Special Forces: The World's Most Significant and Famous Elite Forces

by Christopher Chant

Special Forces deploys an impressive blend of authoritative text and dramatic photographs to reveal the qualities and skills of the special forces soldier at every stage of their selection, training and operational life. Detailed attention is also given to weapons, combat equipment and methods of transport, while over 25 historical special forces operation features describe combat missions undertaken between 1960 and the present day.

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Christopher Chant is a successful writer on modern military matters, and has a substantial number of authoritative titles to his credit. Military history, and the history of military aviation in particular have long been his passion. Having been part of the editorial team on Purnell's best-selling 'History of the First World War' and 'History of the Second World War', he became a full-time writer and editor in 1974, working extensively on military and aviation subjects. He is also a regular contributor to specialist journals.

Reviews

[Derrick C · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this amazing nonfiction book about some of the world's most prestige special forces, Chris Chant does an outstanding job helping the reader know what it's truly like to be in the special forces. He shows off information from some of the most well-known special forces in the world, the many challenges these troops have been put up against in the real-word, and the training they have to go through. The author does a great job at giving an unbiased standpoint, which i feel is pretty important if he's going to show me information about foreign military operations, along with some impressive typography skills. The entire book had a very clean and professional look to it from front to back with well-placed pictures that would catch my attention when it's supposed to. The captions under the pictures also give very good justification telling me why it should be there and most importantly, the text was very formal that was straight-forward and concise. I definitely recommend this book to people in their teens that are interested in the military in general and possibly want to look into a military career. This could also really help a person make a hard decision of whether or not they should enlist as it shows the rigorous training and extremely harsh conditions soldiers have to go through, especially since this book is quite unbiased. So, this book is pretty helpful to me and any people around me as it could definitely help some young people like me decide whether or not they should enlist as it has both its pros and cons. Well, that's why this book really does deserve such a high rating from me.

[Lukas NööN · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think the author couldn’t quite decide what he wanted to accomplish with this book.
Don’t get me wrong it was fun reading through it, but some topics are described very briefly while other times the author elaborates on every technical spec of a vehicle. The pictures are of very good quality and interesting to look at but a more detailed description would have been great. In my opinion this book should have been way more in-depth and focus on the fascinating topics or have way more pictures and act like a coffee table book.

[Kimberlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great photos. Lots of info, well organized. BIG issue though... the text is SO small it is nearly impossible to read. Causes significant eye strain. It is actually smaller than most legal disclaimers.

[F.J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the research sources I am using for my third book of my action series, where I introduce a new character who is ex-Special Forces. VERY informative and detailed. The author explains everything in terms that those of us who haven't served in the military can understand. Excellent!