Customer Reviews

Standard Catalog of U.S. Military Vehicles

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This book is advertised to show and describe all major wheeled and tracked tactical vehicles used by US Forces from WWII through Desert Storm; and it succesfully does just that. Most of the photos are period images, with only a few of restored or museum vehicles. Values are given for the bulk of these vehicles, however in some cases there is a notation that too few of a given vehicle exist on the collector circuit to establish a value. Most of these omitted values tend to be for newer, heavy tracked vehicles such as the Bradley and the Abrams, values are shown for all the common Jeeps, trucks and motorcycles, as well as most tracked vehicles. I noticed a few typos, but the books only real shortcoming is the lack of an index. An added bonus is the inclusion of two bonus chapters, one describing the various machine gun mounts used on Jeeps and trucks and the other describing the various paint and marking schemes used by the US Army from WWII to present. It is a profound improvement over the previous edition.

David Doyle's Catalog of Standard Miltary Vehicles (U.S.) is worth it's weight in gold to those of use who collect, restore, and run these pieces of American Military History...... We often forget that it is Amercican military hardware that pulled World War II Europe, Russia and Asia out of the fire, as it was often the amount and quality of our equipment that made Victory possible.... along with American G.I.'s......
If you are interested in restoring an American Military vehicle from WWII to today.... This will be the best money you ever spend, before you go out and by a vehicle, to know whether it's "right" or not.... The Bible of the Military Jeep, Truck, Tank or DUKW...... I recommend it with many thumbs up!!!!!!!!

Similar in scope and thoroughness to most Krause books, The Standard Catalog of US Military Vehicles represents a fairly lengthy but hasty assemblage of US-wheeled, motorcycle, and track-laying vehicles. It is an interesting and unique collection of pictures, data, and a few stories but it falls far short of becoming an indispensable resource. Many listings lack value and rarity information with no satisfactory explanation for these omissions. The book also suffers from a lack of consistent production data and is missing an index and bibliography. The most frustrating omission is that of the military jargon and nicknames that are essential in discussing and describing these vehicles. Weak editing is evidenced by an inaccurate table of contents. The detailed information on military trailers is something most readers will not find valuable or interesting.

I was very pleased with my purchase of the "Standard Catalog of U.S. Military Vehicles" (2nd Edition) by David Doyle. It is a neccesary and helpful addition to the First Edition by Thomas Berndt. It fills-in some gaps in the orginal, plus, it carries forward from 1965 until about the 1980s.
It is well-written, concise and very informative.