Best military technology books according to redditors
We found 94 Reddit comments discussing the best military technology books. We ranked the 70 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 94 Reddit comments discussing the best military technology books. We ranked the 70 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
![Kargil : From Surprise to Victory [Dec 01, 2011] Malik, General V. P.](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51weIvPHg9L.jpg)
Enjoyed the pictures, the M1 is very likely my favorite overall historical firearm. If anyone here ever wants to read the bible, this is an excellent resource. The M1 Garand Rifle
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>Amazon does, however, continue to sell the following works:
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>Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto — the manifesto of a movement that murdered more than 100 million people, specifically targeting an entire class of people — the bourgeoisie — for destruction; for sale in many editions from the richest capitalist in the world
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>Leon Trotsky’s Terrorism and Communism — a defense of political terrorism
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>Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf — also available in many editions — which is apparently less threatening to the current world order than my book.
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>The Unabomber’s Manifesto — which does seem to create a moral hazard. Want to get your book published? Start mailing out package bombs. Kill three people and injure 23 others, and your book might also be fit to stock at Amazon.com.
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>Valerie Solanas’ S.C.U.M. Manifesto — S.C.U.M. being an acronym for Society to Cut Up Men. Solanas published her manifesto in 1967. In 1968, she attempted to murder Andy Warhol.
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>The Anarchist’s Cookbook — corrected and updated to make it extra lethal
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>Osama Bin Laden’s Messages to the World — mastermind one of history’s greatest terrorist attacks, and you too might be fit to stock at Amazon.com
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>Voice of Hezbollah: The Statements of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah — apparently there’s a whole library of books by Islamist terrorists for sale at Amazon.com
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>Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State — the blueprint of the Zionist movement, which spawned the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine through terrorism, ethnic cleansing, and wars that continue to this day
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>Black Nationalist Manifestos by such writers as Marcus Garvey and Elijah Muhammad
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>Everybody Talks About the Weather . . . We Don’t: The Writings of Ulrike Meinhof
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>Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare
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>Al-Qaida’s Doctrine for Insurgency: Abd al-Aziz al-Muqrin’s “a Practical Course for Guerrilla War”
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Let's pick this apart (And mods, please forgive me, I don't have access to my AK books right now, but I'll give solid online sources where called for and reference several good print sources) claim by claim.
Hugo Schmeisser was a German small arms designer who among other things, designed the StG 44 which is where things start getting weird.
Without a doubt, the StG 44 was the first successful "assault rifle" ever fielded by a military. In the original term, assault rifle meant a rifle of intermediate power (more powerful than a handgun such as 9mm or .45ACP, but less powerful than the military rifle rounds of the day like .30-06 or 8mm Mauser) and select fire (capable of both full and semi automatic fire). The StG has several features that the AK 47 has, including being operated by a gas piston, and a forward pistol grip.
It is well established that Mikhail Kalashnikov was at first a self taught engineer, and then later received training in the Soviet railroad shops. He is the sort of man with a natural mechanical bent, and was fortunate enough to receive formal training.
As a trained mechanic, Kalashnikov was assigned to a tank squadron when drafted in 1938. His small size and mechanical skill made him well suited for the job. He was no uneducated peasant commanding a T-34. He was a state trained mechanic and soldier. The story of his stay in a hospital after being wounded in combat, and hearing other soldiers complain of Soviet small arms of the time (Mosin Nagant rifle, SVT 40 rifle, PPSH submachine gun, TT-33 and Nagant revolvers being the most common) and his inspiration to develop a better rifle is fairly well known, and does not bear much need for repeating at this point.
Kalashnikov's initial idea for a submachine gun, while not accepted was good enough to get him assigned to the Central Scientific-developmental Firing Range for Rifle Firearms of the Chief Artillery Directorate of the Red Army. There, he designed a rifle around the 7.62x39mm cartridge which evolved from Suadev's 7.62x41, which in turn was inspired by German work along the same lines. Simonov's semi automatic SKS rifle was adopted in 1944. Several other designers, including Kalashnikov, Sudayev, and Tokarev were all developing assault rifles which took heavy inspiration from the StG 44.
Kalashnikov's design ultimately drew from several successful firearms designs. The rotating bolt is similar to the M1 Garand, the overall form factor of the weapon derives from the StG 44, the safety lever/selector switch is very similar to that of the Remington Model 8 (which was also marketed in Europe by Browning), and the removable magazines are ribbed much like the StG magazines.
In short, the AK 47 was perhaps the ultimate refinement of a lot of ideas bouncing around a world riddled by warfare. The genius of Kalashnikov was not so much in any of the ideas of the weapon, but rather in how he put it all together, and strived to simplify the device. Since 1947, the weapon has undergone several other refinements, such as a switch from a milled steel receiver to a stamped steel one in the 1950's.
So the claim that Kalashnikov designing the AK 47 being propaganda? Hogwash. There are tons of records from the Soviet archives, and countless numbers of various weapons of the era in private hands and museums, and the good General Kalashnikov is fortunately still alive to give his story. (he is a fascinating man, and has a very interesting philosophy, it's worth reading some of his interviews)
I hope this helps, I've sourced some links and information that will help you better understand the history of the AK 47 if you wish. For personal experience, I've got an entire Romanian AK 47 kit sitting near me, made from a destroyed Romanian Civil Guard rifle, which I plan to rebuild soon as a legal rifle. Formerly I've owned other AK pattern rifles, and have had the pleasure of handling many others.
In no particular order...
AK 47's and prototypes
The dreaded wikipedia on Kalashnikov It's actually very well written, having read several primary sources on Kalashnikov and his work, I can attest to this being a good quick way to get a feel for the work he did.
Interview with General Kalashnikov
The AK-47 and AK74 Kalashnikov Rifles and Their Variations
The Gun that Changed the World by Mikhail Kalashnikov with Andrew Brown and Elana Joly
Kalashnikov: The Arms and the Man
Legends and Reality of the AK I had a copy of this until water damage destroyed it. The other books I have read myself and they all agree on the major points of development and history of the AK 47
EDIT: Words and links
wtf... what are the comments here?!!??!
For a neutral point of view
Asymmetric warfare in south asia
It's pretty expensive... May be try to get used edition. I would just torrent it if I can.
surprise to victory
This book by Indian general is pretty great. It's in my to-read list as well and it's much cheaper.
Anything that tries to be comprehensive is, by necessity, going to be shallow. Conversely, anything that gets deep is going to be very narrow. Lots of guns out there, lots of opinions, lots of good info and even more bad info.
There are some excellent specialty type books out there for certain flavors if you're into that sort of thing and want to read about one model or platform.
Subreddits like Jake suggested are good, but may be limited by the amount of participation. Message boards are out there that have spent years building up participation and information. Start with some of those (ak47.net, ar15.com, local shooting boards are good sometimes).
Currently: The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran
After this I will probably read
The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan
On War
Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS
The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
Illusions of Victory: The Anbar Awakening and the Rise of the Islamic State
On Grand Strategy
A fellow on the combined defense discord layed out his recommendations for books on nukes, so I'll list them here.
On Thermonuclear War By Herman Kahn
On Limited Nuclear War in the 21st Century by Jeffrey Larsen and Kerry Kartchner
The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, Third Edition by Lawrence Freedman
Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces by Pavel Podvig
Nuclear Statecraft: History and Strategy in America's Atomic Age by Francis J. Gavin
Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb by Feroz Khan
Prevention, Pre-emption and the Nuclear Option: From Bush to Obama by Aiden Warren
Nuclear Deterrence in the 21st Century: Lessons from the Cold War for a New Era of Strategic Piracy by Thérèse Delpech
Analyzing Strategic Nuclear Policy by Charles L. Glaser
Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes
Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb by Richard Rhodes
Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era: Regional Powers and International Conflict by Vipin Narang
Building the H Bomb: A Personal History By Kenneth W Ford
The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy by Matthew Kroenig
Paper Tigers: china's Nuclear Posture by Jeffery Lewis
Arms and Influence by Thomas Schelling
Apart from the coffee-table part, could anyone compare this to Ezell's "Kalashnikov: The Arms and the Man" (and for that matter, Ezell's original and the expanded collector's edition published after he passed away)?
Links:
https://www.amazon.com/Kalashnikov-Arms-Edward-Clinton-Ezell/dp/0889352674
https://www.amazon.com/AK47-Story-Evolution-Kalashnikov-Weapons/dp/0811722473/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1540313532&sr=1-9
reviews are good
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hunt-Zero-Point-Nick-Cook/dp/0099414988/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1502696393&sr=1-1&keywords=hunt+for+zero+point#customerReviews
i downloaded it thanks :D
https://www.startpage.com/do/dsearch?query=Hunt+For+Zero+Point++.pdf&cat=web&pl=opensearch&language=english
The Damned Engineers
http://www.amazon.com/damned-engineers-Janice-Holt-Giles/dp/B0030MHG3E
Off the top of my head, I would recommend the following in a heartbeat. These are all well-researched history books/primary sources. They aren't easy reads by any stretch of imagination.
Fiction wise, Vivek Ahuja's Chimera is excellent. It isn't without its shortcomings, but it is way better than the Aniruddha Bahal/Humphrey Hawksley crap out there.
>I just got a Garand from the CMP. I know how to look up the serial number, but is there any way for me to look up the numbers on other parts like the bolt?
You can try to match them with the reference parts over at AmmoGarand, but I think the best thing to do would be to get a copy of Bruce Canfield's book.
>Also, how do I know if my stock is original USGI? It has the “P” stamp (with no circle around it) and a “25” under the grip.
Post lots of pictures on this subreddit and folks can help you identify.
Bruce Canton's fairly extensive M1 Garand resource is pretty much the end-all-be-all for M1 identification. Very interesting read.
Barring there, there's a lot of good books out there that are much cheaper, and Google will yield much of that information for free.
Just a few:
"The World's Assault Rifles" by Gary Paul Johnston.
"The AK-47 and AK74 Kalashnikov Rifles and Their Variations" by Joe Poyer
"The M16/AR15 Rifle, 3rd Ed. (A Shooter's and Collector's Guide)" by Joe Poyer
"Ultimate Sniper 2006 : An Advanced Training Manual for Military and Police Snipers" by John L. Plaster
Nick Cook wrote a very good book on the possible Nazi experiments with Saucer Shaped vehicles. "Hunt for Zero Point". It's worth a read
http://www.amazon.de/Hunt-Zero-Point-Nick-Cook/dp/0099414988/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411235644&sr=8-1&keywords=hunt+for+zero+point
According to Italian UFO Researchers Mussolini had a real interest in UFO's from 1933 on. http://discaircraft.greyfalcon.us/MUSSOLINI%20FIAT%20RIVA%20DEL%20GARDA%20DISC.htm
A lot of it is surely unconfirmed, But there are some alleged italian government papers from the 193x-ies which allegedly shows the interest of Mussolini regarding the topic.
It's pretty cheap on Amazon, currently going for about £2.50: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/ol/1568521103/ref=mw_dp_olp?ie=UTF8&condition=all
The evidence that the debate is valid and not a just a BS excuse has been documented.
Check out Kingsley Browne's book:
http://www.amazon.com/Co-ed-Combat-Evidence-Shouldnt-Nations/dp/B001G7R9EG
Also Stephanie Guttman's book:
http://www.amazon.com/Kinder-Gentler-Military-Americas-Gender-Neutral/dp/B000F6Z6LC/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343314983&sr=1-1&keywords=kinder+gentler+military
The best thing you can be is self-sufficient and self-contained, regardless of the event.
Get these or similar, and something along these lines.
Read them, practice with them, memorize them, get the minimum equipment recommended but focus on learning to improvise, since there may never be replacement parts. If you have the time and money, become very good at a defensive martial arts style, such as Aikido. This will also help you get into fairly good shape along with minimizing the risk of injury.
Identify and/or own a place you can readily get to in an emergency that no one else is aware of and stash things like food and water and/or have preserved water stashed in durable containers, but remember water is very heavy, so you only want enough to last until you get to or 1/2 way to your final location, similarly with book, bring only those that you are certain will be useful to your survival.. Seeds are optional but may not be useful depending on the event, since the climate may shift significantly. Become very well practiced with various simple tools/weapons, preferably non-mechanical, and basic field-medicine.
Have a plan for traveling from your initial safe-area to an isolated place, plan your movement in small hops and have a reliable plan/method for moving your cache of food/equipment. Practice doing it, very discretely a few times a year, so that it's rote and you don't forget anything. You need to be in an isolated area for the the first few years, with only a few others, to ensure you don't get overrun by the animals most people will turn in to.
If you want to include others, I would advise simply having a rendezvous point for them to meet you on the way to your cache-area. Do not tell them what is there or what the plan/destination would be, simply tell them you have a plan. Then you minimize the risk of large numbers of people showing up and overwhelming you/your supplies. If too many tag along, you can act lost until you have a chance to sneak away with the select few you choose and can trust. Again, keep your numbers relatively small, about fifteen, ~2/3 female if you plan on eventually growing your population without genetic issues, should be the initial limit. You may want to encourage your companions to follow similar studying and training.
Best advise for a location would be an isolated, heavily forested area, with some hills, in a temperate or sub-tropical climate. These have the best potential for the local flora & fauna to survive climate shift, provide wood for construction, generally accessible water, and relatively soft earth to dig-into for permanent housing. Don't build above ground and build fires under overhangs so that smoke can be used to dry meats and be dispersed through leaves so as to not give away your position.
There's much more one could do or plan for, but this would be a fair start.
Good luck.
For those two tanks, I recommend the books by Thomas L. Jentz and Hilary L. Doyle. The books they have out in regards to German heavy tanks list and illustrate all branches of development from the first prototypes to the finished tank. The two you would need for the 3601 (H) and the 4502 (P) would be found in these two books:
http://www.amazon.com/Germanys-Tiger-Tanks-Production-Modifications/dp/0764302248
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0764310380/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1535523722&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0764302248&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=16ZP4E3DBFB47QHXZ4AW
Tausend Dank. Ich werde mir wohl auch noch das dazu holen: http://www.amazon.de/Messer-schmieden-f%C3%BCr-Anf%C3%A4nger-Steckangel-Messer/dp/3938711108
The SAS Survival Guide is small but contains a LOT of information. They average around $20 each.
At my first unit (Army, Combat Medic/68W) I was given "Soldier's Manual of Common Tasks: Skill Level 1". It contains a TON of information.
https://www.amazon.com/Training-Publication-21-1-SMCT-Soldiers-September-ebook/dp/B0763GHJYD/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3UXX5SXE1W6MQ&keywords=soldier%27s+manual+of+common+tasks+warrior+skills+level+1&qid=1550689637&s=gateway&sprefix=Soldier%27s+manu%2Caps%2C185&sr=8-1
You could find one at an army surplus but the chance is likely very low. I have some TM manuals as well. They may be simplistic but you can teach others.
There are a good number of survivalist/preparedness channels on youtube. Look at their content and subscriber content and maybe a few videos before subscribing.
Don't forget to get them the book with cross sections of real stuff as well. Just so that there is real learning happening as well.
The Damned Engineers
The Damned Engineers.
If he is an engineer (USACE is the Corps of Engineers) he probably has this book. But if you could get it autographed.... Never mind, author died in 1979, probably is not signing stuff now. Might be a signed copy available of the used market though.
Nope, there's a layer of deniability still available to Russia:
The Weapon was originally made by Russia, sure. I mean we did keep it secret for years, but someone defected and wrote a book on how we were skirting the OPCW... But once this secret was out, plenty of people could have made it. Hell you can buy the instructions on Amazon.
This attack was obviously just a rogue chemical engineer that decided to create and use this obscure chemical weapon to settle a score or something...
Don't you worry, Bezos has you covered!
These books are the very definition of "Don't try this at home". most project in these books can get you imprisoned for a long long time.
They're best kept locked up until your country is invaded and you need to fight a delaying / guerrilla action until your armed forces arrive.
Anarchists Cookbook
The Poor Man's James Bond Vol 1
Vol 2
Volume 3
I agree with you but ppl do tons of stupid thing anyway. This way when someone wants to do it, it has manual that seems reasonably safe and sees how it should work isntead of following written procedure from random guy on the internet.
Honestly, I more wonder why this stuff is available on Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Preparatory-Manual-Chemical-Warfare-Agents/dp/0578104784
(found it in our chemical library when we moved stuff last week so it got me courious if one can buy it and it is entirely possible)
The only Panzer Tracts listed on the official website with 6 in the name is the Maus/E-100 book, which I do not believe has the 3601 H in it, though it's been a while since I last read it.
I believe this book has what you're looking for, but I can check my copy when I get home to be sure.
No, they are published books that you can get in a library in the USA. For instance :https://www.amazon.com/Improvised-Munitions-Black-Book-Vol/dp/0879472049
Its a book anyone can buy, but conducting the information in it in illegal fashion will get you arrested.
Making a book illegal because it could potentially help someone commit a crime is ridiculous and inconsistent. Even the US Government creates books that would fall under that. http://www.amazon.com/Improvised-Munitions-Black-Book-Vol/dp/0879472049
There is an excerpt in one of the reviews which doesn't match your description of pictures, so this may not be it.
A few more possibilities:
There's a pretty famous WWII tank historian named R.P. Hunnicutt. He fought in the Pacific in WWII, and later got a masters in engineering and worked for GM.
Anyway, he ranks the top tanks of WWII as follows:
I believe his reasons for ranking the Panther so high were it's excellent gun, angled front hull, and the inexpensiveness of it's design. A Panther tank was almost as cheap to produce as a Panzer IV, and half as expensive as a Tiger I.
http://www.amazon.com/Panther-Variants-Spielberger-Military-Vehicles/dp/0887403972/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Just read about this the other day in "Crown Jewels: The Mauser in Sweden". I'm trying to get a m41b right now. Beautiful gun, and better cartridge. I certainly hope you treat that lovely piece well. I am envious.
I think part of that just comes from the fact that there weren't a whole lot of them made and part from the weird penchant the swedes had for producing minor variations. If only I could afford a copy of this. I'd love to shoot one of these.
Ok then, military surplus rifles. That's a solid place to start. Here's a rundown:
I actually don't have a K31 book, but this one is written by Joe Poyer who is an author I trust. K31s are pretty straightforward for the most part, it's the earlier rifles that are a tad complicated to study.
There's so many damn Mausers that it's hard to recommend a book that covers enough of them. This one should be enough to get you started. This one just came back in print and is for the Swedish Mauser.
For Mosins, This one should provide enough knowledge, but there's actually a surprising amount of material online. Not many printed books on Mosins in English, sadly.
For Enfields, Ian Skennerton's book is the go-to.
And that should be enough to get you started. For any other guns, just type the gun name followed by "book" into Google and you should find what you need. And as always, the internet has plenty of it's own resources too.
> The T-34 – widely considered to be the best tank of the Second World War
HAHAHA. No.
Even if its production wasn't marred by incompetence nearing seditious, it wasn't the "best" of anything. Later variants were better than others, but it was still simply good enough, such that they could make a whole helluva lot of them; that is what it was for in the first place. Every aspect was inferior in some way: the armor quality, equipment, crew comfort and ergonomics, gun, sights, the shells and their fuses. Hardly was it the "best" at anything, except being deploy en masse to overrun positions, as it was designed to do, and goddamn did it do that well. You really don't need to be "the best" when you got a couple hundred converging on the same objective.
That aside: Hell yeah, IS-7! Gimme dat russian bias! I needs it!
Edit: Oh no! Downvotes for stating well documented facts! The armor and welds were crap, the optics were crap, the transmission and gearbox were crap, the crew ergonomics were crap.
[CITATION]
Review of Soviet Ordinance Metallurgy: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/011426.pdf
ENGINEERING ANALYSIS OF THE RUSSIAN T34/85 TANK
Panther & Its Variants (The Spielberger German Armor & Military Vehicles)
T-34 Mythical Weapon
Tankovy udar. Sovetskie tanki v boyakh. 1942-1943
‘T-34/76 Medium Tank 1941-45’ , ‘T-34/85 Medium Tank 1944-45’ and ‘T-34-85 vs M26 Pershing’ by Steven J. Zaloga
http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/the-t-34-in-wwii-the-legend-vs-the-performance/
There Comes a Point When the Semantics War is Lost