RAIDER BRIGADE: Into A Time Warp Paperback – September 8, 2020

A lot of fun to read as someone who was in the Raider Brigade at the time that this book takes place. I was the company executive officer in Delta Company, 1-30 infantry in 1987. It's obvious that Mr. Gilbert knows his stuff when talking about military tactics of the cold war as well as his historical knowledge of WW II. I look forward to reading the next instalment to see how my old unit flares!

The footnotes are numerous and detailed. The blending of time travel was not over emphacised as to interfere with the story. The book could be improved with more maps earlier in the book showing the advance and final location of the Raider Brigade. Larger scale maps would be of great help locating the rivers. I chose a 5 star rating as opposed to 4 stars as the latter would over emphasise the mild critism re mapping.

Being a 3rd ID guy I was excited for this but was let down. I felt that the plot was overall too short. I felt that the few engagements that occurred were too short, lacked dialogue and opportunity to develop characters. I went in with a Team Yankee mindset and this is no where close to that. Too much history lesson, not enough chances to interact with influential historical members. There are several moments where dialogue could have been written better, more interaction with WWII troops. Over all it read like a giant timeline and I didn’t understand the need to include pictures. I liked the overall concept and think that idea of modern troops/time travel to WWII could have just been written so much better. Basically once you get to final engagement then you can pretty much end it right there. The rest is just a history lesson.

I had high hopes for this story. After watching “The Final Countdown” and reading Taylor Anderson’s “Destroyermen”, I’ve always wondered how to get a modern heavy battalion or larger American Army unit into WWII, and what the impact would be. Would it be more along the lines of “The Final Countdown” or more like “We’re here, we’re part of the American Army, and the enemy is the enemy?”Unfortunately, at least the Kindle version needed an experienced editor, or more careful use of spellcheck. The volume of errors in the first few chapters regarding capitalization of proper nouns (stinger versus Stinger, mixed usage of “cavalry” versus “calvary”, “caliber” versus “calibre”) substantially distract from the flow of the story. And the correct title for a single individual is “Command Sergeant Major” or “Sergeant Major”, not “Command Sergeants Major” or “Sergeants Major”.The conversations and presentation of the story are too formal and not very lifelike. I saw very few of the contractions, slang and jargon that make up day-to-day conversations, and that can be used effectively in third person storytelling to make the “universe” more lifelike. Much of the story reads like a transcript that’s been cleaned up to eliminate any “personality”. Which is exactly what happened – I have no personal connection with any of the characters.The discovery of “when” the Raider Brigade finds itself was pretty well handled, with not too much time spent on any discussion of how. That was pretty lifelike – how you got into the middle of WWII isn’t nearly as important as the fact that you are there!The story does read almost like a history book. While there’s a fair amount of emphasis on big picture issues, there’s none of the squad/crew/platoon level point of view that would make this story so much more realistic and engaging. How would the soldiers of a modern American army unit react when they find themselves in their father’s or grandfather’s world and war? And only about 65% of the story is actual story, even less without the photographs. The rest is footnotes and personal information about the author. The insertion of italicized “history” at the beginning of some chapters is confusing at times. Sometimes it reads like “our” history, and other times like “their” in-universe history - what is different in 1944-45 now that “our” history has been changed.From a strictly technical standpoint, I have two issues. First is fire control (how much modern weaponry is fired to achieve the desired effect). The author does accurately highlight the issue of ‘this is all we’ve got, except for caliber .50 for the M-2 machine guns and .45 caliber ammo for the Colt 1911A1 pistol.’ Both of these were effectively unchanged from 1944 to 1987. That would have been a great discussion between a modern private and a 1944 private, especially to find the same serial numbered weapon being used by two different soldiers and units from 40 years apart.But the fire control issue was enough to cause even this old grunt to wonder why are they using massed fire techniques with ammo that is extremely scarce, such as the 120 mm Abrams fire at targets that are so far beyond that target’s ability to return fire. Instead of firing at fewer targets than there are shooters, and then repeating on what’s still operational, these engagements should have been much more controlled and directed. Make every single shot count.And second was repair parts. While a full brigade with it’s attached support battalion would carry a good supply of spare parts, that (more so than fuel or ammunition) probably would have been a much larger concern. Especially for the aviation part of the cavalry squadron.While I am interested in the next part of this story, I am going to think about it a while before buying. A few other things to read. I think the author has a great idea, and has done something I’ve only thought about. Hooah. Hopefully his style has matured as he’s settled in. While I can’t strongly recommend this, it is far from the worst story I’ve read, and at least in the Kindle version probably worth the spend.

Way too much info on organization, equipment and history. A good read is one where you get interested in the people! Unless you're repairing something, you don't need to know how to. You really know the history of that time period, but if you want to be a good writer, write the characters wielding history, not events wielding people. Of course, you may disagree with me.

I enjoy alternative history and it was interesting to read a book looking at how a Cold War US armored brigade would fight in WW2. I'm retired from the Army and served in the Gulf War and later Iraq. Being a 3rd ID vet from OIF1 it was fun to see the division as the star of the book. I highly recommend this book. It’s well written, the characters are superb and the story is exciting.

The book is well written with very good fluid prose but it has one fatal flaw. There was far too much emphasis on the details of an armored brigades equipment and read much like a Tom Clancy novel. That is good in the proper genre but with time travel book I prefer more about the interaction between uptime and downtime person and the reactions of each to the situation. I also found some of the plot points for how the brigade is used to be implausible and even a work of science fiction must maintain a certain degree of plausibility to work. I will not say which to avoid spoilers.

Wow, this book, for the cost was a waste of money, no enough action. I wouldn't recommend this to a friend, and doubtful to an enemy. This is the first book I have read that I regretted buying.