- Paperback: 416 pages
- Publisher: Corgi Books (1 July 1994)
- ISBN-10: 0552142832
- ISBN-13: 978-0552142830
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (102 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 5,588,604 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Bravo Two Zero
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
" 'A gripping account of special forces at work...a tremendous adventure story' DUFF HART-DAVIS, Daily Telegraph. 'Superhuman endurance, horrendous torture, desperate odds - unparalleled revelations' Daily Mail. 'One of the most extraordinary examples of human courage and survival in modern warfare' The Times. 'The best account yet of the SAS in action' JAMES ADAMS, Sunday Times"
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Book Description
A classic of modern war literature
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
Within hours of Iraqi troops and armor rolling across the border with Kuwait at 0200 local time on August 2, 1990, the Regiment was preparing itself for desert operations. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt
Within hours of Iraqi troops and armor rolling across the border with Kuwait at 0200 local time on August 2, 1990, the Regiment was preparing itself for desert operations. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 26 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
You'd be suprised how many people still haven't read this book, yet everyone has heard of it - maybe due to the film starring Sean Bean released in 1999.
Bravo Two Zero was the call sign of an 8 man SAS team led by Andy McNab (not his real name) dropped deep behind enemy lines in Iraq during the first Gulf war. Their mission was to monitor and disturb the movement and deployment of Scud missiles being used by Saddam Hussein.
The mission goes badly wrong and the team find themselves extremely close to a large force of Iraqi military and a terrain and climate that they were largely unprepared for. They are soon discovered and pursued enormous distances day and night until most of the group have been either killed or captured. McNab was captured and the story recounts in gruesome detail the torture and psycological tecniques used to attempt to break the men down. It's gripping and exciting and you actually feel like you're there with him. These are some very tough guys.
However no review of the book would be complete without mention of the subsequent critisism levelled at McNab by other members of the patrol. Chris Ryan in his book 'The One that Got Away' says that McNab played up his own role and actually was largely responsible for the mission's early failure - Ryan clearly sees himself as the real hero of the mission, being the only member to survive the pursuit and flee to Syria.
Subsequently another surviving member of the expedition, Mike Coburn, released 'Soldier 5: The real truth behind the Bravo Two Zero mission' claiming that neither Ryan or McNab give an accurate portrayal of events and both dramatised the story for the purposes of publication (for example making up most of the major gun battles).
Believe it or not there is then a fourth book by former SAS soldier, Mike Asher, who travels the route of the escape and interviews Iraqi civilians who witnessed the flight of Bravo Two Zero patrol and gives his own view of the likelihood of the events taking place.
I had fun reading all four books and the differences in opinion didn't take anything away from McNab's original Bravo Two Zero.
Read Bravo Two Zero and enjoy it - but don't take it all as fact, and if you want to go further, check out the other books I've mentioned.
Bravo Two Zero was the call sign of an 8 man SAS team led by Andy McNab (not his real name) dropped deep behind enemy lines in Iraq during the first Gulf war. Their mission was to monitor and disturb the movement and deployment of Scud missiles being used by Saddam Hussein.
The mission goes badly wrong and the team find themselves extremely close to a large force of Iraqi military and a terrain and climate that they were largely unprepared for. They are soon discovered and pursued enormous distances day and night until most of the group have been either killed or captured. McNab was captured and the story recounts in gruesome detail the torture and psycological tecniques used to attempt to break the men down. It's gripping and exciting and you actually feel like you're there with him. These are some very tough guys.
However no review of the book would be complete without mention of the subsequent critisism levelled at McNab by other members of the patrol. Chris Ryan in his book 'The One that Got Away' says that McNab played up his own role and actually was largely responsible for the mission's early failure - Ryan clearly sees himself as the real hero of the mission, being the only member to survive the pursuit and flee to Syria.
Subsequently another surviving member of the expedition, Mike Coburn, released 'Soldier 5: The real truth behind the Bravo Two Zero mission' claiming that neither Ryan or McNab give an accurate portrayal of events and both dramatised the story for the purposes of publication (for example making up most of the major gun battles).
Believe it or not there is then a fourth book by former SAS soldier, Mike Asher, who travels the route of the escape and interviews Iraqi civilians who witnessed the flight of Bravo Two Zero patrol and gives his own view of the likelihood of the events taking place.
I had fun reading all four books and the differences in opinion didn't take anything away from McNab's original Bravo Two Zero.
Read Bravo Two Zero and enjoy it - but don't take it all as fact, and if you want to go further, check out the other books I've mentioned.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Many books have a reputation which precedes them, some reputations might be a deterrent. Readers like myself may worry that if anyone sees you reading Bravo Two Zero they will think you're one of those pitiful 'chairbourne ranger' dreamers who fantasize about being part of the military elite: I've met more than a few of these in my time... Partly because of this kind of thing, I avoided this title for many years, but having now read the book I would heartily recommend it to anyone, even if only to be able to speak about it from experience.
The book raises many questions. For example, satellite photography technology has been around for many years now, so why was the patrol not provided with detailed images of the terrain? Why was the concentration of Iraqi forces in the drop-zone so badly underestimated? Why didn't the military have information on the weather conditions the patrol would encounter? According to other books such as "The Quiet Soldier", the cardinal rule taught during training for the SAS is "you must kill immediately". So why leave so many witnesses alive to compromise your location?
More pertinently, we have no idea how accurate the book is; by all accounts Chris Ryan's "The one that got away" presents a wholly different version of events. Most avid readers can't have failed to notice that both Andy McNab and Chris Ryan have since become surprisingly prolific authors and I'm sure their "true story" beginnings can have done no harm to their new careers. I for one do not begrudge them their post-military success, though had I realized that a military career could be such a useful passport to becoming a fiction author I might not have walked past the door to the army recruitment centre all those years ago.
So... is it fact, fiction or a blend of the two? None of us are going to know for sure. If it is mostly accurate then it is, as I have suggested in the title, a good 'warts & all' account of how even the best training still leaves you vulnerable to human fallibility; it therefore provides a refreshing antidote to the notion that our Special Forces are only one step removed from Marvel comic book heroes. On the other hand, if it is heavily fictionalized, then it's still a ripping good yarn. Either way I would recommend this book to anyone.
PS: I bought mine second hand and it "seems" to be signed by the author, surely Andy McNab didn't/doesn't do book signings? His face is always blacked out when he appears on TV.
The book raises many questions. For example, satellite photography technology has been around for many years now, so why was the patrol not provided with detailed images of the terrain? Why was the concentration of Iraqi forces in the drop-zone so badly underestimated? Why didn't the military have information on the weather conditions the patrol would encounter? According to other books such as "The Quiet Soldier", the cardinal rule taught during training for the SAS is "you must kill immediately". So why leave so many witnesses alive to compromise your location?
More pertinently, we have no idea how accurate the book is; by all accounts Chris Ryan's "The one that got away" presents a wholly different version of events. Most avid readers can't have failed to notice that both Andy McNab and Chris Ryan have since become surprisingly prolific authors and I'm sure their "true story" beginnings can have done no harm to their new careers. I for one do not begrudge them their post-military success, though had I realized that a military career could be such a useful passport to becoming a fiction author I might not have walked past the door to the army recruitment centre all those years ago.
So... is it fact, fiction or a blend of the two? None of us are going to know for sure. If it is mostly accurate then it is, as I have suggested in the title, a good 'warts & all' account of how even the best training still leaves you vulnerable to human fallibility; it therefore provides a refreshing antidote to the notion that our Special Forces are only one step removed from Marvel comic book heroes. On the other hand, if it is heavily fictionalized, then it's still a ripping good yarn. Either way I would recommend this book to anyone.
PS: I bought mine second hand and it "seems" to be signed by the author, surely Andy McNab didn't/doesn't do book signings? His face is always blacked out when he appears on TV.
21 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Special Forces indeed
A definite page turner. I read it going to work, coming from work, and even at work (when no colleagues were watching). But my job, being a human-computer interaction specialist, is *very* boring compared to the work of the SAS, the British Special Forces. Although I don't think I would want to trade places.
The book cover of my version of Bravo Two Zero was somewhat misleading. It cited the British premier John Major saying it was the SAS who destroyed the SCUD missile sites in the Gulf War, and it cited the American General Norman Schwarzkopf saying that the SAS were the eyes of the allied forces deep in enemy territory. So I expected the book to show a very successful commando mission in Iraq. Other SAS missions were a great success, but in the Bravo Two Zero mission much went wrong...
That doesn't make the operation of the main team of 8 soldiers less heroic, not at all. The gun fights in which the team were heavily outnumbered but in which they still wreaked havoc, the distances they had to walk causing their feet almost to fall of, the hypothermia, hunger and thirst they suffered: all was very impressive. And, probably worst of all, the extensive torturing some had to go through when they were caught, but which they still survived, makes those British soldiers truly admirable men. It much surprised me that, at the same time, they remained very humane during their stay, not killing one single Iraqi civilian even when that might have significantly improved their chances of survival.
What did surprise me however, were the extremely shallow emotional lives these SAS commandos seemed to have. For McNab, the main character of the book, the army clearly had a higher priority than his wife and family, he killed without much afterthought, and he and his buddies almost constantly laughed in the face of death. At the beginning of the book I suspected this behaviour to be partly macho talk, but at the end of the book, especially after the surviving SAS members return to England and had their army psychologist conclude they did not sustain *any* psychological damage, I started to believe that maybe these guys are indeed of a special brand. Anyway, they should receive gratitude for risking their lives.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
A good read
Certainly McNab offers a very good read and an interesting insight of a mission
Technically and with attention to detail he takes us through a mission that seems to go wrong... Read more
Technically and with attention to detail he takes us through a mission that seems to go wrong... Read more
Published 2 months ago by G. O. Steele-morgan
Codswollap
This is the biggest pile of codswollap I've ever clapped my reading glasses on. True or not who cares! Read more
Published 3 months ago by Longbody
Awesome
I recently re-read this book and thought I would give some comments I could not in 1995 when I originally read it. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Michael
dont belive it was all true
Since the book was released, the soldier who escaped (Chris Ryan) also wrote his story and has since written several other novels. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Beth
A good book and no contradiction between this and other accounts
I don't think I have anything really to add to praise for this book but I'd like to add a little something to the questions of it's veracity. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Patrick W. E. Walker
Fantastic read throughout... A must buy.....!
Everyone should at least have heard of the story/ mission by now.....so.......
Where to start, I'm not one for digging at what did or didnt happen here, the fact was that what... Read more
Where to start, I'm not one for digging at what did or didnt happen here, the fact was that what... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Jon Dawrant
Not a cheery book
Don't expect this book to cheer you up ! Although it was a good read and hard to put down - sometimes I had to put it down!
Published 6 months ago by roastbeef
Favourite
Of all the McNab books, this was remains my favourite as there were times when I could almost feel as if I was there.
NB
NB
Published 7 months ago by Northern Bootneck
Interesting Read
Very definately a good read, although it hammers home that these guys really are a special breed. They kill without any compassion for the lives they take, and yet were able to... Read more
Published 8 months ago by BigFrank
a war classic...
in a nutshell this book is about a team of sas soldiers who were sent to break down the communication in saddam's army in the first iraq war. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Gcrikey
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
