Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!bellcore!att!cbnews!military
From: patterso@ads.com (Tim J. Patterson)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Tom Clancy
Message-ID: <12355@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 15 Dec 89 03:09:44 GMT
References: <12095@cbnews.ATT.COM> <12144@cbnews.ATT.COM> <12166@cbnews.ATT.COM> <12256@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Organization: Advanced Decision Systems
Lines: 36
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: patterso@ads.com (Tim J. Patterson)


stuff deleted

>>} >From: willner@cfa203.harvard.edu (Steve Willner)
>>} >Fans of Tom Clancy should read the article by Scott Shuger in the
>>} >November issue of the _Washington Monthly_.  Mr. Shuger's main point is
>>} >that Clancy writes about how weapons are _supposed_ to work and how
>>} >they are _intended_ to be used, but that these bear very little
>>} >relation to the reality of actual combat.
>>
>>Hey, come on it's fiction, it's supposed to be fiction....
>>
><stuff deleted>
>
I have enjoyed reading Clancy's books as fiction.  I detected repeated
technical errors but I was just reading for the fun of it and didn't
let it bother me. The only time I was bother was in a meeting for work
when an officer quoted doctrine and cited Hunt for Red October as the
source.

As a side light, in Clear and Present danger, Clancy makes an attempt
to answer the critism of his machines always working by taking out the
rader on a plane due to lack of mainainance and replacement of a
diode.  (Not really effective-clearly something he threw in to answer
the critics.)

Again, it's fiction and doesn't claim to be an authoritative source-so
read and enjoy or go to a different type of book.

	my $0.02 worth

	  Tim