Dale Brown

Not to be confused with the other author named D. Brown. Also not to be confused with Dale Brown, former basketball coach at Louisiana State University.

Once upon a time, there was a member of the United States Air Force named Dale Brown. He spent his days as a member of the Strategic Air Command, specifically a navigator-bombardier. He was rather good at it.

Then he retired and started writing books. These books involve super-planes, such as the EB-52 Megafortress, a stealth escort bomber. They also sometimes involve nukes being let off. The main plotline through most of his stories involves USAF bomber navigator Patrick McLanahan and his involvement with the super-secret High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center "Dreamland".

He made the plot for a Real Time Strategy game, Act of War, which features some of the tropes found in his books.

Incomplete...
 * Flight of the Old Dog - in which a Soviet laser cannon threatens the deterrent value of American strategic forces.
 * Silver Tower - in which an American space laser mounted on a space station does battle against space Russians In Space.
 * Day Of The Cheetah - in which a Russian spy attempts to steal an advanced, mind-controlled fighter jet.
 * Hammerheads - in which drug runners are taken out by V-22s launched from an oil-rig air base
 * Sky Masters- in which a Chinese Admiral nukes some Filipino ships. Comes with hilariously inaccurate portrayal of both nations' governments and militaries.
 * Night Of The Hawk - in which a friend thought dead is still alive but in Soviet hands, and the crew must save him before the CIA get to him.
 * Chains of Command
 * Storming Heaven- in which drug lord Henri Cazaux causes the unplanned destruction of the San Francisco International Airport, decides that Evil Feels Good, and becomes a super-villain powered by the sexual energy of Satan. No, seriously.
 * Shadows of Steel - in which Iran gets frisky with its new aircraft carrier.
 * Fatal Terrain- in which the Chinese nuke Taiwanese bases, North Korea and Guam.
 * The Tin Man- in which McLanahan's brother gets shot by terrorists and he breaks out the eponymous Powered Armor in search of the culprits.
 * Battle Born- in which a group of maverick National Guard pilots are roped into Dreamland's operations while Korea reunites and China takes action against that.
 * Warrior Class - in which a Russian oilman plans to restore Russia's glory with a Balkan pipeline.
 * Wings of Fire - in which the Night Stalkers response to Libyan aggression turns dangerously personal for McLanahan.
 * Air Battle Force - in which a seemingly straightforward strike against a Taliban group becomes much more complicated.
 * Plan of Attack - in which the Russian President nukes American nuclear forces.
 * Act of War - in which an eco-terrorist attack on big business with a nuke inspires a tough response.
 * Edge of Battle - in which US-Mexico relations grow horribly tense thanks to the warmongering of a drug smuggler masquerading as a revolutionary.
 * Strike Force - in which McLanahan is asked to intervene in an Iranian power struggle.
 * Shadow Command - in which a new Russian president plots the destruction of Dreamland while the Iranian power struggle continues.
 * Rogue Forces - in which McLanahan's new PMC is called into action over Iraq.
 * Executive Intent - in which China and Russia challenge American domination of space.
 * A Time for Patriots - in which the US economy goes down the sewer and McLanahan forms a group to keep the peace against terrorists and Right Wing Militia Fanatics.

As a Long Running Book Series - Flight of the Old Dog was released in 1987 - beware Late Arrival Spoilers.


 * A-Team Firing - Played for Drama in Executive Intent, where
 * Aborted Arc: The takeover of Sky Masters, Inc. in Wings of Fire is not raised in the next book.
 * Adventure-Friendly World: One in which conventional conflicts are still ongoing and repeated nuclear releases have not doomed the world to death in nuclear fire.
 * Airborne Aircraft Carrier - Bombers and transport planes carrying miniature UCAVs.
 * Airstrike Impossible
 * All Your Base Are Belong to Us
 * Alternate History - Has touches of this. For example, the mess with Libya in Wings of Fire started when apparent Big Bad Zuwayy carried out a coup against the Real Life ruler Gaddafi in the backstory.
 * America Saves the Day
 * An Offer You Can't Refuse - Pavel Kazakov from Warrior Class does this several times.
 * And This Is For - Chris Wohl says this when Vigilante Executing  in Wings of Fire.
 * And Your Little Dog, Too - The Libyans from Wings of Fire kill  and abet   in killing.
 * Gryzlov from Air Battle Force threatens Patrick McLanahan this way.
 * Anyone Can Die - Dale Brown is not afraid to have multiple-book characters, like  face the reaper.
 * Arson, Murder, and Lifesaving
 * Attack Drone - Various, such as the StealthHawks and FlightHawks, as well as eventually full Vampires.
 * Author Appeal - Clearly favours bombers.
 * BFG - Tin Men and CIDs have the option of using a man-portable railgun.
 * Bait the Dog - General Gryzlov gets this the first time he appears in Air Battle Force
 * Bald of Evil - Pavel Kazakov from Warrior Class.
 * Beam Spam - In Flight of the Old Dog the Ice Fortress supposedly can do this to defeat ballistic missiles.
 * Best Served Cold - Zakharov and  motivation in Act of War.
 * Better to Die Than Be Killed: At the end of Sky Masters,
 * Big Damn Heroes -  gets saved by Tin Men in Air Battle Force and Plan of Attack.
 * Big Damn Villains - The Chinese assault on Somalia and Yemen in Executive Intent is likened to this in-story.
 * Bigger Stick - The entire point of Dreamland and Sky Masters, staying on the bleeding edge of technology. The Americans aren't the only ones with new toys, though.
 * Bittersweet Ending
 * Boring Invincible Hero - Subverted. The team almost never wins overwhelmingly despite their definite advantages.
 * Brainwashed -  after getting captured by Soviets. He gets rescued and fixed eventually, but the effects still linger.
 * Call Back - Occurs a few times, one of these being 's reaction to seeing a former captor in Warrior Class.
 * Canon Discontinuity - Day Of The Cheetah was replaced with Sky Masters which was replaced with Night Of The Hawk.
 * Silver Tower has also been seemingly dropped from continuity.
 * Perhaps the events of the book, but the titular space station has reappeared in recent books.
 * Canon Welding - Characters from works originally not involving Pat McLanahan, such as Rebecca Furness, have made their way into the main continuity.
 * Cassandra Truth - At the end of Flight of the Old Dog, Pat casually mentions to his mother that his absence was due to bombing Russia. Played seriously in Plan of Attack regarding the impending Russian attack and Edge of Battle regarding the seriousness of Comandante Veracruz's plan.
 * The Cavalry
 * The Chessmaster - Admiral Sun Ji Guoming from Fatal Terrain.
 * from Act of War.
 * Child Prodigy - Jon Masters was one.  from Wings of Fire turns out to be one.
 * China Takes Over the World: The Chinese are a recurring threat.
 * Clasp Your Hands If You Deceive: Tang Shou Dian in Sky Masters.
 * Coitus Uninterruptus: In Sky Masters a redshirt takes an alert call while getting... serviced.
 * Cold-Blooded Torture -  faced this during his involuntary stay as a guest of the USSR. Wings of Fire has some redshirts tortured to death by the Libyans.   experiences this from GRU agents in Executive Intent.
 * Colonel Badass - Pat McLanahan spends some time in earlier books as this before his promotion to the stars. He's not the only one though.
 * Come for the X, Stay for the Y - In-universe, Thorn's appeal is described as "if they had come to see the monster, they had stayed to hear the message."
 * Coming in Hot - In Air Battle Force Pat lands a damaged Vampire on Diego Garcia despite being repeatedly told not to.
 * Cool Plane - the Megafortress. Eventually heavily-modded B-1B Lancers show up. Plus the Black Stallion Space Planes. The Russians sometimes have these, like the Fisikous/Metyor-179 Tyenee/Shadow. Then there are the real-world ones jetting about.
 * Corrupt Corporate Executive - Pavel Kazakov from Warrior Class.
 * Harold Kingman from Act of War.
 * Counter Attack - One new piece of Sky Masters tech in Rogue Forces allows a plane to defeat incoming missiles with Frickin' Laser Beams, then attempt to fry the attacker as well.
 * Crazy Prepared - Sky Masters aircraft can mount Russian munitions and have the necessary code to do so, apparently just in case they ever had to.
 * Dangerously Genre Savvy - Gryzlov from Plan of Attack tries to be this, but fails.
 * Dark Action Girl - Ivana Vasilyeva from Wings of Fire.
 * David Versus Goliath - Played with in Flight of the Old Dog where the Old Dog, despite being much larger than the pursuing MiG-29 Fulcrum, is the David because it Can Barely Stand.
 * Dead Guy, Junior -, Patrick and Wendy's son, after.
 * Dead Little Sister - Patrick McLanahan almost losing his younger brother is what drives him on his vigilante quest in The Tin Man, and eventually.
 * Death From Above - In Sky Masters when the Chinese Admiral is about to nuke Davao City his destroyer was hit by a satellite by the Americans when they maneuvered it to crash on the destroyer.
 * Death of a Thousand Cuts - It is possible to drain Tin Men of power, after which they become vulnerable to small arms.
 * Deceptive Disciple -  from Act of War.
 * Desperately Looking for a Purpose In Life - Pat at the start of Flight of the Old Dog.
 * Did Not Do the Research (Where to start...)
 * Sky Masters fits this trope. First, the Philippine government had a presidential system, and had only one vice president unlike in the novel. Another point, which borders on Critical Research Failure to the point of hilarity, is lumping Singapore in with her Muslim neighbours. While her relations with them are comparatively more cordial, the epithet "Israel of the East" is apt.
 * Dirty Business - Some attackers on a Dreamland facility express regret that the EMP device used to disable a CID will also fry the operator.
 * Disproportionate Retribution
 * Dissonant Serenity - Thorn demonstrates this in Warrior Class; it's noted that some find it calming/comforting, while others find it annoying.
 * Dragon Ascendant - Gregory Townsend, Big Bad of The Tin Man, was The Dragon to Storming Heaven's Big Bad Henri Cazaux. Also, the Big Bad of Fatal Terrain, Chinese Admiral Sun Ji Guoming, was subordinate to that of Sky Masters.
 * Dragon-in-Chief - Zakharov from Act of War.
 * The Dreaded - Pavel Kazakov from Warrior Class, to the point that even the Russian higher-ups don't dare to mess with him.
 * Elaborate Underground Base - One of these shows up in Fatal Terrain.
 * Enemy Mine - In Air Battle Force  end up working with the Turkmen and Americans against Russian invaders.
 * Edge of Battle has  working with Task Force TALON after Comandante Veracruz's double-cross.
 * Strike Force is centred on former enemy Buzhazi asking for American assistance.
 * Ensign Newbie: Hal Briggs is a Major in Shadows of Steel, but being given command of a Marine-comprised commando unit leads to this, especially with his experience coming from Army and Air Force.
 * Establishing Character Moment - Gryzlov from Air Battle Force has this. His Bait the Dog shows his care for his people, as well as his utter ruthlessness against the Rodina's enemies.
 * Even Evil Has Standards - Russian general Stepashin from Plan of Attack, a man with no qualms against nuclear sneak bombings against the US, is disgusted by Gryzlov's.
 * False-Flag Operation - The Chinese do this in Fatal Terrain to make it seem that Taiwan and the US are attacking them. Pavel Kazakov from Warrior Class does this to trigger a . Zakharov from Edge of Battle does this to make it seem that the American Watchdogs are killing illegal immigrants.
 * Famed in Story AND The Greatest Story Never Told - Pat experiences both.
 * Fire-Forged Friends: Pat and Tony Jamieson in Shadows of Steel.
 * Foreshadowing -  in Fatal Terrain gets this.   too, though it's many books before the cheque gets cashed; see Harsher in Hindsight.
 * Foreign Cuss Word - Shows up quite often. Gratuitous Russian is just one kind.
 * Four-Star Badass - Pat McLanahan, amongst others, although the rank means that he isn't in combat as much as before.
 * Frickin' Laser Beams - Anti-ballistic missile and later anti-satellite lasers get used by various factions.
 * Fun with Acronyms - HAWC
 * General Ripper - General Park from Battle Born will go as far as  in order to fight Chinese aggression.
 * Genre Shift: The Tin Man was the first one to be almost entirely focused on the dirtside perspective, unlike previous titles that were almost solely the flyboys' game. More infantry-centric content started creeping in after that.
 * Godzilla Threshold: Villainous example in Sky Masters. His flotilla in shambles after a Filipino ambush, with only death or dishonourable retreat on the cards, Big Bad Admiral Yin decided to Nuke'Em. Things go downhill from there.
 * Gone Horribly Right - The mess with Kingfisher-Eight in Executive Intent.
 * Gone Horribly Wrong - The mission at the start of Wings of Fire was to simply destroy some Libyan missiles. Then
 * In Executive Intent
 * The Great Politics Mess-Up
 * Happily Married - Pat and Wendy
 * Harsher in Hindsight: In-Universe. In Shadows of Steel  is chastened for taking a risk that gets him hurt by a ZSU-23 antiaircraft gun. Guess how he dies, several books later?
 * Heel Faith Turn: General Samar from Sky Masters.
 * Heel Realization - Fursenko from Warrior Class experiences this.
 * Hero with Bad Publicity - McLanahan and team(s) face this problem, as do Jason Richter and Task Force TALON.
 * Heroic Sacrifice - In Flight of the Old Dog  leaves the Old Dog to deal with Soviets and let the others get away.
 * In Fatal Terrain
 * In Battle Born  "de-stealths" his plane to lure missiles away from their intended target.
 * Hostage for Macguffin - In Edge of Battle Jason is made to give up the CID activation code or let some children get killed.
 * If I Wanted You Dead...: In Shadows of Steel a back-channel envoy between the Iranians and the US is told that if the President were not in control of the situation, the US would have carried out overt military action already.
 * Immune to Bullets - Tin Men and CIDs have this, although bigger guns still work.
 * Implacable Man - Tin Men and CIDs can appear to be this.
 * Impossibly Graceful Giant - CIDs
 * In a Single Bound - Tin Men and CIDs can do this through different means.
 * Instant Death Bullet -  from Warrior Class averts this by surviving a bullet in the left lung.
 * Interservice Rivalry
 * It's Personal: In Shadows of Steel, being told that Hal Briggs is with the group he is being asked to help convinces Pat to come out of "early retirement" where more nebulous appeals fail.
 * Karma Houdini: Chinese President Evils, repeatedly, unlike their Russian counterparts. Also, the Iranian general Buzhazi, who survives Shadows of Steel and returns to benefit from an Enemy Mine.
 * Karmic Death -  from Plan of Attack dies in the same Russian attack that he kept denying would occur.
 * Kill Sat
 * Klingon Promotion
 * Knight Templar - The US finds itself on the slippery slope to this in Edge of Battle, but ultimately avoids it.
 * The Korean War, or restarting thereof
 * La Résistance - In Wings of Fire the Night Stalkers are aided by the Sanusi Brotherhood who are fighting the usurping Libyan dictator.
 * Lampshade Hanging - in Executive Intent, a State Department official summarizes parts of a supposed plot by China and Russia (which is actually happening), and says the line "I think you've been reading too many cheesy techno-thrillers."
 * Laser Sight - Pavel Kazakov's men in Warrior Class use these to keep some enemies off their principal.
 * Last Second Chance: Offered to Admiral Tufayli in Shadows of Steel and naturally rejected.
 * The Law of Diminishing Defensive Effort - Invoked in Wings of Fire where Hal tells a Night Stalker new to the Tin Man suit to focus on the job and let the suit shrug off small-arms fire rather than obsessing over cover like a normal foot mobile.
 * Les Collaborateurs: Teguina in Sky Masters.
 * Lightning Gun - From Warrior Class on, Tin Men have shoulder-mounted electrodes that can fire electric blasts.
 * Like Reality Unless Noted: A more generous interpretation, given the clear Alternate History elements already in place.
 * Little Useless Gun
 * Loophole Abuse - The Soviets in Flight of the Old Dog refuse to deactivate the Kavaznya laser under the excuse that the strategic arms treaties never banned ground-based laser systems. The Iranians in Shadows of Steel got their weapons from post-Soviet states that were not covered in the arms control treaties.
 * Ludicrous Gibs - 23mm rounds make a mess of American aircrewmen in Fatal Terrain and Warrior Class. In Strike Force  goes down this way.
 * Macross Missile Massacre - In Plan of Attack, Russian missile spam inflicts heavy casualties on
 * Make It Look Like an Accident
 * Make the Bear Angry Again
 * Mama Bear: In Rogue Forces, former Kurdish separatist commando Zilar Azzawi retakes her sword after a Turkish airstrike kills her husband and her children.
 * Mentor Occupational Hazard - Befalls.
 * Might as Well Not Be in Prison At All - In Wings of Fire we eventually learn that this is true of.
 * Military Maverick - McLanahan and the Dreamland old-timers to a tee.
 * Misguided Missile - In Shadow Command the superiority of the Black Stallions over older planes is vividly demonstrated when Boomer guides a pair of Russian missiles back to the planes that had fired them.
 * Missing Mom -
 * Mnogo Nukes
 * Moe Greene Special -  from Act of War gets shot in the left eye, but survives.
 * Mook Horror Show - When Tin Men and CIDs are around.
 * My God, What Have I Done?
 * NGO Superpower - Night Stalkers/Scion/Whatever approaches this.
 * The Neidermeyer: One inexperienced Captain in Sky Masters.
 * Neutron Bomb - Used by the Libyans in Wings of Fire. The results were most unpleasant.
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Hero - In Air Battle Force the ABF prevents a Russian airstrike by destroying the bombers at Engels AFB, but this motivates Gryzlov to do what he does in Plan of Attack.
 * In Rogue Forces, former Kurdish separatist commando Zilar Azzawi retakes her sword after a Turkish airstrike kills her husband and her children.
 * Nice Job Fixing It, Villain - The Russian attempted nuclear strike on Eareckson AFB in Plan of Attack.
 * No One Could Survive That - Why no one thinks to look for  after his Heroic Sacrifice in Flight of the Old Dog.
 * No One Gets Left Behind - Subverted in Warrior Class, where Pat goes back for  after they get shot down in Russian territory... and gets into serious trouble with the higher-ups for it.
 * No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup - Subverted; the first Fisikous plane is stolen in Night of the Hawk, but they had a second one, as revealed in Warrior Class.
 * Non-Action Guy - Jason Richter starts as one, being not much good without his CID unit, but gets better. Some Sky Masters personnel are also this, never having been military before joining and thus not mentally prepared to use their equipment in an actual combat situation.
 * Not a Game: In Sky Masters, Patrick calls Dr. Masters out on his flippant, overly casual attitude with regards to the oncoming battle.
 * Not My Driver
 * Not Quite Dead - The discovery that  is this and the subsequent rescue attempt form the plot for Night of the Hawk.
 * Not So Invincible After All - Pat gets this while using the first version of the Tin Man suit in The Tin Man.  gets this in Strike Force after running into a Russian trap.
 * Nothing Personal - In Warrior Class, one of the aircrew of the Russian stealth bomber says so after
 * Pay Evil Unto Evil - Chris Wohl's killing of  in Wings of Fire is undeniably vicious and yet very much the least the scum deserves. In Executive Intent the Chinese respond to a Somali pirate attack on one of their vessels by carrying out a massive aerial and amphibious assault and takeover of Somalia.
 * Perpetual Smiler - Jon Masters in Sky Masters.
 * Our Presidents Are Different - Gardner is President Playboy in a big way, as was Martindale. Thorn however, used to be a Badass Special Force officer.
 * Peace Through Superior Firepower
 * Poor Communication Kills - Dreamland has a lot of secret ops that, well, they can't let others know about. Not even allies. Predictably, fighting ensues.
 * Powered Armor - The BERP "Tin Man" suits.
 * Pretty Little Headshots - Averted with near-loving consistency.
 * Prison Rape
 * Private Military Contractors - Pat McLanahan is official head of the Scion PMC in Rogue Forces.
 * Ragtag Bunch of Misfits - Task Force TALON starts as a mish-mash of FBI agents, "lab-bound mavericks" and hardened veterans.
 * Ranger - Hal Briggs and Trevor Griffin have gone for the Ranger course. Ray Jefferson was one too.
 * Real Men Wear Pink - Chris Wohl is surprisingly good at looking after kids.
 * Recursive Ammo
 * Redemption Equals Death -  from Plan of Attack.
 * Refuge in Audacity - At least twice, the Dreamland team shanghai Soviet/Russian resources to keep themselves going.
 * Renegade Russian - Zakharov from the Act of War books.
 * Required Secondary Powers: The Wolverines have to be limited below their maximum maneuverability because their explosives will prematurely cook off otherwise.
 * Right Hand Versus Left Hand - Americans often trouble Pat McLanahan and his team.
 * Running Gag - Ray Jefferson repeatedly being called a Sergeant in Act of War.
 * Screw the Rules, I Have Money - Pavel Kazakov from Warrior Class actually makes something of a system for his regular bribing.
 * Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right - At least Once an Episode from the Dreamland old-timers.
 * Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: In Starfire, the Russians object to an American invention that collects solar energy in orbit and beams it down to Earth using microwaves because of its potential use as a Kill Sat. Eventually, they escalate to attacking the space station said device is used on. It is exactly this that leads to the device being weaponised and used in retaliation.
 * Sergeant Rock - Chris Wohl and Ray Jefferson.
 * Sequel Hook
 * Shoot the Bullet - Often, though failure does occur at times.
 * Shoulder Cannon - Tin Men have their shoulder electrodes from Warrior Class on, while CIDs have a backpack that allows this.
 * Shrouded in Myth - Pavel Kazakov from Warrior Class.
 * Shut UP, Hannibal - Tufayli from Shadows of Steel and Leonid Zevitin from Shadow Command fall victim to this.
 * Slashed Throat - In Wings of Fire  takes a much more severe version.
 * So Last Season - Subverted; the "Old Dogs" are still lethal despite the emergence of the Vampires and the Black Stallions have not obsoleted the Vampires.
 * Something Only They Would Say - Brad Elliot uses some choice oaths in Flight of the Old Dog to let a certain colonel recognise him and bring up tanker support.
 * Something We Forgot - Manuel Pereira in Act of War disappears, is noticed as missing... and nothing ultimately comes of it.
 * Soviet Superscience - While most of their new toys are reverse-engineered from American tech, the former-Soviets-now-Russians did build their anti-sat lasers themselves.
 * Spanner in the Works - In Executive Intent bumping into a random civilian leads to  getting captured by the GRU.
 * Straw Misogynist: The onscreen ASEAN leaders in Sky Masters.
 * Strawman Political - Oddly enough, both sides- Brown does not like isolationism.
 * Sunglasses at Night - Comandante Veracruz from Edge of Battle.
 * Super Prototype - Averted as later models of Dreamland/Sky Masters/Whatever stuff have better features than the first runs.
 * Superpower Meltdown - A problem with the plasma field-powered Dragon in Wings of Fire.
 * Surprisingly-Sudden Death
 * Surrounded by Idiots - Pavel Kazakov from Warrior Class says "I'm surrounded by cowards and incompetents" after
 * Suspiciously Specific Denial - Jon Masters is insistent about what the Loser introduced in Rogue Forces is not.
 * Taking You with Me
 * There Is No Kill Like Overkill - Zakharov from Act of War sends several squads with anti-tank weapons and a helicopter gunship to kill one man. Executive Intent has a Russian fighter jet thoroughly obliterated by a Mjolnir/Thor's Hammer orbit-to-surface kill vehicle, as well as the Chinese approach to taking over Mogadishu.
 * Title Drop
 * Too Dumb to Live - Zakharov from Edge of Battle thinks that the illegal immigrants who tried to take on a CID rather than run away were this.
 * The Yemeni in Executive Intent. After the Chinese prove they're not going to be soft-hearted like the West with their Disproportionate Retribution takeover of Mogadishu, the Yemeni still bomb a Chinese frigate. No prizes for guessing whose shit is going to get wrecked.
 * Turn in Your Badge - Terrill pulls this on McLanahan and Dave Luger in Warrior Class.
 * The Unfettered - Brad Elliott.
 * Unwitting Pawn - A lot of people act as this in Act of War. POTUS Gardner acts as one in Shadow Command.
 * Vigilante Execution - Befalls.
 * Villain Ball
 * Villain with Good Publicity - The Chinese try to paint themselves as this in Fatal Terrain. Comandante Veracruz from Edge of Battle masquerades as a Mexican nationalist to do this.
 * Villainous Valour - Shown by the Taliban forces in Air Battle Force.
 * War Is Hell
 * Was It Really Worth It? - In Wings of Fire Pat says this after the Night Stalkers get very large paychecks for the mission that saw.
 * Wave Motion Gun - The Soviets' Kavaznya laser system in Flight of the Old Dog is rated at hundreds of megawatts and able to serve anti-satellite duties.
 * We Could Have Avoided All This: In Shadows of Steel Big Bad Buzhazi is told that he could have avoided getting into trouble with the US had he only
 * Weak but Skilled: In Sky Masters an outdated Filipino naval group puts a modern Chinese force soundly on the ropes.
 * Weapon of Mass Destruction - In Battle Born, among the weapons used are "plasma bombs" that are explicitly described as transferring the objects their blast converts into the titular form of matter into an alternate universe.
 * And which are never so much as mentioned again in later books...
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist - GAMMA from Act of War is not above using backpack nukes against the big corporations it believes are ruining the environment.
 * What a Senseless Waste of Human Life -  expresses this sentiment in Edge of Battle when   is Driven to Suicide.
 * What the Hell, Hero? - At least Once an Episode, someone will bitch about Dreamland's methods.
 * What You Are in the Dark - McLanahan warns his group about the lack of recognition at best for their success in Fatal Terrain. This fails to dissuade them.
 * Wise Beyond Their Years - Bradley McLanahan shows this.
 * With Great Power Comes Great Insanity - Yegorov from Warrior Class is suspected of this.
 * You Can Barely Stand - The titular Flight of the Old Dog starts with both the plane and the crew not at optimal condition and only gets worse.
 * You Have Failed Me... - One Russian general gets this in Plan of Attack.
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness - Pavel Kazakov from Warrior Class threatens and eventually does this. Comandante Veracruz from Edge of Battle tries this on
 * You Keep Telling Yourself That - Zakharov from Edge of Battle criticises Comandante Veracruz as not actually believing the ultranationalist rhetoric he spouts.
 * You Killed My Father - Defied in Warrior Class, where Pavel Kazakov claims his strike against Albania was not because their guerillas killed his father.
 * Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters - A key theme of Shadows of Steel. Discussed by various characters in Warrior Class.