Customer Reviews

Panzer: The Illustrated History of Germany's Armored Forces in WWII

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This book gives the good explanation of development, utilization and fate of German armors in WWII in each campaign in an easy-to-read way. After completed this book, you will get the more clearer view of the panzer force. The pictures are clear and many of them seem to be seen here for the first time. The one disappointed thing is the rather large amounts of wrong identification of the types of AFVs and weapons in the pictures. The quality of printing and binding are of high standard.

I actually own a copy of this book, and while the photos are good, the person or persons unknown are truly among the clueless when the topic of identifying German armour comes up. After only a cursory examination of the book I was absolutely floored at the sheer quantity of photo identification and factual errors that plagues this book. They start on page 2 and continue on with a total of six type-written pages of errors that I caught. Errors like that on pg 94 (bottom) where the unit symbol shown is for the 11th Panzer, and not the 7th as identified, and no, Rommel didn't command this unit in France as it served on the Eastern Front. Bad research couched as fact in print. Or the caption that lists a dimunitive Panzer II "Luchs" as a Panther which weighed twice as much. Or the caption on Pg 155 that lists a halftrack whereas the picture shows a Steyr RSO full-track. Other errors are more subtle but just as wrong: how about the picture on page 139 showing a "Tiger" -which is actually clearly a Panther, or the "Tigers on their way to Kursk" on p 116: problem is that the Tiger on the middle of the two pages is a mid-production that didn't exist in July 1943. How about the purported interior shot of a Tiger on p 170 (top) which is actually a well-known shot of the inside of a sdkfz 253 halftrack! And the list goes on for those inclined to look. The point is that while the book contains many new and unique pictures, the photo-identifiers are often suspect and should be questioned more often than not. I never did get around to reading my copy as I was so stumped by these many glaring mistakes. As such I can't address the accuracy of the text, but I was extremely disappointed by the mistakes I did uncover. I hate to appear overly picky on such matters, but they simply make so many of these mistakes that the book's credibility is suspect by the informed and, unfortunately, will be accepted as fact by those less knowledgable on the matter. That is enough reason for a reprint with significant revisions. 'nuff said.

If you are not tired of broad, really broad overviews of armoured warfare, buy this book. The text is light, the photos are very nice,and the overall quality is great. However, anyone who already read a book or two about the "panzerwaffe" won't find anything new here - except for those neat pictures; some of which are amazingly detailled and exciting.

This book covers the Panzertruppen of the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS with very detailed pictures and narrative. Many of the pictures have been unseen in the West. The only shortcoming is that it is too brief.