A Photo History of Armoured Cars in Two World Wars

by George Forty

Shows armored cars produced by the U.S., Great Britain, and Europe for use in World Wars I and II

192 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1985

About the author

George Forty was a British Army officer who was the chief of staff at the gunnery school at the Royal Armoured Corps. He was later a director of the Tank Museum at Bovington.

Forty was a military historian and had written numerous books on military vehicles with a focus on armoured warfare.

Reviews

[David Lloyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pleasure for the AFV enthusiast or general reader alike. Fills a useful niche - there aren't many books devoted exclusively to armoured cars. This is a large format book consisting pretty much entirely of B&W photographs, generally 2 to 4 to a page. Each photograph is captioned with a short paragraph providing a few pertinent details of the specification or history of the vehicle. Covers many little known vehicles. Many of the photographs I have not seen elsewhere. The book has 4 chapters: beginnings - pre WWI; the Great War; between the wars; and WW2. There is no coverage post WW2. It is strength that two thirds of the book are devoted to pre-WW2 vehicles, especially the section between the wars with a few pages on each major and minor nation. The WW2 sections are the least satisfactory for the AFV enthusiast as these add nothing which is not elsewhere covered in greater depth.
The author was curator of the Bovington Tank Museum. Most of the photos come from the personal collection of John Bachelor the well known technical illustrator. The author and acknowledges the contribution of David Fletcher the librarian of the Museum and an authority on British AFVs.
The book could profitably have been twice the length. This is the main reason why I awarded four not five stars. Copies can be obtained cheaply and are a bargain.

[Roger Burk · Rating 2 out of 5]

A lot of photos, not much history.