Customer Reviews

BMP Infantry Fighting Vehicle 1967-94 (New Vanguard)

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Zaloga has been writing about Soviet hardware for many years for many respectable publications. This New Vanguard series is very informative for a book its size, has a lot of detail & pictures that are helpful to modeler and collector as well.

Zaloga captures well why this series of vehicles has not fared well on the battle scene. Its light armor does not do what it is supposed to do-protect its crew. The BMP1 weapons do not do what it they are intended to do- defeat the enemy. Too many blind spots, restrictions on range, poor sights make the early varients of the BMP1 a piece of junk. In my years as a Tank Commander studying this weapon system, crawling around in it and watching it run at various army posts, we never feared it. The BMP2, was a little better, at least fielding a 30mm automatic cannon that would pose a threat to a Bradley. The BMP3 is a very aggressive (desperate?) attempt to mount something for everyone. 30mm cannon, 100mm cannon, missles, this baby's got it all. But the armor is still too light for its crew and too much in a small package? Time will tell on that.

No book this size can please every reader, but I would definately recommend this one to all as a great primer on the IFV produced in greater numbers than any other, the one first mass produced.

I own a BMP IFV, so I know a thing or two about them and this book presented a nice array of informative information. It covered the different variants in some detail and the only thing I would change would be to add a few more photos of these vehicles in use by the Russian military, but I guess thats hard to do.

A very well presented book.

Charles TANKBOY Knight

This book follows in the footsteps of other Zaloga titles, like "T-72", "Tank war-Central front", or just about anything else he has written. Paranoia of Russian weapons has seemed to be hunting Steven, as BMP is a clear reflection of that. The whole book is quite tilted in all aspects, from beginning to the end, he boasts of Western tank designs at the expense of Russian equipment. Illustrations are sharp, however no special variants are displayed in the drawings, just the standard BMP-1, 2, 3's). In other worlds, you want to have good illustrations of this vehicle for modeling purposes, then perhaps the books is what you need( even though frontal and rear color-plate drawings are scarce, 9 of 12 drawings are straight side-views ), however, if you want this book for educational purposes, my recommendation would be to look for a less biased source to get a fair evaluation. -david