Hetzer Jagdpanzer (Schiffer Military History) [Paperback]

Horst Scheibert (Author)

Book Description

Series: Schiffer Military History | Publication Date: July 1990

Covers the development and design of the Jagdpanzer 38(t) Hetzer.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

Product Details

• Paperback: 48 pages
• Publisher: Schiffer Pub Ltd (July 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0887402380
• ISBN-13: 978-0887402388
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,935,303 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Target acquired visually, but missed the mark, October 16, 2001

By 

Peter Albrecht (Costa Mesa, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hetzer Jagdpanzer (Schiffer Military History) (Paperback)

I fall for it every time: I see an interesting title that was translated from a German original, I buy it, and proceed to be totally ticked off at the miserable quality produced by quickie book publishers. The typos, poor spelling, and downright mistranslation of this book ruins it for me. I lay the blame at the feet of the publisher (Schiffer, in Pennsylvania) rather than the author; after all, the author wrote it in German and didn't have responsibility for the English-language product. The publisher farmed out the translation and apparently accepted whatever came over the transom, typesetting it without review or, for that matter, the slightest application of some common sense.

So for example (picking a page at random) we see tech specs such as "Valves: side mounted on camshaft dive wheels to the front." I have no idea what that means, even if I insert "drive" for dive. Oh, here's a beauty: "Transmission: Parge-Wilson tarpaulin power drive with 5 forward gears." Tarpaulin power drive? What the hey? Then I figured it out. It's a totally boogered translation of "Vorgelege-Getriebe" -- the old Wilson preselector gearbox. Parge is supposed to be Praga. And the list goes on. I see another use of "dive wheel" for running gear, so it's not an isolated typo. Who does this sort of work anyway? MS Spell Czecher?

Picking another page at random. "Steering and break system: ...break-steering operated by 2 levers."

The translator is obviously unfamiliar with the technical jargon. Another example is found in the repeated use of the word "mantle" for "mantlet," the cast shroud where the gun barrel exits the hull. Small point? What if your only source of knowledge on a subject is books of this sort, and you get the words wrong? How will you communicate, or for that matter avoid looking like a dolt, when talking to people who know the subject?

I'm not even going to start on punctuation errors. Doesn't anybody know how to rite gud Inglesh no more?

In my professional opinion (I translate German engineering and technical books -- not military, so there's no conflict of interest here), a translated book should if anything be BETTER than the original; there is more time for errors of fact to be weeded out, more eyeballs see the copy, there is time to check with the author if he really meant to say this instead of that, etc. Unfortunately there are too many in the publishing industry that don't see it that way and just use the generated text to fill the white space between the photos. I am fortunate in working with technical publishers on both sides of the pond who take quality seriously; unfortunately, sometimes I become a consumer of books not done to the same standard.

So does this book have anything to recommend it? Well, it's hard to booger up photos; for modellers, there's plenty of detail in these images. But the English translation, proofreading, and typsetting are an amateur effort not worthy of a high school newspaper.

This coulda been a contendah. Squadron/Signal does a far better job on books in this format. They also had a book on the Hetzer, and it's an infinitely better production, but appears to be out of print at present (they reissue these from time to time). I see Amazon also lists another publisher's book, ISBN 1841761354. I will probably order that. Hopefully that (apparently British) production did a better job of it. But I'm becoming accustomed to disappointment in translated military history...