SOVIET TANK UNITS 1939-45 (The Essential Vehicle Identification Guide)

Overall it is not bad, much better organized than the German counterpart. However with that being said I have found several mistakes and typos which is frustrating (one such example can be found on page 86 when they claim the KV1A has a 2 cylinder diesel engine). The descriptions are not consistent, and again I found that information was sometimes just left out. Important details such as the thickness of the armor or the slope of the armor are no where to be found. Like the Panzer book, I would use this more as a picture guide, not so much to base writing off of.

Husband is a major WWII aficionado and he's been meticulously collecting books similar to this for every country involved with WWII so he can pull accurate statistical data about the capability of the tanks and other weapons used in the war. He's trying to develop a table top miniatures war game and wants to ensure the accuracy of each country's capabilities, and is creating complex formulas using the raw data. It's taken him literally YEARS because it's been hard to find books with good data. ALL OF THAT SAID....He said this book is beyond a doubt, hands down, the BEST he's ever seen! He is very impressed with the accuracy and detail it has! He can't say enough good about it. Here's hoping this author/publisher has more like it for other countries!

In the Preface, the author considers his book an introduction to Soviet Armor and its history; its not intended to compete with the huge encyclopedias that are available. As an introduction, it was rated 5 stars for its comprehensive assortment of illustrations, graphic tables depicting the complement of tank units from company level upwards, battle summary and photos.The illustrations include light, medium and heavy duty tanks, antitank and the variations that developed throughout the war. It also covered armor cars, trucks, rocket launchers, ambulances, staff cars, jeeps and cycles. Lend lease tanks and trucks as well as tractors and towing vehicles round out the list.To my surprise, Mr Porter also includes a brief history of Russian armor which started around the time of the revolution and continues its coverage to the start of the war. The summary includes Marshall Tukhachevsky and his driving force in improving war doctrine and Red Army modernization in the early and mid 1930s. Stalin's purges were also covered.The author also provides a brief but helpful summary of key tank battles during the war. It includes the engagements at Dubissa River, Bialystok, Minsk, Kiev, Moscow, Rzhev, Vyazma, Kharkov, Stalingrad, the Caucasus, Uranus, Bagration, Lvov, Berlin and even Manchuria. Before Barbarossa, the Spanish Civil War, and the invasions of Poland and Finland are mentioned.The Appendix includes tables of Lend-lease production and delivery quantities. It shows losses of T34s by year as well as Soviet tank production figures by year. A table also shows a comparison of German and Soviet tank strengths for various campaigns. In addition to the illustrations and tables, a good number of battlefield photos are presented.This is a competent primer that for many would probably be an excellent starting place to learn before moving up to the giant 500 plus page encyclopedias.

This history of Soviet tank units in World War 2 has a lot going for it...excellent artwork, good organization, and engaging text. It does a great job of laying out the basic organization of Soviet tank units from the pre-war era to the end of the war. Kudos to the author, too, for including sections on Soviet operations in Finland (the Winter War),the often neglected conflict in Manchuria in 1939 and the "August Storm" offensive in Manchuria in 1945. The sections on "non-tanks" such as the multiple rocket launchers and artillery tractors are a nice touch, too.It probably is a nitpicky complaint given that the book is about Soviet tank units and not the tanks per se, but there is little data about the tanks themselves other than a short specifications box with each drawing. Also lacking is any real treatment of how the tanks performed in battle. As mentioned, the text is engaging but it treats the campaigns outlined at a very strategic level so the reader will have to go to other sources for a more detailed examination.Those minor complaints aside, this book is well worth the very reasonable price.

The russian tank units did not fare well against the german panzers, early in the eastern front war. But much the problems dealt with inexperienced tank commanders and poor tactics. As the russians were able to absorb the german blows, so too their armoured forces learned how to attack the germans. The soviet tanks were simple and rugged in design and operation. The T-34, the KV series, JS tanks, they were made stronger and stronger as the war went along. The german machines were fine vehicles, but the soviets out produced them, the germans could not keep up. This book in my opinion gives the reader a solid grounding in soviet tank history. JRV

Fantastic!

Gee, for a book about Soviet Tanks in the second World War I can't believe that they didn't include the information about the Armor thickness for each AFV. The drawings are really great and the rest of the info is good but as a reference I really expected there to be Armor thickness data The info on the tank formations and how the command structures were set up was great as well as the different camouflage schemes used but again leaving out the armor thickness and also not including the slope angles of how the armor was built into say the T-34/76 and T-34/85 was a big oversight.

Excellent book for fitting a vehicle to a particular battle or campaign. Great inspiration for modelers. Please note the book is not designed to be an encyclopedia of Soviet armoured vehicles.

for the modeller and history buff if is fantastic, def recommend.

Je n'ai pas encore lu le livre. Donc je ne peux pas évaluer la qualité du contenu.Cependant, son aspect graphique et ce que je pouvais apprécier correspond à ce que j'attendais.Livré rapidement.