Customer Reviews

Twentieth-Century Artillery: 300 of the World's Greatest Artillery Pieces

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This is a great book for recognizing artillery -- each page has a picture of a piece, a description, and a table with vital statistics. Artillery is grouped into categories (i.e. Field and Heavy Artillery, Air Defence Artillery, etc.) making it easy to find a given piece. (Look up the Paris Gun for a truly amazing sight.) I only have two complaints -- first, that it's incomplete, though that's to be expected (the subtitle is "300 of the world's greatest artillery pieces), and second, the same complaint I have about Armored Fighting Vehicles (by the same publisher) -- the table doesn't include the date it was introduced. Some of the summaries include dates, but not all. Overall, it's a very useful book!

This a somewhat handy compact reference book, but the title is a tad misleading. The term "artillery" as used in this volume can, and does, mean anything from an intercontinental ballistic missile down to a rifle mounted grenade launcher. There is of course the full spectrum of towed and self-propelled artillery pieces, but many of the entries would more typically be found in works focused on guided missiles or infantry weapons. Even so, the weapons covered are discussed in sufficient depth to make this guide useful and interesting to the casual reader. Because of the varying classes of artillery, this book is not all inclusive and how the author determined what to include or not include is not clear. Still, I would recommend purchasing this item if you can find a copy at or below the cover price of $12.95.