Customer Reviews

British and American Tanks of World War Two: The Complete Illustrated History of British, American and Commonwealth Tanks, 1939-45

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

 

 

Like its German companion volume, this work on American, British, and Commonwealth tanks is comprehensive and detailed. At slightly over 200 pages, it is terse but it covers a multitude of variations and tank equipment. For example, in the US M4 Sherman series, it gives descriptions of 26 mine clearing devices, 16 Sherman variations, 9 flame-throwing devices, and also covered SP conversions, recovery vehicles, experimental vehicles, and more. Then it goes to the British variants and equipment and covers them in similar detail. There are pictures aplenty and useful appendices covering, among other things, the major weapons carried by these tanks. I didn't give it 5 stars only because I thought it could have used more operational information on the different vehicles. All in all though, for an inexpensive one volume source book on American / Brit / Commonwealth WWII tanks, I have not met its equal.

I bought this book because I was impressed by its counterpart on German armor. I was disappointed to notice that it doesn't live up to that standard. Where the 'German' book covered each version with technical data, this book often simply summed up all known versions, with a very brief description, often not even mentioning in service date (year) and production numbers. For example, the 24 pages long M4 Sherman section only contains 2 'technical' specification listings.... Same goes for the British Churchill tank section, only a single technical spec list. On the positive side are the sections on more obscure models and prototypes, almost all with illustration(s).

In many ways not up to standard with its German partner, Encyclopedia of German tanks of World War Two. Armor is not given section by section breakdown, but maximum and minimum. Allied armored cars, which were quite numerous, are not listed, unlike their German equivelent.

But on the positive side, an appendix of british and American tank armament is included in the back that is in far more detail than the one provided in the German one which is excellent reading. And the same can also be said of engines.

A good refurence in regards to the British, American, Canadian and Australian tanks and their sub types.

This book is a nice overview of topic and it gives a good impression of British and American armor of the WW2. It may be a good starting point for a person who has just beginning to show interest on British & American tanks of the WW2. For a tank modeller, it may be a handy reference (if you do not already have a book of this type), since the strenght of this book is nice pictures of the vehicles with brief descriptions. Although, most of the pictures are high quality, they seldom reveal any details that the tank modeller is looking for. The main weakness of this book is that it tries to cover everything and because of that it becomes shallow.

For those that need a starter reference book on World War II allied tanks, this will due. Most books have the same material repeated, and this is not much difference except you have a reliable author putting the information together. A fine addition to your reference library on World War II.

I guess my expectations for this book were too high, especially when you compare it against its German counterpart [both by Chamberlain and the prequel by von Segner]. As an armor historian, I wanted a thorough breakdown of technical data, like the German work, along with a more thorough explanation of different marks and variants.
4 pages of line drawings at the end only makes you want more.
This is a good work if you are starting off in the field, or needed someone to explain certain details for ASL. However, it is way too cut and dried and much of this information is available on the internet.
Wish it was much better.

Not to bad. Excellent references to unusual variants. good detail about equipment, usage and weaknesses.