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Redeye: Fulda Cold, A Rick Fontain Novel. Written By Bill Fortin, 2013, (Cold War Publications, June, 2015). Available in print or as an eBook. Fortin's Redeye: Fulda Cold Redeye: Fulda Cold is author Bill Fortin’s military history novel detailing events during the Cold War 1969-1970. FIM-43 Redeye designed by General Dynamics from 1959-1967, lends its name and iconography to this exciting and personal military history fiction story filled with action-adventure, Cold War military intrigue/tactics & strategy, and the everyday high and lows of military life. As this novel depicts, the Cold War was not so stagnant for the men and women who served on both sides of the conflict during the 1960’s-1980’s. Throughout this story the reader follows Sgt. Rick Fontain, call sign Sparrow6, of the HHC 1st/48th Infantry Brigade stationed in West Germany as he leads the “Redeye” Fire Team at the Fulda Gap, the strategic bridge between East and West at the height of the Cold War the late 1960’s...

In the summer of 1524 near the  Black Forest  in what is today Stühlingen, Baden-Wurttemberg in southern Germany, one of the largest and most significant popular uprisings of recorded history in the middle and renaissance ages began. A quibble between peasants and the ruling countess in the  province  of  Swabia  led to a greater revolt of a loosely confederated Serf/Peasant alliance that became the catalyst for great conflict, upheaval, and civil war in the early Renaissance age in the central European Germanic kingdoms associated with the Swabian League. The league was lead by Emperor Charles V; locked in continuous series of campaigns with the Italians throughout his reign from 1519-1556. Period drawing, Landsknechts depicted with eerie symbolism  The king appointed his brother and successor, Archduke Ferdinand of  Austria  (sharing the same name of his late ancestor, who’s assassination sparked the Great War in 1914) to cru...

The Decima Flottiglia MAS (Decima Flottiglia Mezzi d'Assalto) known as La Decima or Xª MAS, the Italian 10th Assault Vehicle Flotilla was an elite naval unit active in World War from 1940-1945. This elite brigade of frogmen, sailors, and naval commandos most renowned service came between 1941-1943 when they undertook an ultimately failed but rather costly campaign against Allied military vessels and commerce shipping in the Mediterranean. Artist Depiction of Italian  Regia Marina  Frogmen, c.1941 When examining the impact that the Italian 10th MAS had during its years of service for Benito Mussolini’s (b.1883-1945) government from 1940-1943, one must understand the diverse composition of the brigade itself. Essentially four different branches comprised the unit during its fight against the British Royal Navy and Allied shipping, the Gamma frogmen, manned torpedo craft, midget submarines, and assault motorboat craft. Early Development of the Italian Assault Flotillas, 1917-1940...

Finland’s Civil War ( Suomen sisällissota ) was one of the first major conflicts connected with the Russian Revolution and subsequent Civil War that was fought throughout the former Empire of Russia which began in October of 1917. Before and immediately after declaring independence from the Russian Empire on 6 December 1917, Finland (Suomi) had first flirted with an independent monarchy when the German Prince Charles Frederick of Hesse was elected King of Finland before the collapse of the German Empire in October 1917. Red Guard during the Finnish Civil War A republican government was established instead of monarchy by the politician and lawyer Pehr Evind Svinhufvud. Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg (b.1865-1952) became the first president of an independent Finnish Republic in the year 1919. There was mass opposition to the early post-independence government led by the “socialists” and the numerous Bolshevik-Communist supporters in Finland, mainly the Suomen Kommunistinen Puolue , the Finnish Co...

Part I The deployment of the Imperial German air services  Jastas followed closely to what Hauptman Oswald Boelcke had envisaged before his death, the 'Red Baron', Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen in particular, always having took pride in having  stayed true to his late contemporary and friend’s pedagogy. However the Jastas rosters or lineups themselves changed rapidly with the death or disablement of pilots during missions. By 1917 many more of  Jagdstaffeln, or Jastas, hunting groups, were created in Bavaria , Saxony and elsewhere, with their bases of operations spread between the various theaters of war, from France , to Russia , Macedonia , Palestine , and Turkey , the German air services rapidly expanded in the months from 1916 into the spring 1917. Depiction of Royal Prussian Jagdstaffeln,  'Jasta 18'  in action 1916-1917 Though all the major German Kingdoms fielded Jagdstaffeln , Bavaria, Prussia, Saxony, & Württemburg among them...