Some examples that I recollect from several books concerns the occasional use of German phrases, uttered by German characters but using cruel and unusual grammar. Also some details like using a military-style rank for a German police officer. These instances usually look like he’d taken English-language phrases and American concepts and naïvely translated them word by word. Some other factual errors too, e.g. life without possibility of parole for terrorists in Germany, in SOAF if I recollect correctly. (That’s regarding facts. Also there’s the occasional original take on aspects of German politics that’t be considered ridiculous even by people on his ideological wavelength in Germany).
It seems like he writes as many non-fiction books nowadays as fiction.
BUMP. (ANd he is dead now right? )
In one book he describe Russians as having never discovered aerial refuelling. Or long range aircraft…the Su-27 is short legged in his universe.
WHat about the claims made by that he had guessed enough about submarines? I am sure I also heard that about Kuberik and Dr Strangelove.
I remember this scene from HfRO. The Russian pilot is trying to sneak up on an AWACS plane only to find out he’s had company the whole time. I don’t recall any reference to the Russians not knowing how to refuel in the air, rather the issue was that they couldn’t because they were so far from home. I do remember the pilot (Shavrov) being envious of the fuel tanks on his escorts because it would allow those planes to cross “entire oceans”.
As for the run-in with the Pentagon, I wish I could remember where I saw that story. The basic idea was that Tom Clancy had observed A and C and took a good guess at B. The Pentagon asked him how he knew and as it turned out there were really only so many good choices as to what to fill in the blanks with.
TC was also very good at predicting the future. He called 9/11 back in 1993, although his version was courtesy of a disgruntled pilot rather than via hijacking. Terrorists targeting a shopping mall appeared in The Teeth of the Tiger long before they appeared in Nigeria. And in his latest, Command Authority, he’s got Russia trying to knock over the Ukraine. They aren’t successful but they snag the Crimea. He also has a proto-Tea Party in Executive Orders although later novels specify that the political machine ground them into dust. I also recently saw that the Pope was getting involved in the middle east peace process. He must have read The Sum of All Fears, in which a “Peace Bowl” at the Vatican settles things for a while.
Guessed my ass, I ran into him more than once on the sub base in New London … someone was feeding him information.
As someone who has spent most of the last quarter century living in Russia, I can tell you his descriptions of the country and its people were often inaccurate to the point of being laughable. Also, whoever was advising him on the Russian language (if anyone was) did not do a very good job. Some of his “translations” were just … plain … wrong!
I came here to snark, “Jack Ryan and the Prince of Wales go into combat together”?
I saw that on Star Trek!
Red Storm is a good read but the thing he never seemed to get about war is that it’s fought by people and that tens of thousands of grunts were being pounded into the mud by all that tech. That said I think he underestimated the effectiveness of the Abrams tank with it’s superbly trained crews who proved in Desert Storm they could fire ten kill shots a minute in open country.
Currently reading Rainbow Six written in 1996 and found an error (or rather a prediction) so wrong I had to look up if anyone else has talked about it (which I don’t think there has).
Basically Tom Clancy thought the People’s Republic of China was going to go the way of the USSR within the decade in 1996. predicting a collapse or at the very least a step backwards in terms of its economy. To be fair it’s said by a character who is evil in the novel but he’s depicted as an extremely smart and cunning Russian intelligence agent who seems to serve as Clancy’s mouthpiece as he frequently points out all the fatal flaws of both the Russian military (both Soviet and modern Russia) and the Soviet system itself.
For those keeping score, not only has China not collapsed it’s basically becoming another superpower in the two decades since the book was written, which is ironic since he also wrote a book a decade later entirely about China becoming a large enough power to challenge Russia.
I remember reading his first book and thinking that things don’t work as smooth as clockwork as he wrote. Several years later he said because of his success he was able to attend war games and found out the fog of war was more pronounced than he realized.
His second book had Jack Ryan save Prince Charles from an assassination by the IRA (the movie changed the person). Later on Charlie invites Ryan to some dinners and they talk, or some other such friendly thing. Someone associated with the Windsors commented that if an American CIA agent were to save a member of the Royal family, they would be very grateful. But they wouldn't become buddy buddy with you.
It Simply Isn’t Done, old boy.
This does have a kernel of truth. ISTR a Cold War counterintelligence program which alleged real psychic powers so Moscow would make themselves busy with finding their own psychics to counter ours.
Someone should have seen that coming.
I found the scene where the Duke of Edinburgh calls Jack Ryan a “cheeky fellow” to be particularly cringeworthy. :smack:
Not only do they go into combat together, Jack orders Charles around by calling him “Prince.” :smack:
He did the same with Spanish, but then, that’s sadly all too normal. If I had one euro for every instance where a foreign writer uses the wrong form of address for a superior I’d have several months’ worth of mortgage.
In 19th century RN novels, when royalty is serving under an officer, instead of being called “Mr. Smith” or “Your Royal Highness”, a prince is called, “Mr. Prince”.
Reminds me of the episode of That Girl where Ann introduced Don Hollinger to the English photographer Nigel Prince:
NIGEL: Hollinger, Hollinger… I once knew a polo player named Hollinger.
DON: I once knew a dog named Prince.
In Clancy’s case, it was something like “Here, Prince, put on this parka and go first down the ladder.”
Except in RSR one of the key points is that the Red Army used army rockets (non-water proof) instead on navy rockets (waterproof) so their rocket were inoperative after fighting a fire on a ship.
FTR it’s been so long since I’ve read it I may have gotten some of the details wrong.