I say believe it or not because mostly I hate war books. I’ve only read a handful I’ve liked. I re-read nearly every book I own, and I never re-read any of my war books.
But I’m actually re-reading Team Yankee! I actually know more than many girls (that I know of) about armor. I know what a Defender is, what a Dragon anti-tank missile is. I know the difference between a APC and a real tank.
So, yes this book fascinates me. Anybody want to discuss?
The book is a bit out-dated now but its pretty realistic speculation about WWIII. Coyle was an armor officer and I think he retired as a Lieutenant Colonel. I think he was a Captain when he wrote TY. Most books on the subject try and give a broad view of the conflict such as* Red Storm Rising*. TY was pretty unique at the time because it used the point of view of a company level unit (in this case an Armor/Infantry Team) and didn’t try to give the big picture. Coyle’s writing got better in later books but I don’t think he every captured the same feeling in his other works.
Team Yankee is a book I’ve held onto long after others have moved on to the half-price bookstore. In a lot of ways I like Coyle much better than Clancy, mainly because he seems a lot more grounded… More “common man” I guess, with less reliance on the high tech itself and more about what the average soldier would go through fighting a war with high tech weaponry. I guess that’s because Coyle wrote about what he knew, which was being a tank commander.
Coyle went on to do a series of books completely unrelated to TY and the early ones are really good (like Sword Point), but later he fell in love with his own characters (especially the main one, Scott Dixon I think was his name) and turned into Jack Ryan lite. But in his earlier works, you’d see well developed characters die in unexpected and trivial ways, which really added to the suspense for me. And since TY was not part of any series Coyle could do what he wanted with any character as he saw fit.
Ahhh Elenia, there’s far too few women in the world who want to talk tanks… Maybe you could mosey over to the “How much do you pay for shoes” thread and enlighten some of your sisters. 
EZ
Little known fact—there was actually a graphic novel of Team Yankee way back when. Not too badly done either.
I HATE Clancy. I tried to read The Hunt for Red October and first of all everyone’s got names and titles like he started and couldn’t stop. Long-winded Russian names of course is what they had, but you can’t keep a person’s attention if you can’t reasonably distinguish the characters! I have watched & read Clear & Present Danger, and…Patriot Games, that’s it. Patriot Games they f***ed up the beautiful ending that was in the book, with the Prince and the boat and everything. Clear & present Danger - the movie - I LOVE Wilhelm Defoe (man he’s hot!). Plus I really enjoyed the scene where they were painting the target, also the ambush in the alleyway was excellently done.
Well, thank you. If I was honest with you, I would tell you what I really like are mechs. Like in the game Mechwarrior. However, they have the slight disadvantage of not being real. But tanks are pretty close in some ways, and a good way to read and understand what happens in those things. Anytime you want to chat armor, I’m game though.
I’d be a Mech driver!
I own that, & you’re certainly correct.
It’s very well done.
I read the GN before I read the book.
I have it too.
(Bolding mine)
About 1980 Sir John Hackett, a British general, wrote World War III, August 1985 which did give the strategic view of a hypothetical war between the Warsaw Pact and NATO forces. Coyle read it, and thought it would be neat to cover the same action from a closer point of view, hence Team Yankee. The where, when, and why of the war starting, the overarching strategy, and the defeat of the Pact forces in TY was exactly as it was in Hackett’s book, it’s just that most of it didn’t matter to an armored captain and his company except the bad guys right in front of them.
I guess that’s the difference between a book writtten by a general and a captain: Write about what you know. It certainly gave a more personal view to the same (fictional) story.
DD
Make that The Third World War, August 1985 :smack:
Note to self: Preview everything including link titles.
::Sigh::
Now Team Yankee is an old book ! A girl reading it !
Re-read it once… nice book. Red Storm Rising is more complete.
DON’T read the new stuff by Tom Clancy… its all rubbish ! Read the old stuff. The movies suck though. From Rainbox Six (including RB6) onwards he totally lost it. BOOORRRIIINNGG…
Well come on over to http://cbt.classicbattletech.org/SMF and chat with other BattleTech/Mechwarrior fans! Heck, if you play nice with the authors, you could even get your name put into literature as a MechWarrior. 
There was also a board wargame by GDW based on the book and it was also the inspiration for their Terst of Arms game system.