Ned Beach's RunSilent Run Deep

[wstaub]

Just finished reading all 3 of his books following the crew of Run Silent, Run Deep and it gives a new regard for all the troubles the sub crews went through. A Must read for all Silent Hunter fans everywhere.

[CaptainHaplo]

He wrote 3 of em? I only read RsRd - thanks for the post - gonna have to check out the other 2!!!

[wstaub]

were Dust on the Sea, and Cold is the Sea

[Sailor Steve]

Have you read his autobiography, Salt and Steel?

[wstaub]

Not yet planning to read that one after I finish a book about Richard O'Kane I have and one on The Wahoo.

[Snowman999]

Originally Posted by wstaub

were Dust on the Sea, and Cold is the Sea

N.B. the latter is about a cold war nuke boat, not WWII.

[wstaub]

true but it still follows the original crew

[RENEGADE-623]

i read all three too back when i was in high school, many, many moons ago. It was those books that got me interested in subsims in the first plce

[edjcox]

Loose lips sink subs.. Keep on talking and a squaking..

Tokyo Rose intercept..


Bungo Pete took off on a liferaft and is trawling this forum to determine where your boat is and when he can get there to sink it....

He's already completly destroyed coherency on the Subs by requiring any skipper to use the arcane method of pointing and clicking his mouse over controls to select torpedoes, select speeds, select ammo etc. We all now that Bungo Pete and UBI are in cahoots and have been reading the trash thrown into the internet sea's. Failure to weight down those bags of internet traffic has resulted in a pile of intelligence on the boats out there and there limitations and capabilities. UBI and Bungo have agreed not to make the game any easier to play as if they do it may actually become enjoyable and to many more subamriners would then flock to the oceans in the game... It is after all true that a Nazi submariner was aboard Bungo's Akikaze and used his tactical knowledge and skills to chase and sink fellow American subs. Defeat is not in the cards for Bungo Pete...



Loved the books, read them back in 1969

[heartc]

Can't believe "Submarine!" wasn't mentioned yet. Then again, I've yet to read his other books.

"Submarine!" is made up of several episodes / patrol excerpts of the following boats:

USS Trigger
USS Seawolf
USS Wahoo
USS Harder
USS Archerfish
USS Tang
USS Albacore
USS Cavalla
USS Batfish
USS Tirante
USS Piper, his own boat.

It's a very interesting and comprehensive read.

[AntEater]

I was a bit disappointed by "Submarine!". I thought it was just Ned's personal account of his time on Trigger, instead it was a rather murky account of the US submarine force's greatest heroes, with a bit of Trigger mixed in.
It was certainly an important book in the 1950s, when most of the US public had never heard about the Wahoo or the Harder. But today, there are better and more precise accounts of everything in "Submarine!"
In german, you would call "Submarine!" as some kind of "Landserstil", as it reminds me of the semi-fictionalized accounts published in the "Landser" magazine in 1950s Germany.
Also keep in Mind Beach was an active US Naval officer, and he concealed things and deliberately described some procedures vaguely or falsely in his early books, for the sake of operational security.

Just finished reading "cold is the sea". Started great, but the end was a bit of a disappointment.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Snowman999

N.B. the latter is about a cold war nuke boat, not WWII.

Originally Posted by wstaub

true but it still follows the original crew

Really? That's pretty cool!

[AntEater]

The chief engineer of one of the SSNs in the book is a Lt. Tom Clancy

*SPOILER ALERT* (if you read "cold is the sea, don't read further)






I really like the first part, where he describes Hyman Rickover (under a different name), nuclear training and the likes. Almost reads like a documentary book. Replace Adm. Brighting with Adm. Rickover, Richardson with Beach himself and the CNO with Arleigh Burke, you have a almost realistic account. The characters match their historic counterparts perfectly. The "under-ice submarine patrol" part is quite clancyish. The only thing really different from Clancy is that Beach's book is set in the early 1960s, and written in 1978.
The soviets deliberately ramming a SSBN under the ice, having a ECM defence against homing torpedoes and a fixed missile installation in the pack ice is just too far fetched. But just as I was thinking "at least he consequently lets the narrative stay with his heroes and does not do clancy style bad guy cameos" I turn the page and "Capt. Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov was angry......"
Dammit, I never took creative writing but even I get that you do not drastically alter your narrative style on the last 50 pages....
Also, the sheer volume of torpedoes running around under the ice pack while BOTH sides had communication with their respective subs would have triggered nuclear war in reality, especially since the book is set around the time of the Cuban missile crisis. Neither the soviets, nor the americans (who naturally only "return fire" ) have any qualms of engaging each other.

[TheSatyr]

I always considered "Cold is the Sea" to be his weakest book by far. And to be honest,I didn't think "Dust on the Sea" Was all that great either...both seemed a bit too implausible to me.

[AntEater]

I liked "Cold is the sea" for the reason that it was more "compact" centered on one war patrol instead of covering such a long time.
Of course the whole Richardson being captured and liberated episode would have best been left out, but apart from that and the extreme accuracy of Rich's torpedo shooting, I quite liked it.