Has anyone read Clancy's SSN?

[Red October1984]

I want to order it, but I don't know if I will yet.

[TLAM Strike]

Its rubbish. Can't even tell Clancy wrote it. :nope:

[Sledgehammer427]

I'm siding with TLAM. Its terrible.

[Red October1984]

Really?

[mookiemookie]

I stopped reading it after about 50 pages and threw it away (and I never throw/give books away). It was that bad.

[TLAM Strike]

Contrary to what the title says, this is NOT a Tom Clancy book. Some toolbag author supposedly cowrote it and then Tom Clancy passed by, took a **** on the manuscript, and called it "cowritten". I've seen Call Of Duty fanfiction that sounds more Clancy than this book

? Keep in mind that this was written back in the 90s... The result is pretty obvious. America triumhps effortlessly and rapes practically every piece of military unit that China has with just ONE submarine. It's so ridiculous at points you'd think it's written as substitute porn for hardcore military enthusiasts.

The story is centered on Captain Mack, who, unfortunately, is the only named person in the WHOLE ****ING AMERICAN NAVY...Everybody else is named after their function and their ranks, and possess personalities no further than that of their position in the submarine.

a good healthy portion of the book is practically a slightly embellished activity log of somebody who knows half **** about submarines.

From: http://redkinoko.blogspot.com/2011/01/tom-clancys-ssn-book-review.html


^QFT

[Red October1984]

That is a big suprise. I mite pick it up anyway. I don't know a lot about subs. I take in wat I get from wikipedia, subsims, sh2, books, etc. I love a good sub story. Found out that everybody hates U-571. I liked that movie. If I see it real cheap, I'll probably pick it up.

[Raptor1]

I assume you've already read Red Storm Rising and The Hunt for Red October, which besides being excellent books have some pretty awesome depictions of submarine warfare?

[Oberon]

Can't dismiss "To Kill The Potemkin" either, that's a damn good novel. One of the first submarine stories I read in fact.

[Syxx_Killer]

I read SSN many years ago. I don't remember anything about it except that there was a ship in the book named Benthic Adventure. I think the submarine in the book was the USS Cheyenne. The book was based on the game which looked awful. I remember back in the day trying to decide on SSN or Jane's 688i Hunter/Killer. I went with 688i and glad I did.

Can't dismiss "To Kill The Potemkin" either, that's a damn good novel. One of the first submarine stories I read in fact.

My first sub novel was Typhoon. I loved it. I always wanted to read To Kill the Potemkin, but never got around to it. One of these days I might try to find a used one on Amazon or something.

[Red October1984]

I own that book. I'm reading the Jack Ryan books in order. I will read red storm rising tho. What I want in a sub novel is a storyline. Nonfiction bores the hell out of me, but, I loved The Hunt for Red October. Picked up red october for a dollar fifty and red storm rising for 3 bucks.

[Sailor Steve]

Nonfiction bores the hell out of me...
Now my favorite book, on the other hand, is John Campbell's Jutland: An Analysis Of The Fighting, closely followed by his Naval Weapons Of World War Two, David Lyons' The First Destroyers, The World's Merchant Fleets, 1939: The Particulars and Wartime Fates of 6,000 Ships by Roger Norman, then anything from R.A. Burt, Norman Friedman or any of the Anatomy Of The Ship series. I also have a fair collection of Warship magazine. When I'm online I like to read The Fleet-Type Submarine or the British and American reports on U-570. I have read a lot of fiction in the past, but stories no longer turn me on like the machinery and the history do.

[Randomizer]

Now my favorite book, on the other hand, is John Campbell's Jutland: An Analysis Of The Fighting
Indispensable as a reference of course but rather a dull read unless one enjoys technical reports. They have their place but far more readable is Andrew Gordon's Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command or Keith Yate's Flawed Victory: Jutland, 1916. On the other hand, you would probably love Oscar Parkes' British Battleships 1860-1950.

I agree that SSN is an appallingly bad book but then Clancy's first two books were his best after which he went steadily downhill.

[Red October1984]

If ssn is bad, I need another one to fill the gap.

[Kaye T. Bai]

Bad in what sense?

Bad as in terrible storytelling or bad as in an inaccurate depection of USN SSNs and the submarine force?

I've been interested in it as well, as I'd like to read a book that goes into detail of the daily life of being on a USN SSN post-1990s.

[TLAM Strike]

Bad in what sense?

Bad as in terrible storytelling or bad as in an inaccurate depection of USN SSNs and the submarine force?

I've been interested in it as well, as I'd like to read a book that goes into detail of the daily life of being on a USN SSN post-1990s.

The characterization is horrible. The crew is made up of cardboard cutouts that do nothing but give canned responses like in a computer game. Almost nothing about the daily life of the crew is mentioned.

The book reads like a run down of battles between the SSNand a progressively more dangerous series of enemies. The technology and tactics described are rudimentary in detail.

The most telling part is where the US SSN takes on five Russian Akula SSNs manned by Russian "Advisers" and wins mostly because the Russians use the absolute worst weapons in their inventory. Most of the book is a series of battles between US and Russian submarines not Chinese ones as advertised.

This book doesn't read like any Clancy book that I've read (and I've read all the Ryanverse books from Red October to Red Rabbit). I doubt he really wrote it as it says on the cover.

[Red October1984]

i.e. The Hunt For Red October

[Krauter]

The characterization is horrible. The crew is made up of cardboard cutouts that do nothing but give canned responses like in a computer game. Almost nothing about the daily life of the crew is mentioned.

The book reads like a run down of battles between the SSNand a progressively more dangerous series of enemies. The technology and tactics described are rudimentary in detail.

The most telling part is where the US SSN takes on five Russian Akula SSNs manned by Russian "Advisers" and wins mostly because the Russians use the absolute worst weapons in their inventory. Most of the book is a series of battles between US and Russian submarines not Chinese ones as advertised.

This book doesn't read like any Clancy book that I've read (and I've read all the Ryanverse books from Red October to Red Rabbit). I doubt he really wrote it as it says on the cover.

Yeap.. I bought it and after reading through the first encounter I left it on my shelf. Terrible terrible dialogue. It got to a point when I tried to pick it up again that I could guess what the dialogue would be three pages up.

[Kaye T. Bai]

The characterization is horrible. The crew is made up of cardboard cutouts that do nothing but give canned responses like in a computer game. Almost nothing about the daily life of the crew is mentioned. The book reads like a run down of battles between the SSNand a progressively more dangerous series of enemies. The technology and tactics described are rudimentary in detail. The most telling part is where the US SSN takes on five Russian Akula SSNs manned by Russian "Advisers" and wins mostly because the Russians use the absolute worst weapons in their inventory. Most of the book is a series of battles between US and Russian submarines not Chinese ones as advertised. This book doesn't read like any Clancy book that I've read (and I've read all the Ryanverse books from Red October to Red Rabbit). I doubt he really wrote it as it says on the cover.

Thanks, that's what I wanted to know.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

The book reads like a run down of battles between the SSNand a progressively more dangerous series of enemies. The technology and tactics described are rudimentary in detail.

Or at least that's what it was supposed to be, but the Han (ancient Chinese sub) in Chapter 1 arguably gave the best fight in the whole book.

[Platapus]

What I want in a sub novel is a storyline. Nonfiction bores the hell out of me, but, I loved The Hunt for Red October.

If you are looking for WWII fiction, I can recommend Final Harbor by Harry Homewood. Homewood started out in the S-boats and made 11 war patrols during WWII.

The main character of the book is the submarine itself as this book recognizes that crews change.

Anyone else read Final Harbor and can give an opinion? I think it is a good fiction book but I would be interested in other opinions about it.

I have not read any of his other books though.

[Red October1984]

I guess we'll see about SSN. Has anyone read Scorpion Down? Sounded good for nonfiction. Got both for a total of 7$

[Subnuts]

I guess we'll see about SSN. Has anyone read Scorpion Down? Sounded good for nonfiction. Got both for a total of 7$

Toilet paper would have been cheaper. :damn:

I reviewed Scorpion Down for this site around the time it came out, but these two reviews on Amazon basically sum it up:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1GHNHPOKDV543/ref=cm_cr_dp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0465051863&nodeID=283155&tag=&linkCode=

http://www.amazon.com/review/RTOGWK2C50MCJ/ref=cm_cr_dp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0465051863&nodeID=283155&tag=&linkCode=

[Red October1984]

I thought Scorpion Down sounded good so I picked it up. SSN was just there and cheap so.....

[Randomizer]

I thought Scorpion Down sounded good so I picked it up. SSN was just there and cheap so.....
It matters not what the Community thinks, although I suspect that Ed Offley was on drugs, delusional or hopelessly paranoid (perhaps all three) when he wrote Scorpion Down. Read both and form your own opinion.

[Red October1984]

The community hated U-571. I personally loved that movie. Bought it on DVD and everything. I don't know everything about subs. When people talk about figuring out the TDC, I have no idea how to manually do the TDC. I play on automatic. I'm not extremly technical because I know that I don't know it all about subs. I look forward to learning a lot more here, in my books, and in my subsims. I just might like SSN. I might like Scorpion Down. I'm not a stranger to being apart from the group. So, to sum that up, I love this website and forums and look forward to being the greatest Skipper to ever be in my basement.

[Randomizer]

I will admit to being a nearly fanatical U-571 hater but that does not translate to thinking less of Forum Member's who might enjoy it for whatever reasons. The topic comes up almost quarterly around here so be patient and you will see usual arguments for and against.

Submarines represent a fascinating aspect of naval warfare and it's probably not unreasonable to say that they were high amongst the decisive weapons of the 20th Century. There's millions of printed words and hundreds of websites with submarine content so you suffer from a abundance of data and putting things into their place can be challenging.

A couple of reasonable primers on the subject are:

Thomas Parrish - The Submarine

Peter Padfield - War Beneath the Sea: Submarine Conflict 1939-1945.

Both are reasonably objective, written for general audiences, are well researched, readily available and should be held at better public libraries. With a relatively unbiased background of the submarine at war you might move into reading about the post-war era and so can better understand the submarine in the Cold War putting works like SSN and Scorpion Down into context. You may come to share other's disdain at these particular works or perhaps not.

Anyway, Good Hunting on the search for more submarine knowledge.

[Skald]

The style of writing in this book is terrible, it is very stiff and formulaic.

It is essentially a non-fiction factual reporting of submarine warfare dressed up as a fiction novel.

[Popeye the Salior]

yes love it. Follows an actual submarine.

[Wxman]

Say what you will about the book. It is nevertheless, the prime reason that I came to be a member of this forum.

I bought the PC game SSN back when it came out. Then a friend bought me the book. There was a particular scenario on the game that I was unable to affect a solution for. A friend at work was an ex-Navy E-3 Orion crew member. When I diagrammed the scenario out to him on the wet-board, he told me I was screwed and there was no place to hide. He told me that any solution in the game was extremely unrealistic.

Since I was extremely fond of that PC game, and being a veteran of the Falcon 4.0 flight-sim and F1 2002 racing sim, I searched for something suitable WRT submarine simulation. That search lead me to Sub Command.

That has brought immense enjoyment in and of itself. That being said, what I've worked on off and on is developing a Sub Command campaign that plays out SSN within the purvue of the realism afforded by Sub Command. I'll concede that the SSN story is an extreme fantasy and the SSN PC game is kindergarten in contrast to Sub Command.

SSN begins with the first mission as being tasked to transit from San Diego Naval Base to Naval Station Pearl Harbor. I spent some time at www.marinetraffic.com and generated a list of normal traffic near San Diego. My Sub Command campaign generates random entities out of this extensive list.

The Los Angeles skipper must exit undetected, i.e., run the gauntlet of USN and CG vessals that are on training excercise or outright running interdiction for DHS, in addition to the overwhelming majority of traffic that is of commercial - tanker, cargo, cruise, fishing - and to smaller degree private craft. The fact of the matter is San Diego and vicinity is a hornet nest of activity. Not overlooking inbound / outbound traffic to HI & Asia. The skipper can either ignore the entirety of it, or get points for each vessel ID'd, remaining undetected, receiving ELF transmissions notifying enemy contact established W of Los Angeles postion by E-3 on ASW excercise, detecting the incoming enemy Han, and based on ROE - weapons hold / weaponss free - as received from ComSubPAC in response to LA sitrep pertaining to enemy contract relayed to ComSubPAC, address any threats that impugn the mssion of transit to PHSB.

That's just egress from SDNB. Ingress to PHNB is another matter completely (albeit merely a beehive in contrast to SDNB). Again, I've spent time at marinetraffic.com and logged normal HI marine traffic which the inbound LA must contend with as adjunct to enemy contacts scripted by SSN storyline.

The LA skipper must be intimately familiar with all aspects of driving LA class SSN, e.g., SOP, sonar, TMA, weapons systems, environmental conditions, tactics and strategy, etc.

From that perspective, I find SSN to be a usefull template for my campaign. That notwithstanding, the storyline of SSN itself is pure fairytale.

[Red October1984]

SSN was a decent book. It could've been better but I liked it.

[Platapus]

And frankly, your opinion is really all that matters. If you got enjoyment out of the book, then it was worth you reading it. :up:

It is OK to ask other people's opinion about books, but don't let anyone steer you away from a book you think you might enjoy. :yep:

Every book out there is liked by some and not liked by others. There are no "bad" books from an entertainment standpoint


Now about that U-571.....:D

[CTU_Clay]

Tom Clancy's SUBMARINE, A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship is another book that I found interesting too.

The softside book I have was published by Berkley Publishing Group, New York, New York 10014

[Red October1984]

And frankly, your opinion is really all that matters. If you got enjoyment out of the book, then it was worth you reading it. :up:

It is OK to ask other people's opinion about books, but don't let anyone steer you away from a book you think you might enjoy. :yep:

Every book out there is liked by some and not liked by others. There are no "bad" books from an entertainment standpoint

+1 :)

Now about that U-571.....:D

That was a dark time...long, long ago...of which we shall not speak.

Tom Clancy's SUBMARINE, A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship is another book that I found interesting too.

The softside book I have was published by Berkley Publishing Group, New York, New York 10014

I actually just got a copy of that a few weeks back. :cool: