Customer Reviews

Armored Fighting Vehicles: 300 of the World's Greatest Military Vehicles

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Provides basic information on a wide variety of armored vehicles of all conceivable types. A little short on detail, with no photos (but good side view illustrations). Makes a good starter volume or quick reference guide.

Ever like to pretend you're a Romanian dictator on parade-ground watching your pet brigade of Belgian-manufactured SIBMAS infantry fighting vehicles go by? With a couple of battalions of spanking-new French AMX-40 tanks to beef them up, of course; never mind that noone ever ordered any AMX-40s at all, the real entertaiment in such reference manuals inevitably is in imagining how all these assorted vehicles would face off against each other in combats that, even in our contentious world, are unlikely to happen (Leopard IIs versus Leclercs? Not in this EU century); or, on a less grisly note, how much fun it would be to have your own giant deterrent force to fondly sink your national budget on (ever wonder if Pentagon wonks spend way too much free time playing Risk?). Covering the history of tanks and their lighter supporting vehicles ranging from self-propelled artillery (much of this including weapons also covered in this Barnes & Noble series' Artillery volume) and personnel carriers to reconnaisance armored cars and engineering vehicles, this allows the reader to ponder essential specs on these famous machines of war from Kursk to Desert Storm, accompanied by clearly drawn illustrations. Though there are a few oversights (the Soviet BMP-1 is absent, though the complementary BMP-2 as well as the airborne units' BMD-1 are featured), this gives you most of the information you need to know when pondering the state of the equipment in the NATO arsenals and that of the post-Soviet-client states that threaten them. Presumably up-and-coming designs like the new Stryker vehicles or France's much-anticipated VBCI infantry fighting vehicles will get included in subsequent editions. In the meantime, if you're shopping for a couple of armoured divisions, check this out first.

It's good for quick referance, and there's a lot of content, but detail is somewhat lacking and the manner in which some information is presented can be misleading at times. Additionally, the author interdicts his opinion in several instances as fact in regards to which vehicles are better than the others instead of allowing the reader to draw that conclusion for themselves, which I felt lead to the book occassioanlly being self-contradictory.

That is if you have a slightly larger than normal pocket.

Although the cover shows only WW2 era vehicles, the book DOES cover from WW1 to the present day, and even has mention of some of the "less" (or in some cases UNARMORED) armored vehicles such as the Jeep and the "Deuce and a half" cargo truck. If the title were merely "Fighting Vehicles" that would have been more correct, but we won't split hairs here.

The illustrations are very well rendered, and the comments can be taken (mainly) verbatim, although the author does take a tad of "literary embellishment".

There are some omissions, such as the M26 Pershing, the M48 Patton II, the M41 Walker Bulldog (but the M42 Duster is included), so it just misses the "10-ring" on that.

The artwork is superb, but I wonder if actual photographs (of the vehicles in action) might not have improved the book overall.

All in all, it IS still a quite decent compilation of most any fighting vehicle you can think of, and makes for quite the handy reference for those times when you just HAVE to know "what type of tank was that in BATTLE OF THE BULGE that the Germans were tooling around in, because they SURE were NOT TIGERS"?
((ans: M47s that were sold to Spain))

Perhaps Mr. Trewhitt will correct these errors and subsequently have a new and better printing of an otherwise very good book.

This book is a good starting point for learning about military vehicles from all eras and countries. Much of the information is OK but there are obvious errors and inaccuracies in some of the histories I sampled. A military vehicle book, with a scope as large as this one, has a few glaring ommisions such as the M26 Pershing and the Russian KV-2, while at the same time,containing many varients of modern Chinese armor, British "funnies" from WW2 as well as many varients of German WW2 halftracks. The book also includes many "softskin" vehicles, so the title is a bit misleading. This book is "pocket" sized and it does have a great deal of info and a drawing of each vehicle. Just dont take it all for gospel though.