Red Army

From Publishers Weekly Contemporary fiction with a war-fighting theme demands an obliging enemy who tests one's strengths and virtues to their limits, but ultimately makes the right decisions--and the right mistakes--to secure a favorable outcome for the "good guys." Western authors from Sir John Hackett to Tom Clancy have assigned that role to the Soviet Union. Peters, a Soviet analyst, Russian linguist and military intelligence officer, reverses the image in this brilliantly executed military procedural that tells the story of a future conventional war on the NATO central front entirely from a Soviet perspective. He eschews national policy, grand strategy, and high-tech gadgetry to focus on the mentalite of the modern Soviet soldier, from marshall to rifleman. Fusing knowledge of Soviet fighting techniques and Russian history, he presents credible military situations and characters who are archetypes rather than stereotypes. Readers will find here neither the military primitives described by Viktor Suvorov and Alexander Cockburn, nor the mirror-images based on U.S. models that dominate so much recent fiction. Peters's Red Army is by no means a perfect military instrument, but it knows how to fight. And it recognizes a fundamental truth: wars are won by the side making the fewest mistakes. In these pages, NATO becomes the obliging enemy whose errors of planning and execution contribute to a Soviet victory that is as well-deserved as it is hard-fought. Military Book Club main selection; Literary Guild and Doubl eday Book Club alternates. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. Product Description From the cockpit of a MIG to the foot soldiers and tankers on the scarred, bloody battlefields to the four-star general commanding the attack, Red Army is a riveting portrayal of modern war--and of human strengths and weaknesses. Seen entirely through Russian eyes, this extraordinary novel is destined to become a classic. HC: Pocket. World War III,General,Imaginary Wars and Battles,Espionage,Fiction Told from the perspective of Russian soldiers during an imagined Soviet invasion of Western Europe, Ralph Peter, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, intelligence world veteran, and bestselling novelist, delivers an unsettling, gripping, Cold War-era story based on real events.Set in a fictionalized World War III, Soviet soldiers prepare to invade West Germany in three different locations while western leaders are distracted by the debate of nuclear weapons.In a number of days, roads are clogged and cities are falling as the Soviets fight a gruesome battle against the West, revealing just how severely unprepared the NATO armies’ were for such a deadly attack.Focused on the perspectives of Soviet soldiers, from a young private dreaming of music and home to a four-star general tirelessly honoring militaristic family traditions, this unique historical novel tells a riveting story of the shocking rivalries and crumbling loyalties that emerge during world-altering international combat. From the cockpit of a MIG to the foot soldiers and tankers on the scarred, bloody battlefields to the four-star general commanding the attack, Red Army is a riveting portrayal of modern war--and of human strengths and weaknesses. Seen entirely through Russian eyes, this extraordinary novel is destined to become a classic. HC: Pocket.

From the cockpit of a MIG to the foot soldiers and tankers on the scarred, bloody battlefields to the four-star general commanding the attack, Red Army is a riveting portrayal of modern war--and of human strengths and weaknesses. Seen entirely through Russian eyes, this extraordinary novel is destined to become a classic.