Customer Reviews

Hell On Wheels (G.I. Series)

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The excellent GI series continues with a look at the uniforms and equipment used by US Army tank crewmen from the beginnings of tank warfare in WW1 to the modern day. This is the first time an author has focused on just the armored troops, and it was long overdue. Most of the book covers the WW2 period, which it does quite well. The weak point is that tank crews from the Korean War and Vietnam are covered only briefly, and there is weak coverage on the uniform variations seen in the 50's and 60's. The Gulf War gets better treatment. Text is minimal, consisting mostly of photo captions (which are well done). Photo selection and reproduction is excellent, except for some modern color photos (interestingly, the WW2 color is great!). Not the ultimate work on the US armored forces, but an essential reference for historians, collectors, and model-builders.

I expected to have a good view of USA armor troops, but alas...too much fluff not enough depth. To me WW2 was not covered well and the Vietnam era not well enough. Maybe I was expecting much too much from 108 pages, and I reckon the color photos they tell you about are only the cover photos. I guess this book is like a M-4 Sherman--promised more than it delivered.

I don't see how you can do justice to the American Soldier, his uniform or equipment in a 71 page book. The subjects are too broad and require much more focus. I found the organization of the book poor - one page you're on WW1, then the 1990's M-1 tank, then to Vietnam. The captions here try to point out what type of uniform the soldiers are wearing, half the time, the photo is too distant to see what the author is talking about.

The quality of the color photos are poor- very yellowish tint on about 1/3 of them.

This is a book strictly for beginners for an intro into tank warfare from 1918-1999. I do not recommend this book for modelers or anyone who has been studying armored warfare for a long period of time.