This has turned out to be one of my favorite series. After four books I still can’t hardly wait for the fifth. There are a lot of characters but they each have a specific role they play in the story so it’s not that hard to keep up with everybody. After having a surprising encounter with the Buzzers who actually spoke to Admiral Waumbo, the air wing and the ground troops are in a training mode waiting for the next attack.
Captain Mike Sandhurst has his Cavalry unit conducting simulation training and it’s not going well. The Buzzers a huge and have ungodly firepower that will soon overwhelm everything he and his troop can do. The sims are conducted on Mars and they are becoming brutal. No matter what the “good guys” do, they are always coming out on the short end of the battle. Something isn’t right with these simulations. Even though it’s the job of almost every Armor or Infantry soldier to complain about everything, it’s getting to the point where Captain Sandhurst realizes that they have legitimate gripes. The Buzzers in the simulation do not reflect real-world realities. He and his soldiers have been there first hand to know how the Buzzer look and fight.
Meanwhile, the aviation guys and gals are also conducting their own simulations while at the same time trying to implement some changing doctrine. After their last encounters with the Buzzers, it’s clear that armor and infantry can’t fight this war alone. They need the assets of the air wing down to the maneuver level and as close to the action as possible.
The experimental Carrier Air Wing Twelve was setup to prove the concept of providing close air support while also assigning mission for air interdiction to the proper fuselage type. The Ospreys under command of Commander Landon Strunk have proven they can provide the close air support the tankers and infantry need. They proved that on the battlefield, yet now they have a Wing Commander that doesn’t really recognize their capabilities and wants to do things his way. It doesn’t help that the Wing Commander and is a Kestrel pilot who believes his aircraft is more suited to close air support.
What happens in their latest exercise with live OPFOR almost resulted in the death of a very important Osprey pilot. Both the Wing Commander and his XO let their jealousy of the Osprey’s notable prior performance cloud their judgement. Fortunately, Higher HQ found out about the mis-management within the air wing and took actions to shut it down.
As far as the tankers simulation problem, Colonel Sondgrass took his troops and his own complaints to his boss telling him that the simulations were wrong and they were not the training his troops required or needed. His boss also agreed and was going to make changes accordingly.
But, as usually happens, real-world events started taking place in the most unexpected of places. The Buzzers had suddenly appeared on planet Haven right during a huge military dog and pony show. They quickly overwhelmed the ground troops who were in no way expecting them to show up on this planet. So now the war is continuing and our favorite tank troop, company and our favorite air wing and pilots are going back to the real stuff.
By the time Earth Maneuver Forces (EMF) starts to react to what is happening, Heaven has fallen to the Buzzers. They are now looking to go after the next planet in the system which is Honoree. This is where they will have to be stopped. If they keep taking planets this way, they will soon be heading towards Earth and that can’t happen. So the Air Wing and the Armor units all begin loading up and heading to war.
There are going to casualties in this war and some get pretty close to being hard to bare. Still, this book is very exciting and I really like the way the author presents the communications and command relationships between various units. It reminds me of my days in my own command vehicle, but of course we didn’t have all this technology these warfighters employ. I can’t hardly wait for book 5, “Fury of Heaven”, but it won’t be out until 16 September 2025.
==[Note: As of 12/03/2023, this will not be published on Amazon since I have been banned from posting reviews for some unknown reason. Once the ban is lifted, assuming it does get lifted, I’ll go back and post this to Amazon.]==