The Tank Craft series has become very popular with model makers, model engineers and military enthusiasts. No.10 provides an excellent review of the formidable Tiger I tank and available model kits in the established format of concise text and outstanding art work, with many full colour photographs. – Highly Recommended.
NAME: Tank Craft 10, Tiger I, German Army Heavy Tank Southern Front, North Africa, Sicily and Italy, 1942-1945 FILE: R2710 AUTHOR: Dennis Oliver PUBLISHER: Pen & Sword BINDING: soft back PAGES: 64 PRICE: £14.99 GENRE: Non Fiction SUBJECT: Armour, gun tank, support tank, German Army, WWII, WW2, World War Two, Second World War, World War 2, North Africa, Sicily, Italy
ISBN: 978-1-52673-977-3
IMAGE: B2710.jpg BUYNOW: http://tinyurl.com/y9d63chf LINKS: DESCRIPTION: The Tank Craft series has become very popular with model makers, model engineers and military enthusiasts. No.10 provides an excellent review of the formidable Tiger I tank and available model kits in the established format of concise text and outstanding art work, with many full colour photographs. – Highly Recommended. The German armoured equipment during WWII was highly variable. The Blitz Krieg tactics were very well rehearsed and explosively deployed in Poland and then on through WWII. The availability of suitable armour was rather less well done. In 1939 the Germans became engaged in a war that they had intended fighting in or after 1944. This caught them on the hop. The armoured vehicles initially available were light tanks and soft skinned half track vehicles. The Pkw I and II tanks were the standard equipment, together with armoured cars. Competent reconnaissance vehicles, they were not ideal for use as battle tanks. The Pkw III was only just starting to enter service and was the first real battle tank issued to the German Army. During this period the Skoda 38t tank was to prove the life saver, being significantly better designed and built than the Pkw I & II models, with Christie style suspension, effective armour and a real anti-tank gun as main armament. The Pkw IV was an important advance on the Pkw III and both models fought on through WWII, many converted to assault guns and tank killers, being up-gunned in the process. The Tiger I was a dramatic advance, delivering a heavy tank with a proven 88mm main gun that was effective against all Allied armour employed at that time. Even to the end of WWII, the Tiger I was formidable. Few Allied gun tanks were able to defeat its armour. The British Firefly adaptation of the American Sherman being one, although produced and deployed in relatively small numbers. Initially, the Tiger was virtually unbeatable because it faced much less powerful Allied tanks that it could destroy before they came in range with their smaller guns. To kill a Tiger required cunning and ambush. The same applied to anti-tank aircraft with the main opponent in North Africa being the Hurricane with a pair of 30mm cannon. The Tiger was eventually to be undone as rocket-equipped ground attack aircraft came into operation The Tiger was not without defects. Particularly on the Eastern Front, batteries were often found to be unreliable in the very low temperatures of Russian Winter, although less of a problem on the Southern Front. The size and weight of the Tiger I produced challenges on some of the twisting narrow roads and old weak bridges in Sicily and Italy. The ground pressure for the size of tank was good, but at the expense of wider tracks, requiring a complex layout of overlapping road wheels. This was not a problem in North Africa but in Italy the mud, around the winter period in particular, created difficulties that were widely experienced in Russia as mud clogged the road wheels and suspension. However, by any measurement, the Tiger I was formidable from its introduction to the end of the war. The author has provided a concise and effective review of the development and deployment of the Tiger I with description of its employment in battle. The illustrations are well captioned and the art work and photography is first rate, much in full colour and large format. This makes the book of strong interest to military enthusiasts, but is also ideal for those coming into the topic area with little existing knowledge and much to learn. Those who are keen model makers and model engineers with find this an important work in their field of interest. The tanks have been well represented by model kit manufacturers as demonstrated by well-photographed examples of available kits. As with other Tank Craft books, there is a detailed coverage of available products to enhance the standard kits from interesting models to exhibition standard models, from small scale, to the massive 1/35th scale kits. An excellent and rewarding book.