Warthog (P)

By: William L. Smallwood

Narrated by: Steve Owens

Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

A valentine for one of the ugliest, albeit most lethally effective, warplanes ever built--as well as for the men who flew them during the Desert Storm campaign. Drawing on interviews with over one hundred A-10 pilots who served in the Persian Gulf during the 1990-91 hostilities, Smallwood (himself an aviator and Korean War vet) offers riveting perspectives on aerial combat. Setting the stage with an informative briefing on how, in the 70's, the Air Force developed the A-10 (a.k.a. "Warthog'') as a means of supporting ground troops with massive firepower, he moves into anecdotal vignettes detailing the ways in which so-called "hog drivers" and their commanders whiled away the weary hours of the calm before the storm in Saudi Arabia's inhospitable clime.

At the heart of his narrative, however, are vivid accounts of how A-10s accomplished their tank-busting missions and then some once the battle was joined. Tasked, among other objectives, to take out missile launchers and artillery emplacements far behind the front lines (assignments normally reserved for jet fighters), the slow-moving, heavily armed Warthogs were credited with over half the bomb damage inflicted on Iraqi forces and installations. Employing improvisational tactics, A-10s also flew reconnaissance and assisted in rescues of coalition pilots; they even scored air-to- air kills, downing a couple of enemy choppers. Indeed, the plane's ungainly Gatling-gun platform performed so well that pilots demanded their craft be redesignated "RFOA-10" (for "reconnaissance/fighter/observation/attack").

©1993 Potomac Books, Inc. (P)2023 Potomac Books

Good book ruined by cartoonish voices of the narrator.

This would have have been a great purchase, but it was ruined by ridiculous, over the top characterizations by the narrative. If he had just used his normal voice it would’ve been fine, good even. But he chose to give cartoon voices to the people quoted in the book. The voices would’ve been bad in a work of fiction, but this is non-fiction which makes it a jaw-droppingly dumb choice. It seemed to me the narrator was mocking instead of reading. This all made a good book unlistenable.

Great stories of the "ugly girls" of Desert Storm

This is the 5th military aviation book I've read after Viper Pilot, Vipers in the Storm, Lords of the Sky, and Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War.

This book is most similar to the first two- if you like combat tales related in the first person, and by a decent narrator, this book's a must have. This perspective of the low level ground situation in Desert Storm is jaw dropping.

Don't worry about the "cartoonish" voices the narrator sometimes uses - I assume he was told by the author who interviewed all these pilots to "speak like this for this for this guy, and like that for that guy" etc. It's full of action, and will inspire you to appreciate the ground pounders and CAS pilots in a new light, especially if you were first lured to mil aviation by the fast jets like I was.

I grew up with hogs flying overhead ever day out of Davis Monthan AFB, and after this book, and some playing around in the Hog in DCS World, I see now that the planes, pilots, and mission are equally as incredible as the F-16.