Red Metal

In a world not too different from our own, Russia has lost control of a valuable piece of real estate in Kenya. Embarrassed, angry, and it's political apparatus threatening to fall into irrelevance, the Russians aim to reassert themselves in a world where they have been beaten down since the Cold War ended. Their only option is to unleash a tide of Red Metal.

The authors Mark Greaney and Rip Rawlings IV collaborated on this project and brought quite a bit of experience to it. Greaney is perhaps best known as being the last and most connected collaborator with the late Tom Clancy, and having a quite successful career of his own with his Gray Man series. Rawlings is a former Marine Corps infantry and reconnaissance officer who has begun writing his own fiction as well. From their diverse backgrounds, they've come together to do quite a lot of research and put it into one very exciting package!

Another piece of alternate history with the Russians thundering across the European plains! This one just edges in as it was written in 2019 and set in 2020, so something like the War in 2020 but very different! I'll admit I was attracted to this one because it was set in a contemporary setting, and trying to keep up with recent technologies. It made for some intriguing military analysis, and many, many tense action sequences.

Unlike my last two reads, which contained lots of older history with the Cold War in full swing, we find ourselves in the 21st century, the Soviet Union dismantled, NATO hovering over Europe, and the Russians quite upset with how their fortunes have turned out. We're in the internet age, Facebook and satellite communications are more prominent than even in the fantastic works done by Clancy or Peters. Though one might ask themselves, how does war come about in such an age? To their credit, the two authors go to lengths to convince you why the war happens and how these plans are concocted. It's all rather believable and makes for an interesting set up, similar to Red Storm Rising. It was immensely enjoyable, and I found it quite interesting to see a deep effort by the Russians to carry out a maskirovka in line with modern expectations. The pages spent establishing it were vital to seeing how the conflict breaks out.

The Russian plan, codenamed Red Metal, is one of calculation and sweeping depth. It involves a raid into Europe to blind NATO, using armored columns, suped up war trains with artillery and anti-air assets, and the insertion of Spetznaz forces to distract and blind the NATO alliance. Like the Russian generals, I too was shocked by it's depth and audacity. The way it ends up being carried out is quite bombastic, clever, and really worthy of a Bond Villain in its cunning and menace.

The authors have done a very good job in describing modern war. There's hackers knocking out the web, drones scouting artillery positions, and satellites being blinded or destroyed by ASAT missiles. From the internet to special forces teams, they don't overlook anything that might need to go boom to get the ball rolling in the early 21st century. One of the coolest things though are the Red Lighting trains, primed for deception and military support. Being rolling command posts, armored support columns and anti-air batteries all in one, it made for a very exciting aspect no one might have considered before!

Red Metal also includes a large and diverse cast of characters. From the ground, to the skies, to below the seas, it's a diverse group for a large war. I never found myself bored by the characters or their stories, and besides one painfully shoehorned in romance sub plot, the characters were all deeply interesting in their interactions. 

On the American/NATO side we have Lt. Colonel Dan Connelly, a former field commander who is now behind a desk and working with his army counterpart Major Griggs who is intelligent, but a chronic underachiever. Lt. Colonel Tom Grant, a tank logistics and maintenance officer and interim commander of his regiment while his commander goes home on Christmas leave. We also have Captain Raymond "Shank" Vance who pilots at A-10, Lt. Sandra "Glitter" Glisson an Apache pilot, and a Polish militia soldier Paulina Tobiazs. Finally, prominent among others still, is Pascal Arc-Blanchette, an old French spy who willingly stays in Africa and his son Captain Apollo Arc-Blanchette, French special forces operator.

Then on the Russian side we have Yuri Borbikov, the mastermind of Red Metal. Humilated after being forced to withdraw from a rare earth mind in Kenya in 2017, he has masterminded the plot to humiliate NATO in return. The two generals who will carry out the plan are Eduard Sabaneyev and Boris Lazar. Sabaneyev is an up and coming officer in the military while Lazar, the Lion of Dagestan, is one of the finest soldiers in Russia. This trio are our main viewpoint at the Russian side of the war, other than occasional one off characters who flesh out the action. Unfortunately, the Russians generally turn into Bond villains, complete with war crimes and supervillain trains, quite quickly. With one notable exception there's not a lot of humanizing the enemy, and we get into some nationalistic chest beating early on.

The action though, is just spectacular. These authors have clearly spent time in warzones, and the detail they put into the weapons, their uses, and it's effects on humans is intense. Whether being shredded by an A-10's cannons, blown apart by tank main guns, or incinerated by a fuel air bomb, the authors don't spare you the horrors of modern war. It was engrossing reading about everything from an undermanned militia unit fighting a Russian advance column, to a full regiment of US Marines fighting off Russian armor and artillery from a well fortified position. With all that, characters die, and the happy endings are few and far between.

I will confess that the presence of one of my favorite modern war machines, the ugly but beautiful A-10 Warthog did inspire much of my praise for this book. It is used to well and the character who drives his 'hog to the bitter end, was fun to watch. From the awesome of blowing through massed Russian armor to the almost absurd of a trio of Warthogs fighting off a pair of Su-57 fighter jets I was hooked.

If I can make one major criticism, the story by the rough half way point did begin seeing the lucky breaks start falling almost one sided towards the US/NATO. The tone shifts from one of well plotted and established action to one of enormous convenience for NATO forces. Russia still gets its licks in, but by the last two hundred pages I could accurately predict the general outcome, somewhat disappointingly. Too many things swing just the right way for the NATO forces which robbed the final moments of much of their dramatic tension. Even had there been some slight tweaks to this formula it might have raised the bar that much higher for me.

However, as a contemporary war thriller, with espionage and action, I was pleasantly surprised at how detailed and exciting Red Metal turned out to be. I'm sincerely hoping these authors produce another war thriller together because they collaborated extremely well on this one. The ending hints at another potential conflict on the horizon, and - in the world of fiction at least - one can hope! A definite recommend.