History Creator / TomClancy

** One of Clancy's effective themes in his major works is the ForWantOfANail: one seemingly obscure thing or minor crime explodes way out of proportion all because the event is connected to important people through unlikely coincidences. Or because the right person was not in the room to make the right call...

* ForWantOfANail: As mentioned above, this is one of Clancy's favorite tropes. At least once per book you'll have a major disaster occur due to a relatively minor detail, such as a faulty switch compromising an entire production line of cars and causing an international incident or a vibrating pipe causing a ''nuclear meltdown'' on a submarine.

*** Aircraft use missiles as their long-range weapons (where "long-range" is anything beyond 500 meters). However, as in real life, all air-to-air (and most air-to-ground) missiles have top speeds in the 500-600mph range. This is a particular problem for the F-14 with its very long-range Phoenix missile: at long Phoenix range, the Tomcats must take every possible precaution against being detected, because the missiles take so long to reach their target that a forewarned target will be able to dodge, duck, or decoy the missiles and escape.
*** Submarines use both missiles and torpedoes, and both have the same problems: limited speed and limited fuel, which means limited range. Torpedoes also have top speeds between fifty and seventy knots, while submarines have top speeds ranging from twenty to forty knots. This means that under certain circumstances the submarine can ''outrun'' a pursuing torpedo. Even if the sub can't outrun a torpedo, it can use noisemakers and water conditions to dodge or fool the torpedo. A great deal of the skill in attacking an enemy sub comes from the need to get as close as possible before firing, so the target doesn't have time to employ any counter-tactics.

[[/index]]
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Famous enough to be a brand name; the appellation "[[InCaseYouForgotWhoWroteIt Tom Clancy's...]]" has been applied to a TV miniseries, several series of novels, and a number of VideoGames; which ostensibly meet the author's demands for [[ShownTheirWork research]] and technical realism, but feature some glaring inaccuracies while more-recent works focus more on RuleOfCool because most were made ''without'' much involvement from the man himself. Products bearing the "Tom Clancy's" branding ceased having anything to do with Clancy after Creator/{{Ubisoft}} acquired the intellectual property rights to his name and the drift away from rigid realism continued further.

* ''Literature/RedStormRising'' -- Cowritten with Larry Bond, who is mentioned in the foreword but not on the cover.

** ''Film/JackRyanShadowRecruit'' -- Not based on any book by Clancy.
** ''Film/WithoutRemorse'' -- Not based on an actual book by Clancy, despite the title.

* Ubisoft's ''Tom Clancy's'' video games:

* ''Literature/RedStormRising'' -- A hypothetical WorldWarThree scenario fought in the conventional theater. Due to an energy crisis, the USSR attacks NATO in a bid for oil. Cowritten with Larry Bond, who is mentioned in the foreword but not on the cover.
* The ''Literature/JackRyan'' series - Written by him.
* ''SSN'', based on a submarine simulator video game of the same name. Written by him.
* The ''Literature/NetForce'' series - Licensed use of his name.
* The ''Op Center'' series - Licensed use of his name.
* The ''Literature/SplinterCell'' novels - Licensed use of his name and a spin-off of the video games.

** ''Film/JackRyanShadowRecruit'' [[note]]Not based on any book by Clancy.[[/note]]
** ''Film/WithoutRemorse'' [[note]]Also not based on an actual book by Clancy, despite the title[[/note]]

* ''VideoGame/TheDivision''
** ''VideoGame/TheDivision2''
* ''[[VideoGame/TomClancysEliteSquad Elite Squad]]''
* ''VideoGame/EndWar''
* ''VideoGame/GhostRecon''
** ''VideoGame/GhostRecon2''
** ''VideoGame/GhostReconAdvancedWarfighter''
** ''VideoGame/GhostReconAdvancedWarfighter2''
** ''VideoGame/GhostReconFutureSoldier''
** ''VideoGame/GhostReconOnline''
** ''VideoGame/GhostReconWildlands''
** ''VideoGame/GhostReconBreakpoint''
* ''{{VideoGame/HAWX}}'' ([[FunWithAcronyms High Altitude Warfare - Experimental Squadron]])
* ''VideoGame/TheHuntForRedOctober''
* ''VideoGame/RainbowSix''
** ''VideoGame/RainbowSix3''
** ''VideoGame/RainbowSixSiege''
** ''VideoGame/RainbowSixExtraction''
* ''VideoGame/SplinterCell''
** ''VideoGame/SplinterCell1''
** ''VideoGame/SplinterCellPandoraTomorrow''
** ''VideoGame/SplinterCellChaosTheory''
** ''VideoGame/SplinterCellDoubleAgent''
** ''VideoGame/SplinterCellConviction''
** ''VideoGame/SplinterCellBlacklist''

[[AC:Films]]

* RareGuns: A consequence perhaps of Clancy wanting to keep his fictional settings at or just ahead of the real-life leading edge of military trends and technology (see Zeerust below) often leads to the placement of rare, unusual, cancelled or even nonexistent weapons and military projects that might have been on the drawing board or assumed to be "the next big thing" at the time a book was written. Rainbow Six has a non-existent (at the time it was written) .45 ACP Beretta, and the 10mm Auto appears to live on as the standard handgun cartridge for many agencies and characters in Clancy works years after it was abandoned in real life.
** Beretta actually [[AluminumChristmasTrees did have a .45 ACP handgun]] at the time of writing: [[http://www.genitron.com/Handgun/Beretta/Pistol/8045-Cougar/45-Auto/Variant-1 the 8-round Beretta 8045 Cougar]]. However, Clancy's choice to equip the Rainbow team with a .45 Beretta had to be a coincidence, because the 8045 hit the market in 1998, the same year the novel was published (unless Clancy had insider knowledge that Beretta was planning to debut a .45 ACP pistol while he was writing the novel).

!!The Tom Clancy franchise includes the following major series and works:

* ''Film/TheHuntForRedOctober''
* ''Film/PatriotGames''
* ''Film/ClearAndPresentDanger''
* ''Film/TheSumOfAllFears''
* ''Film/JackRyanShadowRecruit'' [[note]]Not based on any book by Clancy.[[/note]]
* ''Film/WithoutRemorse'' [[note]]Also not based on an actual book by Clancy, despite the title[[/note]]

[[AC:Live-Action]]

[[AC:Video Games]]

* ''SSN'', based on a submarine simulator VideoGame of the same name. Written by him.

* ''[[VideoGame/{{HAWX}} H.A.W.X.]]'' ([[FunWithAcronyms High Altitude Warfare - Experimental Squadron]])

** ''VideoGame/{{Splinter Cell|1}}''

* ''VideoGame/TheDivision''
** ''VideoGame/TheDivision2''
* ''VideoGame/TomClancysEliteSquad''

* FailedFutureForecast: ''The Hunt for Red October'' takes place in the year it was written, 1984. But by the time the film was being made in 1990, the Cold War was in the last stretch and Russia was no longer considered an enemy of the US. This required the filmmakers to set it back in 1984, contrasting with the trend of later adaptations to just update the year and socio-political backdrop. Literature/TheSumOfAllFears, which features the Soviet Union prominently, was released days after the August 1991 attempted coup by Soviet Communist hardliners, which was one of the major events leading up to the dissolution of the Soviet Union four months later.

Famous enough to be a brand name; the appellation "[[InCaseYouForgotWhoWroteIt Tom Clancy's...]]" has been applied to a TV miniseries, several series of novels, and a number of VideoGames; which ostensibly meet the author's demands for [[ShownTheirWork research]] and [[MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness technical realism]], but feature some glaring inaccuracies while more-recent works focus more on RuleOfCool because most were made ''without'' much involvement from the man himself. Products bearing the "Tom Clancy's" branding ceased having anything to do with Clancy after Creator/{{Ubisoft}} acquired the intellectual property rights to his name and the drift away from rigid realism continued further.

[[quoteright:233:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tomclancytvt_91.jpg]]

* TheGreatPoliticsMessUp: ''The Hunt for Red October'' takes place in the year it was written, 1984. But by the time the film was being made in 1990, the Cold War was in the last stretch and Russia was no longer considered an enemy of the US. This required the filmmakers to set it back in 1984, contrasting with the trend of later adaptations to just update the year and socio-political backdrop. Literature/TheSumOfAllFears, which features the Soviet Union prominently, was released days after the August 1991 attempted coup by Soviet Communist hardliners, which was one of the major events leading up to the dissolution of the Soviet Union four months later.

Formerly an insurance broker, Thomas "Tom" Leo Clancy Jr. (April 12, 1947 - October 1, 2013) was an American novelist who specialized in {{military|And Warfare Literature}} and {{spy|Fiction}} techno-thrillers.

[[AC:Films ]]

[[AC:Live-Action ]]

[[AC:Video Games ]]

Formerly an insurance broker, Thomas "Tom" Leo Clancy Jr. (April 12, 1947 - October 1, 2013) was an American novelist who specialized in {{military|And Warfare Literature}} and espionage techno-thrillers.

Formerly an insurance broker, Thomas "Tom" Leo Clancy Jr. (April 12, 1947 - October 1, 2013) was an American novelist who specialized in {{military|And Warfare Literature}} techno-thrillers. His first and probably most famous novel is ''Literature/TheHuntForRedOctober''. Notably, the book featured such accurate depictions of US submarine operations that he came under investigation because the government was convinced he was being leaked classified information. As it turned out, he was able to to piece together how things worked by thoroughly researching publicly available sources. He applied this rigorous attention to detail to the works he had a direct hand in -- although he did get things wrong on occasion.