Rating: 
Summary: A good read, but...
Review: This was the second Coyle book I read (the first being "God's Children") and once again I was compelled by his gripping battle scenes and poignant view of today's combat environment. The story flows well and was generally enjoyable and engaging. However, by the end of the book I became disappointed because of the constant, repeated stupidity of the opposing forces. I felt cheated because it never seemed that the U.S. forces won due to good strategy & tactics as much as because the enemy used tactics a learned high school student would shun. Don't get me wrong, the book is a good read. I only wish Coyle would create an antagonist with some brains to serve as a challenging foil for our heroes.
Rating: 
Summary: Team Yankee - Step into the cupola!
Review: To say that Team Yankee is a high speed, low drag, and intense military thriller would be a vast understatement! This is an in your face, action packed, combat thriller that is hard to put down once you've started it. Being a former soldier, Harold Coyle knows what being a soldier is about. Armed with a VMI education and seventeen years of Active Duty in the US Army, the author set out to write a military thriller about a possible European, NATO/Warsaw Pact conventional conflict. He quite successfully accomplished that mission with Team Yankee, in flying colors! He has a particularly good writing style that is very fluid and doesn't get bogged down heavily in the details. Team Yankee begins with a succinct set up as to why the conflict starts. He then flows perfectly into the nuts and bolts of a very likely scenario of how a conventional WWIII would've begun in the mid to late 80's. The story concentrates heavily on Captain Sean Bannon, commander of Team Yankee which is a detached armor team with mechanized infantry attached to them. Along with the highly intense initial combat scenarios, there are the harrowing evacuation scenes of his wife Pat, their kids and the other dependents of Team Yankee! These scenes are exceptionally well written and will leave you exhausted. The author puts on display a great many things that can happen during war, to include the "fog of war," where there are times when communications are cut and Company Commanders have to totally wing it and pray for the best. He flawlessly displays the entire gamut of emotions that Captain Bannon and the other soldiers are going through, throughout the entire novel. In essence, this novel puts you in the Tank Commanders cupola completely and thoroughly. The dialogue is tremendously well written, along with well detailed explanations for the "plans" of attack or defense. As an added bonus, there are detailed graphics with the proper symbols for units' friendly and enemy alike. Thank God this is a work of fiction and humanity did not have to face the brutal realism in this book! Not since I read Tom Clancy's "Red Storm Rising" or Larry Bonds "Red Phoenix" have I read a military action thriller written this well. If you're into military/action thrillers, this true treasure is one you need to add to your library. It took me a while to locate a decent copy of this book and it was well worth the search!
Rating:
Summary: Team Yankee - Step into the cupola!
Review: To say that Team Yankee is a high speed, low drag, and intense military thriller would be a vast understatement! This is an in your face, action packed, combat thriller that is hard to put down once you've started it. Being a former soldier, Harold Coyle knows what being a soldier is about. Armed with a VMI education and seventeen years of Active Duty in the US Army, the author set out to write a military thriller about a possible European, NATO/Warsaw Pact conventional conflict. He quite successfully accomplished that mission with Team Yankee, in flying colors! He has a particularly good writing style that is very fluid and doesn't get bogged down heavily in the details. Team Yankee begins with a succinct set up as to why the conflict starts. He then flows perfectly into the nuts and bolts of a very likely scenario of how a conventional WWIII would've begun in the mid to late 80's. The story concentrates heavily on Captain Sean Bannon, commander of Team Yankee which is a detached armor team with mechanized infantry attached to them. Along with the highly intense initial combat scenarios, there are the harrowing evacuation scenes of his wife Pat, their kids and the other dependents of Team Yankee! These scenes are exceptionally well written and will leave you exhausted. The author puts on display a great many things that can happen during war, to include the "fog of war," where there are times when communications are cut and Company Commanders have to totally wing it and pray for the best. He flawlessly displays the entire gamut of emotions that Captain Bannon and the other soldiers are going through, throughout the entire novel. In essence, this novel puts you in the Tank Commanders cupola completely and thoroughly. The dialogue is tremendously well written, along with well detailed explanations for the "plans" of attack or defense. As an added bonus, there are detailed graphics with the proper symbols for units' friendly and enemy alike. Thank God this is a work of fiction and humanity did not have to face the brutal realism in this book! Not since I read Tom Clancy's "Red Storm Rising" or Larry Bonds "Red Phoenix" have I read a military action thriller written this well. If you're into military/action thrillers, this true treasure is one you need to add to your library. It took me a while to locate a decent copy of this book and it was well worth the search!
Rating:
Summary: Wins and loses
Review: Unusual among modern war and political thrillers, TEAM YANKEE provides well rounded characters with depth of emotion and realistic reactions to their circumstances. It's setting, World War III between the U.S. and Soviet Union during the 1980s, is outdated, but it manages to transcend this as a sort of window of insight into that time and the mindset of the Army during the Reagan era. The author Coyle uses his personal experiences in the military to paint a realistic, bitter, and emotionally striking war. In this respect, it out-does RED STORM RISING and other what-if WWIII novels. Whereas Clancy delivers a CNN-esque version of sanitized techno-war, Coyle concentrates on the individuals. The first half of the book is well written, if simple (no ellaborate stylistic devices), and tense. An excellent view of tank combat and the psychological factors of war. The side-story of the Captain's wife provides emotional depth to Capt. Bannon's character outside of the narrow view of his reaction to the war. However, after this, the book begins to become too predictable, the battles too formulaic, and less intense. The last 75 pages or so reverse this, to an extent, with in increased pitch of combat and stakes. Yet still, one gets the impression that its all a sort of computer driven model of what would have happened, too optimistic, too easy. The ending is hard to swallow, and for this, along with the dull combat that followed the middle fo the book reduce my rating, though I still feel it is a good book with above par characters and depth, something Clancy could learn from.
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