing the "Indentify FriendlyThreat Armored Vehicles and Aircraft" portions of the CTT (Common Task Test)...  The flash cards just didn't cut it, (although I still have a couple decks of those aircraft ID playing cards)... 

That was about the only time I built any models of  jets that were operational after 1960, lol...

I had the models on display in the Day Room where it was easy to look 'em over at one's leisure, but nobody ever paid attention to them until the day before and of the CTT, lol...

Whoa...sorry I haven't been by, but I thought this idea had died with a thud...the thread was up for days with no replies.

I'm going to light this candle as the Red Storm Rising 25th Anniversary Group Build. Will post the thread tomorrow or Saturday. Oh, and I went by the LHS and ordered the Airfix HMS Trafalgar today. She'll be built as HMS Torbay, of course.

Color me interested.  Gives me a good reason to build those DML tanks that are sitting on the shelf.

Jim

DISCLAIMER: For anyone take the last remark I made as an invite to "go political", let me start by saying, DON'T...

It was a reference to the state of US Military Readiness and Training at the time during it's transition from a conscript military to an all-volunteer military...  If you want to comment from an "educated point of view" (meaning you had to be a member of the US Military before, during, and/or shortly after the Carter Administration) fine, but it wasn't a window for political discourse...

I've gone though 3 of the Red Storm Raising books, no telling how many time's I've read it,  and now that you've brought it up I want to read it again.

One of the way I read it, after reading my copy almost to point of destruction, was to read it by location... Once thing started happening, I'd read starting at say, like, "USS Whatever", then just read only the parts that took place on that ship... Then I'd go back and start at another place, and just read that , then go back to Keflavik, then just read that, etc, etc, etc... It was like reading a bunch of short stories that way...

We were ready for Korea in '76..

Heh.. I was three weeks into Basic Combat Training at Ft Leonard Wood when those "Ax Murders" happened that year up on the Korean DMZ...  A "veteran" of almost 25 WHOLE days in the Amry, lol... The Drills had us ALL  thinkin' we were gonna finish BCT in 10 more days, march to the airfield, draw ammo, get on the planes, and head straight into a shootin' war.. Was scared s***-less for a couple days.. 'Course, I was only 17 then too, lol....

Heh... That Drill Sergeant Griffin... What a joker...

I always wondered where we would go iff'n them Russkies rolled into Germany.

Back then, in Jimmy Carter's Military? Same place as us...  Into Body bags...

Stick, I've got a whole trunk full of paper war games.  I was playing those way back in high school and college. TSS, Panzer Blitz, Pz Battles, France 1940, and all those Strategy and Tactics Magazine games.  Still have them all.

RSR came out when I was at USAFA.  Very motivational

I've gone though 3 of the Red Storm Raising books, no telling how many time's I've read it,  and now that you've brought it up I want to read it again.

If I can find the time with my other models and the work I need to do this summer I'll try to get in the build.

Ya, the Eagle guys could pull out that F-15C with the ASAT and paint it up with "Buns" Nakamura as the pilot, after the ASAT Missile motor exploded... That'd be a helluva weathering/battle-damage job, with no refs...

I swear, between Clancy's RSR and Harold Coyle's "Team Yankee", that was a helluva time in the Cold War to be a Soldier and reading that stuff, lol...

Yeah, the book alone has so many great possibilities for builds. I built my 1/48 F-14A in VF-84 subdued markings from the initial Backfire attack on the carriers. I got that book when I was coming off leave in 86  I think. Read it on the fligt in to Houston on my way back to Ft Polk. I think I read the whole book in four days or so. I could NOT put it down. My unit then was 5th ID, III Corps. I kept seeing us as part one of those re inforcement convoys trying to get  across the Atlantic to the front in Germany. Especially having done a REFORGER a couple years before in 84. That book certaily made you think when you read it as a soldier in that era.

The battle in Hamelin (I think it was) has numerous possibilities for different AFVs. And then there is Iceland, the subs, the 1980s Battle of the Atlantic... I am already building HMS Torbay but I do have USS Chicago in the stash...

BTW, I am on my thrid copy of the book. My first two paperback editions are long gone so for the third I bought it in hardcover. I just need Hunt For Red October and Patriot Games in hardcover to complete the Jack Ryan series.

I also have the board game for RSR and HFRO (which can be combined to do a complete land/sea/air campaign), but no one around here to play with since board war games are out of style...

I'm in as long as it's  " Red Storm Rising" as the focal point... I think that's a GREAT theme..  Means that it's limited to 1986 and earlier vehicles, weapons, ships, aircraft, etc...

Damn... Can't find my over-read and falling apart paperback anymore, the one that went through Operations Just Cause and Desert Shield/Storm with me and back again...  Stik! What was the name of the M-1 TC that got the batlefield promotion from SFC to 2LT when the platoon did that "Thunder Run"? 

I wanna do his M1, since I still have a Tamiya M1"A-Nothing" with the 105mm gun...  Could even get an M60A3 and M1 on the same diorama...

EDIT: FOUND(MOST OF)  IT!

SFC  Terry Mackall, 11th ACR...

Was reading that book for the first time during REFORGER up on the Fulda Gap and it was a little spooky then, lol... Saw Spetznaz behind every tree & bush, lol...

Hey, just thought of something... That'd be the only GB in history (maybe) that'd have a real use for the old Testor's "F-19 Stealth Fighter".. The "Frisbees" mentioned in that book that swacked the Soviet's armor and that bridge site on the first night was the F-19, according to Clancy, IIRC...

I agree with stikpusher...

One of my all time favorites, first Clancy book I ever read and really hoped they'd make it into a movie.  Then I realized it would be a six hour movie (at least) in order to cover just the BASICS of the entire plot and character list.

I'm totally in on this.

Still one of my favorite books to this day! I am certainly interested.

It sounds like a good reason to build another Phantom, I am in for sure.