Book Review: 'Armored Cav: A Guided Tour of an Armored Cavalry Regiment'
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| (C) 1994 Berkley Books |
In addition to his works of fiction, Clancy also wrote many non-fiction books about various branches of the U.S. Armed Forces, including the seven-book "Guided Tour" series that began with 1993's Submarine: A Guided Tour of a Nuclear Warship and ended with Special Forces: A Guided Tour of U.S. Army Special Forces (2001). These books were co-written with researcher/defense writer John D. Gresham, who often went where Clancy himself couldn't go, including the back seat of an F-15E Strike Eagle fighter-bomber (for Fighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing.)
Armored Cav: A Guided Tour of an Armored Cavalry Regiment is the second book of the Guided Tour series. Published in November of 1994 by Berkley Books, it is the first entry in the series devoted to the U.S. Army and focuses primarily on the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, its soldiers, vehicles, weapons, roles, and missions.
A penetrating look inside an armored cavalry regiment -- the technology, the strategies, and the people . . . profiled by Tom Clancy.
His first non-fiction book, Submarine, captured the reality of life aboard a nuclear warship. Now, the #1 bestselling author of Clear and Present Danger and Without Remorse portrays today's military as only army personnel can know it.
With the same compelling, you-are-there immediacy of his acclaimed fiction, Tom Clancy provides detailed descriptions of tanks, helicopters, artillery, and more -- the brilliant technology behind the U. S. Army. He captures military life -- from the drama of combat to the daily routine -- with total accuracy and reveals the roles and missions that have in recent years distinguished our fighting forces.
Armored Cav includes:
Descriptions of the M1A2 Main Battle Tank, the AH-64A Apache Attack Helicopter, and more
An interview with General Frederick Franks
Strategies behind the Desert Storm account
Exclusive photographs, illustrations, and diagrams
PLUS: From West Point cadet to Desert Storm commander . . . an interview with a combat cavalry officer on the rise. - Publisher's back cover blurb.
As in all the Guided Tour books, Armored Cav is divided into several chapters (11, in this book) that take the reader on an inside look of a mid-1990s U.S. Army armored cavalry regiment - the 3rd ACR, a unit that traces its history to the Mexican War of the 1840s and - since 2011 - has been reorganized as a Stryker unit and renamed as the 3rd Cavalry Regiment.
Clancy and Gresham devote a great deal of their attention to the concepts behind modern armored warfare, including the development of American tanks and other armored fighting vehicles, including the M2/M3 Bradley family (in Army nomenclature, the M2 Bradley is the basic infantry fighting vehicle, while the M3 variant is the scout version). Armored Cav is, by design, a detailed primer on the M1 Abrams tank, including the M1A2 variant which was state-of-the-art in 1994, Chobham armor, the 120mm main gun, HEAT and Sabot rounds, and the vast arsenal at the disposal of an armored cavalry regiment commander in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War and Operation Desert Storm.
The book also includes two in-depth interviews with Army officers with expertise in armored warfare and doctrine. The first is with Gen. Fred Franks, USA (Ret.), who served as a squadron commander in the 3rd ACR in the 1980s, commanded the U.S. VII Corps during Desert Shield/Desert Storm, and was in charge of the Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) before his retirement in 1994. In his conversation with Clancy, Franks discusses his service in Vietnam (where he lost part of his left leg), his successful efforts to stay on active duty with a combat unit, and, of course, his role as a corps commander during the "100-hour" ground war against Saddam Hussein's forces in 1991/
Armored Cav also features an interview with one of the Army's "best and brightest" officers, then-Captain (promotable) H.R. McMaster. If his name has a familiar ring, it's because he is now Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (Ret.), who served as President Donald Trump's second National Security Adviser from Feb. 20, 2017, to April 9, 2018. In his chat with Clancy (who later became a close friend), McMaster talks about his decision to attend West Point (Class of 1984), his service in the first Persian Gulf War (including a detailed account of his role in the Battle of 73 Easting), and life as an Army officer in the post-Cold War era and all of the challenges of his chosen career. At the end of the interview, Clancy notes that McMaster's promotion to major was official and that he foresaw McMaster becoming one of the Army's most gifted leaders. (The book, of course, was written years before McMaster commanded the same unit "toured" by Clancy and Gresham, so his career as a senior Army officer and writer is not covered.)
Because Clancy was a storyteller, first and foremost, the last major section of Armored Cav is a fictional look at what was then a near-future possibility: a Second Korean War. Set in 1997, Operation Robust Screen is a "what-if" scenario that pits the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment against the units of Kim Jong-Il's North Korean People's Army as the Communist "hermit kingdom" attempts to invade the democratic (and U.S. allied) Republic of Korea (ROK). Clancy weaves many of the concepts from the non-fiction sections of the book into the scenario to illustrate the roles and missions of an armored cavalry regiment in the late 1990s.
As a reference guide to the modern U.S. Army's armor branch, the book is outdated and - due to the author's death in 2013 - will not be updated and revised with a second edition. Still, it's a fascinating and revealing look at the tools of the trade used by the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment before its 21st Century redesignation as a Stryker unit, as well as an exploration of the human element of our armed forces.
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