index index index index I use to be a big Dale Brown fan, as I thoroughly enjoyed "Shadows of Steel", "Warrior Class" and "Wings of Fire". Those novels had a good balance between technical military descriptions and story telling. In "Air Battle Force", however, Brown started to stray a little too far from the story telling side of it, and in "Plan of Attack" he pretty much goes over completely to the technical side. The novel opens with an account of an American air attack against mobile Russian missle launch pads in Turkmenistan. It should be exciting, but instead we get a painstaking description of the American attack plane's weapons systems; when it fires a missile, we get a detailed analysis of the missile's capabilities, as well as an indepth look at the defense systems of the Russian launch pads. Only a few pages in, it's hard to tell if you're reading a novel or a glorified instruction manual.
The story itself is a little far-fetched as well. While I'm sure Vladimir Putin would love it if he had an overhauled nuclear bomber strike force capable of attacking the United States without our even knowing, the actual reality is that this would never happen, especially with the Russian defense budget in the state that it is. Character development is also sketchy; Gary Houser, who is described as an Air Force Intelligence genius, doesn't do much beyond curse at anything that moves. Patrick McLanahan's usual go-against-the-grain mentality is so routine by now that it hardly seems shocking anymore (though what is shocking is that he hasn't been kicked out of the Air Force by now). And finally, Brown is so eager to show the technical aspect of modern warfare that he almost completely ignores the human side of it. In the afore-mentioned opening battle scene, for instance, it's easy to forget that hundreds of Russian soldiers are killed.
Overall, I found this book to be a dissapointment. The idea of Russia launching a surprise nuclear attack against the United States smacks of 1970's Cold War paranoia and lacks any kind of believability. In addition, the non-stop technical jargon drags the story down and prevents any actual momentum. I used to count Dale Brown as one of my favorite authors, but suffice to say I don't think I'll be picking up any new books from him anytime soon.I'm used to being disappointed by authors that I'm not familiar with, but this one is a real shock. It's incredibly bad. I'm not a literary snob - I've read and enjoyed most of Tom Clancy's books. But really, someone who pretends to be a writer of novels should at least try to write something that has the basics - like plot, characters, and intelligible writing. It appears that Dale Brown has written quite a few of these books, and some people have actually read them. What a waste of time and trees.OMG, what an awful book. is there a LESS than 1 star rating?? ;-) how appropriate that the author has a similar name to DAN BROWN of da'vinci fame who writes even MORE pitifully than dale. I am promising myself i won't make the same mistake as i did w/ brown's books, which was keep reading to see if they got better. brown's didn't, they were all so predictable and just god awful. i'm going to go on the presumption that DALE's will likely follow the same track and will save myself some hours of my life...

Now, about this book - i TOTALLY agree w/ anything negative said above - it just can't be said any better.

- way, way, WAY too much technical jargon
- i'm not a military guy so don't know all the protocol, but i can confidently bet $1MM that if ANYONE (even general george washington) did HALF the insubordinate things that mclanahan did, he wouldn't just be "demoted," he'd be courtmartialed in a heartbeat. reading about him constantly bending the rules and still getting things done thru alternate channels, without breaking a sweat, mind you, is just so incomprehensible as to be RIDICULOUS.
- story lines and situations that just come out of nowhere, with no explanation in order to "set up" the current scene
- totally agree w/ the above poster on the ridiculously futuristic weapons

i know you have to have an imagination to read these types of books, but there's imagination, and then there's RIDICULOUS.

I would have said the story is utterly preposterous until we got the new president of Iran and his dreams of recalling the 12th Prophet through nuclear war. But we now know that there was (and probably is) a system of checks and balances in even the most fanatical of governments. Ok, let's start with the bad:
(1) Plot - Russia succeeds in tricking the US and destroys most of our land-based nuclear capability with old bombers
(2) The neverending technical jargon - who CARES if it's an A64-S3 or a B22 portable plasma SAM. I, like 90% of the readers, learned to skip the redundant definitions and explanations.
(3) Lack of description of the nuclear attacks themselves. One of the reasons I read the novel was for the purported nuclear war episode. After a while it became routine...."He was thinking about home sweet home when suddenly a light, and no more thoughts were present" (variations on a theme)

Now the good:
(1) If true, a warning about complacency and assumptions
(2) Good action
(3) Great hero - Patrick rocks!

WARNING: A landmine of military jargon at its worst (or best)This book is a very good story. I personally have never enjoyed High-tech battle books, but this book along with Air Battle Force are two very good High tech battle books that I recommend as a good read.

Someone who is not very interested in the subject, or who doesnt have a very good imagination cant really enjoy this book.

In this book, the author describes all of the weapons, and weapon systems very very much, which kind of got a bit tedious and dull. But overall the story was very good.

As many others have already said, I agree that it is probably time for this storyline to be put to rest.The unthinkable is about to happen in this tour de force of high-flying adventure Dale Brown is the author of fourteen NEW YORK TIMES bestsellers, and now in PLAN OF ATTACK he provocatively turns our attention back to the threat of a nuclear attack that is beyond our imaginings.

U.S. Air Force aerial warfare expert Major General Patrick McLanahan has been demoted and moved back to a desk job. But while keeping a keen eye on what's going on with old enemies, he notices that Russia's heavy bomber and tactical bomber bases are busier than ever. McLanahan tries to get his superiors to pay attention and is ignored.

Russian president General Anatoliy Gryzlov is determined to punish McLanahan and his fleet of robotic warplanes for a previous bombing of a Russian air base. To make his point, Gryzlov launches an all-out sneak attack on America -- unlike anything ever believed possible -- that devastates U.S. strategic air forces.

McLanahan has collected information that not only foretold the Russians' daring plan, but also gives him the data he needs to plan a counterstrike that could stop the Russian war machine dead in its tracks. But McLanahan is no longer in charge of Air Battle Force, his combat unit of the future, and the Russian sneak attack has left the embattled U.S. president with few options: retaliate with every weapon in his arsenal, even if it triggers a global thermonuclear war, agree to a cease-fire on Russia's terms ... or listen to a disgraced and discredited young bomber commander's long-shot plan of attack. To prevent a destructive stalemate, McLanahan may have to take matters into his own hands. suria review reviews analysis analyze