Customer Reviews

Kingtiger Heavy Tank 1942-45 (New Vanguard)

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

 

 

This book is an invaluable source of information for plastic modelers building the German Tiger II.Color illustrations together with cutaway drawings provide accurate details of the interior layout of the tank.For future reference to the author, the addition of RAL numbers of paint colors as indexed to the colors in the illustrations in the book would be a possible improvement to be considered on this work.

This book is a small gem. Reference on this tank is as complete as can be packed in 48 pages. Not only development history is included, but also are packed gun tables, direct comparisons to opposite tanks, and unit history with order of battle. Unless you plan to buy Jentz and Hillary more complete books, this is a must for the modeller and historian!

When the casual reader buys a Vanguard book, it's for a general history -- some notes on development, some notes on deployment, some notes on upgrades and color schemes through the life of the vehicle, some notes on combat history, a short assessment of the vehicle's performance, and finally, if there's any space left over, a "where are they now" section for current service or where to find them in museums.

This book, which masquerades as an overview, is remarkably shallow on everything but development. In my opinion, that's a rather odd decision to make regarding a small folio-style overview with some color paintings in the middle of in-action vehicles. Most modelers will not be interested in knowing that on so-and-so a date, this experimental hull was modified in this-or-that way. The color plates are nice but there's little on the vehicle's usage to tie them into the text.

It doesn't help that the text is very dryly written.

Many of the other Osprey Vanguard books do a much better job at providing a good overview of the vehicles they cover, particularly the titles written by Zaloga. I'd pass on this one unless you are primarliy interested in the development of the vehicle.