Armor Attacks: The Tank Platoon - An Interactive Exercise in Small-Unit Tactics and Leadership

by John Antal

Allows readers to play the role of a tank platoon leader and participate in two missions in which their decisions will effect the outcome.

Genres: Military Fiction, War, Leadership, Military History

338 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1991

About the author

Colonel John Antal, US Army (Retired)served 30 years in the US Army as a leader, senior staff officer and commander. He commanded tank and combined arms combat units at platoon, company, battalion and regimental level. He is Airborne and Ranger qualified. He has served in sensitive joint, combined Army staff assignments in the US and overseas. He also served as the Special Assistant to the United States Military Academy at West Point, the Command and General Staff College and the Army War College. Since his retirement from the US Army in 2003, he has become a successful author, speaker, magazine editor, film adviser and personality, mass-market video game developer, explainer-integrator, journalist, and leadership expert.

Reviews

[Who · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid book geared towards teaching american airland battle doctrine. It's authentic and the choices presented are thoughtful, but being doctrinal there's some rigidity. Often times, choices will end up having unanticipated followup decisions made without your consent which dramatically shape the battle. I don't like that! It's primarily a teaching tool

[Robert Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Armor training exercise

[Jonathan Gillespie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This concise book is like a choose-your-own adventure, placing you in the boots of fictional Second Lieutenant Jeager, who's arrived to lead an M1A1 Abrams armor platoon in the sands of a likewise-fictional battlefield. Though Antal's imagined enemies are clearly Soviet or Soviet remnant forces, he managed to almost perfectly predict the terrain of the Gulf War.

How did I do? I beat the recon-in-force mission the first time through (I won't count the sloppy roll of the dice that whacked me once), and also made it through the second mission at the cost of two mortar carriers. The book encouraged me to do better; reading back through I learned about a key mistake I'd made.

Informative? Yes. Fun to read? Yes, but I'd steer clear if you're not in the service, or--like me--a military tactics buff. Still, it was a fun way to kill a week, and Antal's insights were rewarding to read.

Check out other reviews on my website, http:\\jonathancg.net

[Lucas]

Choose Your Own Adventure 212: You Are A Tank

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an interactive fictional role play designed to teach small unit armor tactics. The appendixes include descriptions of American and Soviet armor assets as well as decision making flow charts.