Military Model Scene

Title:  Desert Storm, Vol.1

Author: E.R.Hooton & Tom Cooper

Publisher:  Helion Books

ISBN:  978-1-911628-65-1

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Number 34 in their Africa at War series

 

 

Another good addition to the MiddleEast@War series, bringing it to 18 in total so far. I am a fan of the series and this one is no exception. Firstly, I personally find it hard to imagine that these events happened nearly 30 years ago now.  Where has the time gone?  There have been plenty of books on the subject of Desert Storm, and with this being marked as volume 1, there is more to come. This book gives us the wider context of the relations between Kuwait and its' neighbours over the years, and the situation leading up to the Iraqi invasion. Oil of course was closely involved with the story.

As well as the background it goes on to cover the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the response from Western powers such as Britain, the USA and France, as well as Saudi Arabia. It also includes the build up of forces in Saudi Arabia and Operation Desert Shield. The book has many excellent period images, along with maps to illustrate events as they infolded plus 6 pages of colour profile artwork which will please modellers. For me, the big difference with this book is that it has a lot from the Iraqi viewpoint, with military operations on the ground, along with the details of the Iraqi Air Defence system and the structure of their Air Force. It also includes how Iraq agreed with Iran (their enemy in the long running Iran-Iraq war) to accept IrAF aircraft as they had accepted the superiority of the US led coalition air forces and wanted to preserve their equipment investments.

A quite different angle on the subject and I am looking forward to seeing volume 2. Interesting for historians studying the period, and plenty for both AFV and aircraft modellers as well.

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Distributed by Casemate Books, who kindly provided my review copy.

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Robin