Customer Reviews

Medium Tank M3 to M3A5: General Lee/Grant (Tanks in Detail)

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

 

 

This book is a nice book in a way it has some good photos, line drawings of the M3 Lee & M12 Gun Motor Carriage, identification markings charts and interior shots of the M3 but the book tries to cover too much information in 96 pages you just get a little bit of everything. The book is all over the place just showing you a dab of this and that, the Canadian Ram and Sexton, the US M7 Priest, M12 , M31, etc.

When it comes to the main subject the M3 Lee/Grant the book is pretty skimpy on photos. For instance the book only has 6 battlefield pictures of the M3 Grant and one of the photo's is very interesting but it is a bit grainy and poor quality photo. 2 of these battlefield photos are of the camouflaged cover used on the M3 Grant to disguise as a truck, one is a commonly seen photo but the other is a very interesting picture of the truck camouflage structure being erected over the tank. There is also one pretty good shot of maintenance being done on a Grant (removing the engine). You also get 3 color pictures of the Bovington Museum M3 Grant which are sort of OK.

When it comes to the M3 Lee there are only one or possibly two (could be a training exercise photo) battlefield pictures of the Lee. I must say I think the book would have been more valuable if it mostly focus on the M3 Lee/Grant.

If you looking for a book on the Lee/Grant your much better off with Squadron/Signal's books. "M3 Lee/Grant in Action #2033" it has war time, factory, training and M3 variant photos along with line drawings and color plates. The information on the M3's is brief yet all the photos have captions. The other book is the Walk Around book "M3 Medium Tank (Lee & Grant) #5712" which is comprised only of impressive color photos of excellent Museum preserved M3's all the photos have captions too. Both books are modestly priced.

If you want a book only on the M3 Lee you will be very impress with GunPower's "M3 Lee/Grant vol.1 no.32" This book is a little expensive but easily worth every penny, it has no Grants in it I guess they aim to cover that in Vol.2 if that ever comes out?

Terry Gander provides a quick but accurate read in this book about the M3 Grant tank. The design did not even exist when it was ordered in August, 1940, with a dead line to finalize the tank within 60 days. This tank was always intended to be an interim tank. It saw brief front line action, although many of the hulls were converted to artillery pieces and infantry carriers, which the book covers very well.

The book describes very well all of the shortcomings of this tank - there were many. Great B&W photos, line drawings, some color photos of the inside and outside of this tank. Not a perfect book for modelers (that's why I rated it four stars), but a very good introduction on the M-3 through the M3A5 tank,s the design/development/deployment of this medium tank. I especially like the explanations of why certain decisions were made- for example, the chassis, engine, cannon. A short book, but it certainly gives adequate coverage of an average tank. At the current price of 5.50, it is a good buy.