tank books

A book that tries to be the best at everything is destined to be the worst of everything.

Too much to put between two covers. If someone did, you'd have less than a blurb about each type of vehicle and maybe a tiny thumbnail photo.

QUOTE: Originally posted by Rob Gronovius A book that tries to be the best at everything is destined to be the worst of everything. Too much to put between two covers. If someone did, you'd have less than a blurb about each type of vehicle and maybe a tiny thumbnail photo.

This is unfortunately very true.

The best books available cover a single subject matter or at most just a few related subject matters.

There are several good books which won't break the bank
The Allied and Axis Series
The Achtung Panzer Series
The "Walk-Around" Series
Even the inexpensive Squadron Series and Schiffler Series have some good photo's.

I have some Squadron and Schiffler books they are very good.
mark956

Major Rob really nailed this one down.

The best books to get are specific to an individual vehicle.

if you want a book about tanks from WW1 thru modern, you should just get a little reference book that has a tank a page with a brief blip on it and all its specs. This is the one that I own
Armored Fighting Vehicles by Philip Trewhitt

I would love to get my hands on a copy of R.P. Hunnicutt's Sherman tank. I am not willing to pay $275.00 USD to get it. I wish the publisher would reprint it.
mark956

The others are right, the best way to get a good reference library is to build it up slowly, I have accumulated alot of good books over the years and they are from alot of different publishers. Shiffer, Osprey, MBI, Squadron just to name a few.

I love the Osprey New Vanguard books that cover individual tanks, but they are a little costly, so I buy pretty much to build. Squadron books are cheap and have nice info.

QUOTE: Originally posted by mark956 I would love to get my hands on a copy of R.P. Hunnicutt's Sherman tank. I am not willing to pay $275.00 USD to get it. I wish the publisher would reprint it. mark956

Yeesh! Don't let my wife find out about that one either! That book will be on ebay for sure. Man I've got to keep her away from this site!

for german ww2 overview book the encyclopidea of german tanks of world war 2 is excelent and highly recomended, covers prety much everything german with tracks or wheels including prototypes,rare veicules and captured. gun penetration charts , ammo comparaison , production figures etc. published by sterling publishing co isbn 1-85409-518-8 pbk or 1-85409-214-6 hbk

for the russians: russian tanks of world war 2 stalin's armored might is prety good , its a lot like the previous book but prety much only covers tracked armor, a lot of text in this one that goes through russian armor from the french ft-17 to the IS-3 explaining the development of each, also included are foreign veicules in russian service

now both of the previous books are overviews, it will give you a prety good idea of the role of each veicule but arn't realy suitable as reference books for modeling

for individual veicules i'm realy starting to like anything that Thomas L Jentz and Hillary Doyle write when they have a book on what i'm building, everything from them that i have seen so far has been top notch with a lot of research put into them, they are usualy a bit pricy though

i can't realy give too much information on allied armor or more modern stuff as i have almost nothing on those subjects (my main area of interest is the ww2 ostfront)

Your best bet is to build your library slowly.

It's allways a good idea to invest in good reference material.

If you can afford the cash, the Hunnicutt series, the Ryton series, the Speilberger series, and the JJ Fedorowicz series are excellent. Yes, their cost is high, but the quality of the reference material is high too.

Don't forget for German Armor, the Achtung Panzer Series is excellent, the only problem with them is they are mainly written in Japanese with English subtext on the photos.

Until you can scrap up the cash for the big books, the Squadron Series and the Schiffler Series will get you going and have many good photos.