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Tank Spotter’s Guide
Invented during World War I to break the grim deadlock of the Western Front trenches, tanks went on to revolutionize warfare. From the lightning Blitzkrieg assaults of World War II, to the great battles in the Middle Eastern desert, tanks have become one of the key components of the 'combined arms' philosophy of the modern battlefield. This pocket guide makes accessible to 'rivetheads' everywhere essential information to identify 40 of history's most fearsome tanks, including Germany's Tiger, Russia's T-34, America's Sherman and Panther, and France's FT-17. Each tank is presented with a detailed drawing to aid recognition.
128 pages, Paperback
First published May 24, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 14, 2021
Despite my remarks below, this is an excellent little guide for beginning tank-enthusiasts and connaisseurs alike. The summaries are good and the profile images will help in identifying what is what.
I would have given a higher rating, if not for the following things that annoyed me.
The order of tanks throughout the book. I realize it's hard to put everything in an exact chronological order as tank development can take anything from 6 months to 10 years, but some tanks' placement in the book and mentioning other tanks that only appear later gave me a weird sense of historical order.
- M48 Patton is followed by M24 Chaffee, then M3 Stuart, then M26 Pershing.
- The IS is mentioned after the T-55 and T-62.
Typo's and inconsistencies/inaccuracies in the technical details reduce the credibility of the figures as a whole.
- The list of properties displayed is inconsistent and makes it hard to compare models. Some have 12 properties, others more than 20.
- If you have both the weight and the power, why not always display the power-to-weight ratio instead of just here and there.
- The units of the properties are rather haphazard (making comparison difficult), showing ground pressure in kg/cm3, lbs/in2, N/cm2 but even something like kg/74.8cm2, of which I can make heads nor tails.
- The Leopard 1 has 2 different figures for fording capability and only weights 0.046 tons.
- ...
I would have given a higher rating, if not for the following things that annoyed me.
The order of tanks throughout the book. I realize it's hard to put everything in an exact chronological order as tank development can take anything from 6 months to 10 years, but some tanks' placement in the book and mentioning other tanks that only appear later gave me a weird sense of historical order.
- M48 Patton is followed by M24 Chaffee, then M3 Stuart, then M26 Pershing.
- The IS is mentioned after the T-55 and T-62.
Typo's and inconsistencies/inaccuracies in the technical details reduce the credibility of the figures as a whole.
- The list of properties displayed is inconsistent and makes it hard to compare models. Some have 12 properties, others more than 20.
- If you have both the weight and the power, why not always display the power-to-weight ratio instead of just here and there.
- The units of the properties are rather haphazard (making comparison difficult), showing ground pressure in kg/cm3, lbs/in2, N/cm2 but even something like kg/74.8cm2, of which I can make heads nor tails.
- The Leopard 1 has 2 different figures for fording capability and only weights 0.046 tons.
- ...
October 30, 2021
Great introduction to the evolutions of tanks from the very first one to the Abrahams.
Contains lots of the important tanks through history, two drawings per tank, history of the tank and technical details about it.
Contains lots of the important tanks through history, two drawings per tank, history of the tank and technical details about it.
August 28, 2024
Repeats some of the wehraboo tank myths, but otherwise just a basic overview of tanks and their characteristics.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews