Customer Reviews

Panzer IV & Its Variants (The Spielberger German Armor & Military Vehicles, Vol IV)

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

 

 

spielberger gives lots of specifications and technical information which includes pictures and details of individual components before,during and after assembly. if you are looking for books on german tank tactics there are better books. but if you are interested in pure tank specifications and the proccess used to determine which specs are kept and/or modified this book is for you. its very well put together, organized and absolutly wonderful.

One way to show the success of a weapon is how long it was in service, how many different uses it had. The Panzer Mark IV began service in 1939 as an infantry support vehicle. With upgrades through out WW2, it became a very successful tank and many variants were made for artillery, anti-aircraft and assault guns. It was mobile, reliable, packed a powerful punch but was thin - skinned. The chassis could not support enough weight to give it adequate protection. Built in greater numbers than the Panther and Tiger combined, the later tanks gained more fame.

Walter Spielberger was a pioneer in creating technical books about German war vehicles. This is a re-print of his book that came out in 1977. It is an excellent book that captures every detail, aspect and nuance of the Mark IV from the prototype to the end of the war. The high glossy paper is filled with line drawings, crisp B&W photos that show the tank, inside and out, from every angle. Plenty of charts, data and statistics, 4 pages of color drawings to show but a few of the camouflage schemes used. 8 pages of the appendix list every specification you could want or need. I only wish it were longer.

I've had this book for over 10 years, referred to it many times, read and re-read it learning something new each time. Highly recommended addition to your library, a must for all armor buffs & historians.

One of the best buys for a very good source of data on the PzIV series.

Very detailed information. Very accurate information.

This publication is an excellent resource for the historian and scale model builder. The photo and the history of this tank and variants are written very well so as to undersatnd how each model was developed. I highly recommend this as a primary source book.

Mr. Spielberger, as usual, provides excellent technical information about tanks, in this case the Pz IV. Unfortunately, he has some flaws: No index and no chapters. This makes using his books for reference a bit difficult. It can also be confusing as to which model of the tank he is refering to or whether something is relevant to all models. For example, he comments that it took 15,000 work hours to build a Pz IV but he does not specify if this is for the early or later models. If you find info you want to refer to back later, be sure to mark the page(s) yourself. That said, this is one of the best technical works for the price available.

Perhaps two stars is a bit low but three would, in my opinion, be a bit much. What you do get in this mostly technical volume is useful, but only useful to a point. Given that the Panzer IV was the German equivalent to the US Sherman or Russian T-34 as far as its development and usage go, this is a fairly slim volume. Compounding this, half of the already slim book is taken up by coverage of RELATED vehicles like the Sturmgeschutz IV, Brummbaer, Wirbelwind, etc. Coverage of these Panzer IV-based vehicles is not very thorough itself, and the space used up to briefly cover these types could have been better used to go into more detail about the title tank, the Panzer IV. To be fair, the title is "The Panzer IV and its Variants" but half the books is dedicated to the variants, and some of those vehicles get covered in other Spielberger books anyway. There are a few color plates that look to be leftover from the old 1960s vintage Spielberger/Uwe Feist paperbacks. The are not "bad" but really don't serve much of a purpose here and appear more like an afterthought. While you do get the usually good line drawings from Hillary Doyle, due to the age of the original book, the drawings themselves are dated and have largely been replaced by newer drawings Doyle has done for other publications. Some of the English translation work is not the best either.

The book is worth owning if you can buy it for a reasonable price. However, W. Spielberger did do a follow up book on the Panzer IV which is excellent and really supersedes this old, dated, volume. If you find the new book at a fair price, it is worth paying the difference to get that title versus this older one.

One of the best Spielberger from the 'Motorbuchverlag'.
Many different vehicles with marvelous pictures!