Reddit Reddit reviews Gunship Ace: The Wars of Neall Ellis, Helicopter Pilot and Mercenary

We found 2 Reddit comments about Gunship Ace: The Wars of Neall Ellis, Helicopter Pilot and Mercenary. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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Gunship Ace: The Wars of Neall Ellis, Helicopter Pilot and Mercenary
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2 Reddit comments about Gunship Ace: The Wars of Neall Ellis, Helicopter Pilot and Mercenary:

u/x_TC_x · 34 pointsr/CredibleDefense

Few months ago, there was a similar question at War College, though related to Uganda, see thread How does the Ugandan Army compare to its neighbors?

I agree with your conclusion that African Wars - like II Congo War - are usually discussed from the geo-political POV, very rarely from military POV. Exceptions are rather rare, regardless if it's about pre- or post-1990s, and so also in the case of such wars like that in Rwanda, or the I and II Congo Wars. For example, while there are dozens of books, and thousands of studies and articles about Rwanda, all I know - without a single exception - are dealing with the genocide of 1994. Until recently (see below) there was not one about military history of the Rwandan Civil War, 1990-1994. Similarly, books like those by Prunier are 'well known', while those discussing military campaigns appear 'non-existing'.

Now, instead of explaining whys and hows, let me come to the point, i.e. offer you a few reading tips. Since you've explicitly requested 'post 1990 Africa', in your place I would start with John W Turner's Continent Ablaze. Yes, about 95% of that book is about pre-1990s, i.e. 'classic African wars', and post-1990s chapters are limited to those about Angola, actually. Furthermore, a lot of Turner's work is based on little else but reporting by BBC's Foreign Monitoring Service and similar 'sources'. But, you'll learn a lot about most of reasons for post-1990s wars. Plus, it's one of less than a handful of books covering African wars one can find in libraries of such places like Sandhurst, so I would describe it as a 'good starter'. If nothing else, it's going to help you find out what wars do you want to follow closely.

Casual search around the internet might bring you to various books by Al J Venter, a veteran South African author of works like War Dog, Gunship Ace, or Barrel of a Gun. These are including a great deal of 'episodes' related to South African mercenaries in places like Congo, Sierra Leone, Angola etc. Al was in all of these places, and is personally befriended to most of crucial actors, and thus simply 'unbeatable' in regards of 'details'. What one might miss in his books though, would be for these stories to be put within their geopolitical and military context, i.e. a slightly better organization of all the data they're presenting. But then, that's simply a matter of taste.

Still, if you follow 'Al's trail', you might stumble into a small South African publisher titled 30 Degrees South - and thus find out this has published a number of titles penned by Eeben Barlow.

Clearly, while Barlow is well-known (or at least 'Executive Outcomes' is going to ring plenty of bells here, so I'm sure), his top military planners and tacticians like Roelf van Heerden and Andrew Hudson remain entirely unknown in the public - although at least the latter has published a number of his own titles, mostly via 30 Deg South (just check their website).

Further search for the latter might bring you to a series of books published in cooperation between 30 Deg South and Helion Publishing (UK) since some 6-7 years and appropriately titled 'Africa@War'. They've released about 25 titles so far. Of course, majority of these went into 'classic' topics from the 1960s-1980s - i.e. those related to South Africa, Rhodesia, Portuguese campaigns in the Guine, Angola, or mercenaries in the Congo etc. But, meanwhile they've brought out quite a number of titles about 'other' African wars out, and especially those about conflicts since 1990s - including such like Somalia, US Intervention, 1992-1994, or the much postponed AMISOM.

Guess, this is the point at which I must beg admins for some more of their understanding (perhaps even some 'sympathy'), then because of my own involvement the following is going to appear as another post full of 'shameless self-advertising'. Namely, I do happen to have researched quite a lot about modern-day African wars (often with help from kind people like Andrew, Al and many others) and so I have joined the gang of Africa@War and published several titles in that series, often in cooperation with my Swiss friend Adrien Fontanelaz. That's how an entire series of books explaining the military history of conflicts related to the II Congo War came into being, including:

  • Wars and Insurgencies of Uganda, 1971-1994 (story of the Ugandan military build-up through 1960s and 1970s; the Kagera War of 1978-1979, and of various insurgencies of the 1980s and 1990s, some of which in turn were instrumental for the following volume)

  • The Rwandan Patriotic Front, 1990-1994 (wars in Ugandas proved crucial for what happened in Rwanda of the early 1990s; namely, already Museveni's NRA was heavily dependent on hundreds of Rwandan Tutsis, who in turn created the Rwandan Patriotic Front and invaded Rwanda in 1990, launching a civil war that... well, is de-facto still going on, 'but', kind of 'culminated' with the genocide of 1994)

  • Great Lakes Holocaust: I Congo War, 1996-1997 (in 1996, Rwanda, followed by Uganda, launched an invasion of the then Zaire, eventually toppling US/French-supported dictator Mobutu Sese-Seko; this is the story of that conflict), and

  • Great Lakes Conflagration: II Congo War, 1998-2003 (in 1998, Rwanda and Uganda launched their second invasion of the DR Congo, this time attempting not only to topple President Kabila, but also establish themselves in control over immense mineral wealth in the east of that country; this in turn prompted a counter-intervention by Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia - and even Libyan-sponsored Chad, plus few other countries; what is next-to-unknown is that this war kind of 'faded away' not only because of highly-published series of major clashes between Ugandans and Rwandans related to distribution of the loot, but especially because the Congolese began applying the same strategy upon Rwandans, which Rwandans used to apply on the Congolese, early during that war).

    I did originally intend to follow-up with a third volume on the DR Congo since 2003, but sad point is: as much as they are praised by all of their readers, the latter remain very limited in numbers. My understanding of the reasons is that these books are neither sensationalist, nor discussing usual topics like mass suffering of civilians, but rather dry military histories of conflicts in question. And since majority of potential readers cannot imagine - just for example - Zimbabweans deploying their adaptation of Rhodesian 'Fire Force tactics' in the centre of the DR Congo of 1998, they never come to the idea that there are any kind of books discussing such topics. Unsurprisingly, I doubt we've sold more than 500 copies of any of these titles, which in turn means they simply do not pay. For similar reasons, I dropped the idea of preparing similar volumes on topics like Sudan or Chad, just for example. Slightly more successful was the Libyan Air Wars mini-series (3 titles); that might eventually 'provoke' me to ready a title (or two) on 'Libya since 2011' (there're certainly enough sources and info, especially thanks to research by Arnaud Delalande). We'll see...

    Fans of obscure (indeed: often enough 'weird') air forces and their (frequently: 'colourful') aircraft have found the two-part study African MiGs slightly more interesting (indeed, even the library at Wright Patterson should have a copy of each). Except for discussing acquisitions and operational history of its title, it's also providing - often quite lengthy - summaries of local air forces at wars, so also those since 1990 (just for example, I do not know any other book discussing COIN ops by the Ugandan People's Defence Force/Air Force against Lord's Resistance Army since 2000). 'Bonus', if you like: Volume 2 ends with a big appendix providing a detailed ORBAT of 23 African air forces as of 2010 (with exception of Mozambique and Mali, not much changed ever since).
u/deeeevos · 23 pointsr/greentext

amazing that he can even take of with balls that big. Might have to read this book about him:

https://www.amazon.com/Gunship-Ace-Neall-Helicopter-Mercenary/dp/1612000703