warspite1
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Joined: 2/2/2008
From: England
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ORIGINAL: warspite1
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ORIGINAL: warspite1
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ORIGINAL: warspite1
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ORIGINAL: loki100
Project Fear by Joe Pike. His partner was a significant organiser in the pro-UK 'Better Together' campaign in Scotland's independence campaign in 2014 and he had pretty good access to all the significant individuals (from both sides).
However, the book is actually very funny and well balanced - as a picture of 'politics for real' rather than 'politics as it is pretended to be'. Its a bit parochial (as you'd expect) but I think its essentially a reflection of any real political campaign and all the antics.
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ORIGINAL: warspite1
.... Will then start "Soviet Naval Operations in the Great Patriotic War 1941-45". From glancing through this it looks like a propaganda leaflet! But at least it gives me a chance to learn about a subject that gets little to no mention elsewhere.
it is, if you can find it Kluge's The Soviets as Naval Opponents, 1941-45 is much better. Its from the German perspective but I don't think there are any decent books from the Soviet point of view that have been translated. Glancing it at, Kluge seems fair in his comments
warspite1
I could not find it so I removed the author's name and it came up on Amazon (the author was Ruge!). Ordered, thanks for the tip.
warspite1
...and it arrived today  Look forward to this as soon as Sealion is done.
warspite1
Read the intro and largely finished the first chapter (The Baltic).
The translation into English isn't always great and that makes things a little more difficult but so far so good.
Ruge makes clear his intense dislike of the modern day Soviet Union (the book was printed in 1979) with every utterance!
He is very scathing too about the performance of the Soviet Baltic Fleet in WWII - although counters this with his view that the Kriegsmarine should have been used better than it was.
More importantly, and very usefully he provides commentary on what the Soviet official version states about certain events - and it is clear that Soviet Naval Operations in the Great Patriotic War may not have been a good choice of book. I think at this early stage it is going to be clear that in the Soviet version, their navy sunk far more vessels than the Germans actually possessed. However the bias isn't all one sided. I couldn't help but let out a wry smile when reading his opening lines in the Baltic chapter:
In the fall of 1939 the Soviets took advantage of the war between Germany and Poland to occupy the eastern part of Poland as well as Latvia and Estonia.....
Priceless - nothing to do with the secret protocols contained within the Nazi-Soviet pact then? 
warspite1
I am enjoying this book sooo much! It would be nice to have a little more detail but.....
Reading this, hot on the heels of When Titans Clashed, and it really brings home that the Germans simply had no chance. You really have to hand it to the Soviets though. The punishment they took and yet, despite all the losses, they simply would not give up. Incredible.
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England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805  |
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