A compendium of influential military vehicles, including the crude tanks that fought on the Western Front; World War II models, such as the Panzer IV, Panther, Tiger, Sherman, and T-34; and recent machines like the Abrams and Challenger tanks. 5" x 7". Color illus.
I would say that this book is an easy read, but that isn't entirely true. While it is very similar to the military books put out by ARCO/Salamander Books over the years, it has one fatal flaw, which I will get to in a moment. But first let me say that like ARCO's books, it has a cool color drawing of each of the vehicles listed. Covered are armored fighting vehicles (AFVs) from World War I to present. Many of these drawings I have seen before in other books, some going back years. What I really found fascinating were the modern AFVs. A lot as changed since I drove a tank. Some really look bazaar, almost as if they were copied out of a comic book! Ok, now for my peeve. The book is full of errors. Not only are the specs wrong for some of the vehicles covered, but some AFVs are not even the ones listed! My copy is from Metro Books and I think that is were the blame lies, with their editors. Though I enjoyed the book, I know were the errors are and can live with that, hence the 3 stars.
A somewhat disorganized collection of army machines. The pictures show only the profile of the vehicles, with no reference for scale. The technical box occupies half the page unnecessarily and the information offered is not standardized (often it is unclear how many crew a vehicle needs, how many passengers it can carry, what the load and towing capacities are). The descriptive texts occasionally contain interesting bits of information.
It is a book which would make a nice gift for a child, but otherwise it is a mediocre work.
הספר מביא איתו מגוון רכב של כלים צבאיים מטנקים, נגמשים, כלים הנדסיים, כלי לחימה של חי״ר, כלים אמפיביים וכו׳. שזה ההדר לדעתי. אבל פה נגמרות המילים הטובות. הוא לא מדויק בכלל בפירוט ויש מספר טעויות פה ושם בנתונים הטכניים בעיקר. הפירוט עצמו קצת חזרתי וקצר מידי. והעדפתי לקרוא את הערך בויקיפדיה על כל כלי אחרי שקראתי בספר כדי באמת לדעת יותר, ולהיות בטוח שמה שקראתי נכון.
A compact compendium of a plethora of different types of fighting vehicles from tanks to trucks. This book is full of facts and a side-profile illustration of each vehicle described. Features AFVs from many different nations.
Nice pictures of an interesting smattering of armored fighting vehicles. The selection of vehicles is bizarre.
Apparently Mr Trewhitt has an affection for engineering vehicles. No room in the book for the M26 despite it setting the direction for US tanks from the end of WWII to the Vietnam war. At the same time there is no less than 4 Churchill engineering vehicle variants in the section on Tanks. The "Tank" section also includes other recovery vehicles and an ammunition carrier. This in spite of the fact that there is a separate section specifically for Engineering Vehicles.
Editing is haphazard, don't trust the data provided. For example all vehicles are "fording amphibious" including the DUKW and all others in the Amphibious Vehicles section. Conversions between metric and imperial measures can be off. This looks like sloppy cut-and-paste and indifferent proof reading.
The Bishop does indeed mount a British 25-pounder gun. Use an external reference to find that that it's caliber is 87.6 mm because you won't find that here.
The book is still interesting if you can over look it's faults. I've enjoyed many readings of the book but over time the faults have come to irk me more and more.