Hal Sundt

This book is not quite what I expected, though that might not be saying much as I really didn't have a lot of expectations. Although Sundt has spent a lot of time with "Warthog" operators, the actual backbone of this narrative is the life and times of Pierre Sprey, one of the most notable of the military reformers who had their heyday in the immediate Post-Vietnam period. In as much as Sundt was the last man who had extensive personal contact with Sprey before that man's passing, this book show more is thus valuable as primary source material.

What this book is not is a systematic operational study of the A-10 in action, although Sundt does describe some paradigmatic incidents that demonstrate the worth of this machine. Some people might be happier with Gary Wetzel's on-going series of books published by Osprey in that regard, though Wetzel has only come out with books detailing the service of A-10 units in Afghanistan.

Hanging over this whole work is the matter of the long-term replacement of the A-10, always keeping in mind that close support of ground forces is the job that the USAF really doesn't like to embrace, but keeps getting dumped on their plate. There is no denying that the A-10 is way past its sell-by date as a viable system, but the F-35 is really too expensive to be doing the job in question. Maybe the real successor to the A-10 will wind up being a drone.

While there are very few things that I can "ding" Sundt on, it does kind of annoy me that he makes reference to the "Army Air Corps" in World War II, when "Army Air Force" would have been more appropriate. Also, Sundt refers to the Douglas Skyraider as being an ASW machine, which was only tangentially a possibility for the Skyraider; it certainly wasn't part of the original specification.

So, this isn't the last word on A-10 by a long shot, but I suspect any future books on the machine will include this work in their bibliography.

I might have been a bit more charitable in my rating, but the packaging of this book is a little misleading, and I can see angles that Sundt didn't address. A book entitled "Sprey" might be a rather different thing. Then again, I'm probably not the reader that Sundt is addressing this book to, as the "Military Reform" gang is close to being forgotten, and a new generation of such folks would be greatly appreciated. Sprey's concerns about the U.S. government not getting value for its defense dollars are more true than ever. show less