Hans Halbertstadt has updated his 2006 book titled U.S. Navy SEALS. It has all the great information of the original book, and now includes the operations in Afghanistan, the Osama bin Laden mission, SEALs at war, counter-piracy ops, and weapons and equipment.

The book is divided into 10 chapters:

1. Let slip the frogs of war
2. A short history lesson
3. Earning your flippers at BUD/S
4. Movement to contact
5. Actions at the objective
6. Special Boat Squadrons – the brown water navy
7. Leader’s recon
8. SEALs at war – change of mission for NSW
9. America’s most wanted – the mission to kill Osama bin Laden
10. Today’s SEALs – in their own words

The OBL raid is covered from the writer’s knowledge and experience with the SEALs, but there is no “gee whiz” stuff from the raid, mostly for security purposes. The idea is that the SEALs have Standard Operating Procedures which they followed to a successful conclusion.

If you are interested in special forces operations and want to know about what the Navy SEALs do, how they came to be, and how they are trained, then you will really enjoy this book. It is printed on glossy paper and is just packed with color photos of all the action. I would also recommend this book to figure painters for proper stance and colors, as well as a good guide for diorama planning.

Thanks to Zenith Press and IPMS/USA for the letting me review this great book. I highly recommend it.