Rising Tide: The Untold Story of the Russian Submarines That Fought the Cold War

by Walter J. Boyne, Gary E. Weir

Release Date: 14 October, 2003

Edition: Hardcover

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A few new Russian viewpoints.

The book is adequately researched. The interviews with former Soviet military personnel and information regarding collisions are interesting. Much of the information about submarine activity has already been published. The authors do a bit of hand-wringing and depart from the subject in the epilogue when they attempt to draw parallels between the Kurst and space shuttle disasters and throw in a call for saving the oceans from pollution. They should have saved that for NPR.

An effort that tries to part the Iron Curtain's deep secrets

I picked up this book having read many books on submarines and submarine warfare, in addition to many Cold-War histories. The end result from having read this book was that I came out wanting more information, since if one looked at the book on the outside, one would expect a bit more than was delivered.

With 304 pages offered, I had hoped for most of that to be centered upon the experiences of the Soviet submarine fleet as it grew into a force that caused the West no shortage of concern. However, the amount of material on the Soviet submarine service was understandably limited, and depended heavily upon only a few people who had significant experience at the end of the Cold War, as opposed to the beginning and turbulent middle. What seemed like the last third comes in the form of an unusually informative analysis of Soviet naval doctrine as seen by Admiral Gorshkov, and a primer on the many individual sumarine varieties that were fielded by the Soviets during the Cold War.

There were a few semi-lengthy stories about specific incidents, but it repeated what can be found in many other books, including the far more revealing Blind Man's Bluff. It did not have the detail about the daily lives of the crew and challenges such as was found aboard U.S. subs in Big Red. It did have some discussion on the poor construction of the boats and the political interests outweighing sound employment of these critical naval assets, but it didn't dwell too long there.

The value of this book is that is one of very few references on the Soviet submarine service, but it is not authoritative enough that it can be consulted often. Still, it does add to the growing list of available sources on the "other side" of the Cold War, and thus sheds just a little more insight.