ASuW tactics

On 9/4/04 11:52 AM, in article ,
"Paul Michael Brown" wrote:

I'm curious about the US doctrine for anti-shipping attacks 25 years ago -
say, the late 70's/early 80's?

This topic is covered (fictionally of course) in Stephen Coonts novel "The
Intruders," which is set in the mid-70s. The protagonist is assigned to
study how best to attack a Soviet surface combatant (cruiser? destroyer?).
In the novel, no precision ordnance is available and the attack plan
requires flying into the evelope of both SAMs and AAA. When queried by his
skipper as to his conclusions, the protagonist says "I've become a big fan
of attack submarines lately."

I just read that book recently. Not the best of Coonts' books. Jake
Grafton just gets more and more spec ops, and frankly, even though , many of
the Intruder pilots I have known might *think* they could pull off the crap
that Grafton does, they couldn't. (Just my editorial opinion...)

The book is a compilation of a bunch of A-6E (and at least one Prowler)
mishaps. I was surprised to have met or known several of the folks who were
at the controls of many of them--kind of a rush for me.

I vote for more sea stories and less "Jake gets shot down and kills bad guys
with M-60's."

--Woody

Woody,

The book is a compilation of a bunch of A-6E (and at least one Prowler)
mishaps. I was surprised to have met or known several of the folks who
were at the controls of many of them--kind of a rush for me.

Get ready for another rush, small as it likely will be. The cockpit
security "malfunction" in THE INTRUDERS - in which the VDI comes shooting
into the pilot's face during the cat stroke - was a KA-6D mishap from
VA-95's 1973 cruise. (I've posted the story on this previously to RAMN.)

Difference here is that both Dave Cohen and I survived. IIRC, one or both
of Coonts' fictitious aircrew buy it.

Agree that THE INTRUDERS is not one of Coonts' better oeuvres. My guess is
that he wrote it after writing several of the other Grafton books, to make
use of the leftover notes, etc. he compiled for FLIGHT OF THE INTRUDER. If
so, good business decision to turn these otherwise unused materials into a
cash stream.

Coonts was based at Whidbey almost contemporaneously with me, except that he
was invariably deployed while I was ashore, and got out sometime during our
cruise. So I never met him, although I did my share of drinking with his
squadron bubbas after we returned to the Rock.

--
Mike Kanze

"If history repeats itself, I should think we can expect the same thing
again."

- NBC softball analyst at the 2004 Summer Olympics (This one earned the Yogi
Berra Award.)


"Doug "Woody" and Erin Beal" wrote in message
...
On 9/4/04 11:52 AM, in article ,
"Paul Michael Brown" wrote:

I'm curious about the US doctrine for anti-shipping attacks 25 years
ago -
say, the late 70's/early 80's?

This topic is covered (fictionally of course) in Stephen Coonts novel
"The
Intruders," which is set in the mid-70s. The protagonist is assigned to
study how best to attack a Soviet surface combatant (cruiser?
destroyer?).
In the novel, no precision ordnance is available and the attack plan
requires flying into the evelope of both SAMs and AAA. When queried by
his
skipper as to his conclusions, the protagonist says "I've become a big
fan
of attack submarines lately."

I just read that book recently. Not the best of Coonts' books. Jake
Grafton just gets more and more spec ops, and frankly, even though , many
of
the Intruder pilots I have known might *think* they could pull off the
crap
that Grafton does, they couldn't. (Just my editorial opinion...)

The book is a compilation of a bunch of A-6E (and at least one Prowler)
mishaps. I was surprised to have met or known several of the folks who
were
at the controls of many of them--kind of a rush for me.

I vote for more sea stories and less "Jake gets shot down and kills bad
guys
with M-60's."

--Woody

The book is a compilation of a bunch of A-6E (and at least one Prowler)
mishaps. I was surprised to have met or known several of the folks who were
at the controls of many of them--kind of a rush for me.

I'm just an armchair wannabe, but even *I* recognized quite a few of the
mishaps from reading Approach and other published works. IIRC (been awhile
since I read "The Intruders") Coonts also manages to sneak in the story
about an F-8 mishap that occurred during refueling in the middle of a
Transpac and ended with the pilot punching out. I seem to recall that one
from Approach as well. Am I correct on this?

I vote for more sea stories and less "Jake gets shot down and kills bad guys
with M-60's."

Heartily concur. "Flight of the Intruder" made the New York Times best
seller list because (IMHO) it was a small-but-well-told story that didn't
range much beyond the squadron. Granted, there was enough aviation-related
technospeak to make the wannabes like me happy. But it also contained the
classic elements of a good novel such as characterization and an
interesting subplot.

As Woody noted, in Coonts' later work he can't resist having his
protagonist running around the jungle with a K-Bar in his teeth. Nor can
he resist complicated, global plots that extend from the E Ring at the
Pentagon, to the offices of CINPAC in Hawaii, to the battle group underway
in the Indian Ocean to . . . you get the idea. (As you read, you can
almost hear the cheesy electronic noise they use in movies as the
characters on the screen spell out "U.S.S. Boat, Northern Pacific." I
think this is the military fiction version of "mission creep." The authors
may start out with modest and carefully-crafted novels based upon their
personal experiences (or upon good research). But when they get
successful, they often start cranking out flabby books loaded up with
filler in the form of technobabble or dialog featuring either the Secdef
and the President, or the requisite terrorist and his henchmen.