Customer Reviews

TANKS IN THE WINTER WAR: 1939 - 1940 (Operations: Scandinavia 1939)

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

 

 

This is truely a really interesting book for anyone interested in the minutae of Tanks and Armored Vehicles in the Winter War of 1939-40. And sure, as other reviewers have noted, there are typos - and the last paragraph of the Introduction is cut off half way thru. Russian names are translated in an interesting manner. Probably the kindest thing to say is that the Translator(despite his name) was not someone whose first language was English. Or at least, not GOOD english.

On the other hand, the excellence of this book far far outweighs any minor quibbles about how names are spelt and the occassional grammatical boo-boo. At 224 pages and in a large format, this book has a wealth of written content and the most oustanding collection of photos of tanks in the Winter War that I have ever seen. The book is worth the money just for the photos - all told, about 190 of them, all black and white. And almost all of them fascinating. The last 50 odd pages are colour plates of various tanks and fighting vehicles. There's a really good Appendix with pictures and details of the various models - mostly Russian for obvious reasons (the Finns had very few tanks to start with, although they ended the war with rather more courtesy of the Red Army...LOL).

The books is very much from the Russian perspective, and as such, some of the "history" is more subjective than strictly accurate. However, when it comes to the battles and the role of tanks, the authors display no bias and the result is a fascinating study that's well worth adding to your collection of books on the Winter War.

For the interested, here's the Table of Contents

1. Background
1.1 Introduction - p7
1.2 The conflict's history - p11

2. The beginning of the conflict
2.1 The war begins - p17
2.2 Tank Forces of the USSR and Finland - p31

3. Battles
3.1 Battles on the Karelian isthmus - p39
3.2 Tank forces in battle in the Karelian isthmus - p87
3.3 Battles north of Ladoga - p113
3.4 Battles in the 9th Army Sector - p 127
3.5 The fights in the Murmansk Sector - p 143
3.6 Home production for the front - p149

4. Appendix
4.1 Tank personnel who received the commendation "Hero of the Soviet Union" for their contribution in the Soviet-Finnish War - p156
4.2 Vehicle facts appendix with pictures - p159
4.3 Literature and sources - p168
4.4 Maps and tank illustration - p176

Fine photos from the earlier soviet tanks force. Like BT, T-26, T-28 and the SKP . It is a pitty only a few finnish tanks. But nice artworks of the tank color.

It's very hard for me to decide whether I want to recommend this book or not. There is definitely a lot of interesting information here about the Mannerheim line, the forces used by the Red Army in the war, how many tank brigades took part in the war and which ones, tables on tank losses, etc. The information is all interesting and relevant. But the problems I highlight below might simply make all of the above a moot point. First off, the biggest bother for me was the fact that there were no endnotes or footnotes. Only 8 sources are listed and the last one not fully, there is a hyphen and simply no continuation. The same problem is present at the end of the introductory chapter, a word starting with po- is the last for the chapter, there is NO continuation, no end of sentence, nothing. This is the first time in my life I have seen such inept editing. Within the text itself, grammar, spelling, and translation problems are in large abundance. Periods where they don't belong, the RKKA is translated as "Workers and Farmers Red Army" and in transliterations of names random letters are used. For example, in the list of tank personnel who received the title "Hero of the Soviet Union" we have a "Michail" instead of Mikhail, "Nikolaj" instead of Nikolai. Then, and words escape me here, all Patronymics, once again, ALL PATRONYMICS end in a j instead of a ch, for example, instead of Michailovich, we have "Michajlovitj," "Ivanovitj" instead of Ivanovich, "Petrovitj" instead of Petrovich, etc. This is beyond the realm of incompetence. The publisher is either rushing these books into production and/or simply does not care about quality of content. I'm giving this book 3 stars for the information, and taking one away for the horrid editing and another for lack of citations which make this text practically useless.

If you like Russian tanks or wish there was more written about the Winter War, BUY THIS BOOK!

Easily meeting both of these criteria, I jumped at this book as soon as I saw it was available in the Amazon market place. Although it is marred by poor editing in spots (typos, a couple of duplicate or un-captioned photos, and a line or two of un-translated text), the pictures alone make it worth the price. The few Winter War books out there contain very few tank photos but this book is packed with rare pictures, most taken by the Soviets but many obviously taken by the Finns. As an added bonus, there are several pages of high-quality color tank drawings at the end as well as pages containing specifications of the tanks involved. The text (and there is plenty) covers operations along all the major "fronts" and provides plenty of detail for those interested in the armor aspect of the conflict as well as the generalist.