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Panzer: The Illustrated History of Germany's Armored Forces in WWII
A fascinating pictorial record of Germany's armored forces before and during WWII, from the early days of the Panzer arm beginning in 1935, to the spectacular Blitzkrieg campaigns of 1939-41. Included are images of secret tank training in the 1930s, photos taken by tank crew members on active service including tank battles, plus an authoritative text. The dramatic rise and fall of the Panzers is told through 250 photographs, many of which have never-before been published.
176 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 6, 2020
The text in the book is effective for the purpose. However, I was saddened the numerous errors in the captions for the images since it is an illustrated History and I expected the images to be correct to what the captions stated. For example, the pg 23 image caption states "An entire battalion of German armour, spearheaded by Panzer II tanks..." the tanks are actually Panzer III's. I thought perhaps this may have been simply a typo, however as I progressed through the book the number of caption errors just kept increasing. As another example, on pg 41 the image shows a group of Pz I tanks and the caption states one tank has its turret facing backwards. Actually this is an Sd.Kfz. 265 Type A Panzerbefehlswagen with its turret in the correct facing. Being a very unusual tank, this can almost be forgiven. However, pg 128 the caption states that the German tank in the image is a Tiger I in St Lo, but it is clearly a Pz IV is just poor editing of the captions to the images. These are only a few of the many such caption errors. Otherwise, the book is a good read for the amount of space it has to talk about German armoured history. Considering their low numbers in respect to other tank types, I found the Tiger I and Tiger II seemed to dominant more than they deserved. I found the bibliography contained many good references, but considering the topic, there are many sources that appear were not utilized such as the Spielberger German Armor and Military Vehicle Series in which they would have caught many errors including the Sd.Kfz. 265 Type A. As for the 200 unpublished photographs, I actually had difficulty in identifying them. I could not recall ever seeing the image on pg 51 of the 38(T) crossing a pontoon bridge, but this was not overly speculator. Overall, the book was ok, but could have been much more impressive were it not for the many caption errors which made some interesting information in the actual text now suspect. If the captions have so many errors, how can one be confident about the text?
September 21, 2017
This is an excellent book which does exactly what it says on the tin. You couldn't ask for a more comprehensive pictorial history of German Armour in World War 2, and excellent commentaries on its development, and the adversaries faced.Covering all theaters of German deployment, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in this topic.
March 17, 2018
Not the best book ive read on the panzers and a couple of the photos were not exactly accurate in their description of particular tank types however a good reference book for the beginner and great for the photos.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews