The Silent Service: Grayback Class

Throughout the annals of history, the best of intentions -- and sometimes the worst -- have set in motion events with a vastly different outcome than originally intended. In this entertaining, fact-filled chronicle, William Forstchen and Bill Fawcett explore the watersheds of history that began as the best of ideas and ended as the worst of fiascoes.

A HOLY WAR -- The Medieval Crusades for religious liberation become centuries of slaughter and destruction.

SIBLING RIVALRY -- Leif Erikson spares his sister's life and delays the discovery of the New World for five hundred years.

BIG GUNS -- Emperor Constantine XI refuses to buy a new supercannon that would let him dominate his enemies, so its creator sells the cannon to the Turks, who then crush Constantinople.

With casual wit and subtle insight, It Seemed Like a Good Idea...tucks tongue in cheek and rides out the fiascoes of history.

The year is 1985, and two great superpowers -- the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.-- are locked in a lethal, escalating race of arms and technology. When reports are received of a devastating new Soviet weapon -- a prototype attack submarine more advanced than anything in the U.S. undersea arsenal -- a nearly obsolete Grayback Class submarine carrying a platoon of SEALs is suddenly America's greatest hope. Their mission: to penetrate the Soviet sub's home port, the heavily defended Severodvinsk shipyard on the White Sea, and bring back secret data on the new sub. The task is almost impossible but failure would give a powerful enemy dominion over the Earth's waters -- and a first-strike advantage that could prove nothing less than catastrophic to the Free World.The year is 1985, and two great superpowers--the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.--are locked in a lethal, escalating race of arms and technology. When reports are received of a devastating new Soviet weapon--a prototype attack submarine more advanced than anything in the U.S. undersea arsenal--a nearly obsolete Grayback Class submarine carrying a platoon of SEALs is suddenly America's greatest hope. Their mission: to penetrate the Soviet sub's home port, the heavily defended Severodvinsk shipyard on the White Sea, and bring back secret data on the new sub. The task is almost impossible but failure would give a powerful enemy dominion over the Earth's waters--and a first-strike advantage that could prove nothing less than catastrophic to the Free World.