Customer Reviews

The World War II Tank Guide

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3 star:		(1)
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For the person whose interest in World War II armored fighting vehicles is merely casual, or for the reader who is just beginning to show interest in tanks of the period, this book is a nice piece of literature to have. For the serious history buff or armored vehicle enthusiast, though, this book is inadequate. It DOES have the useful three-aspect portraits of each tank (profile, overhead, and front) but the drawings are a little less detailed than the pictures you can find in other books. I don't want to say they are sloppy, because in fact they are in many cases quite good, but the fact remains that they aren't "technical" drawings (i.e., made to a scale) which the artist or hobbyist can use to draw his own pictures or make his own balsa model. The book's text also suffers in that it is far too vague in its overview of each tank to make one think that they are really all that different from one another. A curious omission from the text is the failure to include information on the armor thickness for each vehicle. The text says, for example, that the Germans' Tiger tank was very heavily armored, while the Americans' Sherman tank was lightly armored. It would be nice to know the exact difference (the Tiger, in fact, had armor in the 100mm class while the Sherman was around the 35-40mm class) but the book doesn't tell you. Also missing from this book are any interior views of the vehicles, or any of those neat cutaway drawings complete with a "key" listing of the different parts of the vehicle. Overall this is a good book because you get some genuinely nice drawings and it doesn't cost very much for the hardcover. Highly recommended for the casual reader or for those who want a nice picture-book, but serious armored-vehicle enthusiasts should spend their money elsewhere unless they have money to burn and must have every book on the subjects which interest them.

The World War II Tank Guide is an excellent resource for people wanting to model the tanks of WWII in 3d or even in other forms as all of the vehicles inside this book are shown in top, front, and side elevation drawings to scale. It is not as detailed in technical aspects such as armor thickness measurement as some other books out there, instead being more useful giving the correct shape and profiles needed to build accurate representations of the vehicles. Other books can give you technical information, but this book gives you the hard to find scaled views we modelers need.

This book is one of many that my son wanted for Christmas so I was happy to find it order it and it came in the good condition that made me choose it. Thank you

My grandson was all over this book when it came in. He is only 10 but adores history and anything to do with it.