Osprey is a publishing house in the United Kingdom that should be a household name to the swarms of us modelers. Osprey continues to expand their Combat series with the 29^th book in this installment. The combat series examines specific units and armies of a particular nation. In this installment the combat series will examine the Soviet paratrooper vs the Mujahedeen during their excursion in which would be a humiliating defeat and dubbed the Soviets “Vietnam War”.

For the Combat series, the chapters are organized as follows:

• Introduction
• The opposing sides
• The Kunar Valley
• Panjshir V
• Hill 3234
• Analysis
• Aftermath
• Unit Organization
• Bibliography
• Index

In 1979 the Soviet Union moved from military ‘help' to active intervention in Afghanistan. Four-fifths of the Afghan National Army deserted in the first year of the war, which, compounded with the spread and intensification of the rebellion led by the formidable guerrilla fighters of the Mujahedeen, forced the Soviets to intensify their involvement.

The Soviet army was in generally poor condition when the war started, but the troops of the airborne and air assault units were better trained and equipped. As a result, they developed aggressive, sometimes effective tactics against an enemy that refused to behave the way most Soviet commanders wished him to.

The book is illustrated with photographs in black and white and color, several descriptive paintings and maps of the individual areas that are listed above and scenes of heavy combat. I really, really loved this book, as an active duty infantry NCO I have deployed Afghanistan 3 times and believe it or not the ghosts of the once mighty soviet military still haunt and paint a sober image of what happened there from the old rusting tank, bmp and hind hulks littering the country sides and landscape, the minefields that still claim civilian and military lives, and the marked/unmarked graves of Soviet and Mujahedeen fighters.

My thanks to IPMS/USA and Osprey Publishing for giving me the opportunity to review this book. I appreciated this book thoroughly and read it several times and still myself recognizing some of those locations myself.