Tanks in the Battle of Germany 1945: Western Front: 302 (New Vanguard)

I read the companion volume to this book, covering the Eastern Front, first, and found it a useful overview with a good assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the competing tanks.This first volume is much weaker. After wasting 10 pages on an unneccesary potted history of the campaign, the author tells us that 'a technical comparison of the Panzers to their Allied equivalents is impossible in the limited space available'. I would have thought such a comparison should have been the core of the book, not something discarded as a peripheral luxury.There are a lot of tables giving tank totals in the various armies, and details of organisation and AFV distribution, as well as some good photos. But check the title - 'Tanks In The Battle of Germany'. There is very little about tanks in battle here, and no analysis of how good the opposing tanks were when matched up in combat. The Pershing, which features on the cover, gets no more than 3 sentences of coverage in main text of the book. Sure, it saw limited combat, but its combat potential needs assessing.Typical of the frustrating lack of combat assessment is the description of appliqué armour on Allied tanks - sandbags, concrete and tracklinks. Whether this stuff did any good is a moot point, but Stephen has no conclusion about this. With his extensive background in armoured research, I expected some sort of judgement.Overall, a weak book which uses tables and an unneeded campaign history to fill space that should have been used to fulfil the title. Just 2 stars.

Even for an Osprey publication this is flimsy. It would be even more so if it wasn't repeated in places. Poor.

It’s only in the last few years that there have been significantly more publications looking,in detail, at the European theatre from January to May 1945.In this case the period was noticeable in the sense that it experienced the introduction of some new models of tanks and the fact that allied tank losses were increasingly due to hand held weapons.Some of the tables look awfully familiar but this is countered by a better than average selection of photographs ,which very effectively convey the period.

A very good reference book, with good photos of the last days of Nazi Germany.

This is an excellent little book on the final months of armoured warefare in Europe. Some very informative charts and tables showing just how many tanks - by type - were produced, available, and lost.And, the usual excellent photos.Very much recommended!

This Osprey New Vanguard book is the first of a two-part series on tank combat in Germany in 1945, as the Second World War ground down to its conclusion in Europe. This volume covers tanks on the Western Front, both Allied and German. A projected second volume will cover Soviet and German tanks on the Eastern Front.Author Steven Zaloga does an excellent job summarizing the surprising variety of tanks in operation in 1945. The dying German Army strove to field small numbers of bigger and more lethal tanks, while the Allies fielded mostly new and improved variants of their existing tank types. The narrative captures that variety in tables and in a nice presentation of period photographs and modern illustrations. Of particular interest may be the stunning number of tank casualties from all sources in 1945. Well recommended to students of the conflict as a brief but interesting read.

Pouca informação técnica

Very good, but too short.

Zaloga never disappoints....and within this small (48-page) Vanguard title, much is presented.The book summarizes the overall Allied and German armies situation in the 1945 months, with keymajor offensives mention - largely in relationship to the existing tank inventories of the opposing armies.The tables provide extensive details about how many tanks were in various major units. For example, in the German army stationed in the W. European zone, on 15January1945, there were 3,307 tanks and assault gun vehicles (Stug III) - versus 4,906 on the Eastern Front, that included three times as many operational Stug assault gun vehicles on the Eastern Front as on the Western Front.Similar treatment is presented for both U.S. and British/Canadian armored forces, at various dates between January and May 1945.The great - and growing disparity between the number of western allies armored numbers and that of Germany, shows how seriously deficient the latter were when it came to table of organization (TOE) and field deployment options. For example, on April 10, 1945 there were but 1,189 tank (including 24 GergePz and Flak panzers) operation in the German armies; the same month, for the US Army alone -there were 11,198 tanks and tank destroyers (M10, M18, M36). Add to this British & Canadian armies with 8,971 (5,231 unit assigned) - it is easy to see why western allies were able to move Armor Battalions around other organizations, depending on the circumstances and need for armor support, during the last year of the war - something the German army did not have the potential to do.Zaloga's conclusion is that the German army was little more than an infantry force in the final year of the war (1945).Good book on very few pages. Recommended!