This is coffee table book about the Panzertruppe. It is promoted as having many unpublished photos of Panzers, including rare vehicles. In reality, it isn't really that much.
The location of the text parts are confusing. First of all, "Light Tanks" are placed after "Medium Tanks", the latter of which also includes the Tiger and Tiger II (erroneously referred to as the "King Tiger" - we also see the name "Hetzer" brought up, as well as "Puma", "Brummbär" and "Bison" - all of them erroneously). Secondly, the text is placed here and there in the book, rather than having text first, and photos later, which means that the reader will read a section of text, and then have to skip through several of pages to read the text through, and then go back and look at the photographs.
The facts in the book is also doubious. For example, it is stated that some 250 Panthers participated at Kursk, when the correct number is 200. Overall, the text seem to be wanting to explain the evolution in detail, but fails to do so, and thus the task is inadequately fulfilled. The text could also have used some proof-reading for typos...
So the text is no good, but the publisher promise unpublished photos and rare motives... First of all, I have seen several of the photos before. Sure, some are unpublished, but in total the motives or rarity is nothing to celebrate. There are a total of 5 Panther and 8 Tiger I photos, as far as I can see. Other than that, there are NO rare panzers, but a lot of Pz.Kpfw. I, II, III, IV and 38, as well as some Panzerjägers and recon cars. Where are the Tiger IIs? Where are the Jagdpanthers and Jagdtigers? A single photo of the Maus wouldn't be bad either...
There are tons of Stu.G. III photos, though. The Stu.G. III is nice, but not so much that you can overdo the number of photos to this extent. It has even been used as filler in the 'Medium Tanks' and 'Light Tanks' captors!
The captions are so horrendeous that they deserve a section for themselve. I won't mention the minor details, but here are some major ones (in order of appearence):
In total, I give this book 1 out of 10, and then only because there are a few nice photos, and they are well-printed. Other than that, you have to really be into Panzers before you'll want to get this book.
BAXTER, Ian. German armoured warfare of World War II - The unpublished photographs 1939-1945. London : Greenhill Books, 2003.
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All contents written by Christian Ankerstjerne unless stated otherwise