Eric Bass (Savage) gives us all the benefit of his WWI Panzer knowledge in this detailed review of this new title from Osprey, thanks Eric!

German Panzers 1914-18



If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

Thanks Vinnie and Eric. I will probably have to add that one to my library.

Thanks, again, HARV

Wow, this is cool. Great review, Eric. A very interesting subject indeed

I will pick up a copy of this one. I dont have much info on WWI German tanks. Good to go !

Thanks for posting, Vinnie

Cheers !!

Robert

Thanks for the comments guys and thanks Vinnie for the opportunity to review this item.

The greatest thing that put me off building WW1 Armour, especially the German A7V (I have Tauro’s A7V in the stash), was the lack of affordable reference material. Although the Internet is slowly changing this, making more books available, as many people start to sell off 'unwanted' books through eBay and the like.

The really nice thing about this book is how it focuses your thoughts in respect of future reading requirements. It’s great as a quick reference guide and at the list price, its real value for money. Make no mistakes, there is tons of material on the net, but vetting it and trying to remain focussed is a very real problem.

An example is reading up on the A7V. Firstly, you’ll probably run into A7V ‘Hedi’, not a WW1 tank, but post war. Then you’ll either miss info on the Geländewagen and the different variants built on the chassis thereof. Most probably the A7V-U will be either missed totally (only 1 was built) or you might think it a British type.

I'll be interested to see how it compares to Hundleby and Strassheim's magnum opus when I get a copy.

There's always Peter Kempf's Landships site if you're pining for Great War armour and much more besides.

David

Actually David, I don’t think they are comparable. It would be like comparing Hunnicutt’s Sherman book, to some of the Vanguard series’ Sherman books. I’m of the opinion that ‘German Panzers 1914-18’ is aimed at a totally different market, more toward the novice end of the market and as ‘light reading’.

I’ve unfortunately only been able to browse through Hundleby and Strasheim’s book, and as Steven Zaloga expresses in ‘further reading’; “The Hundleby and Strasheim book remains the best and most detailed source in English.”

Maxwell Hundleby and Rainer Strasheim’s “The German A7V Tank and the Captured British Mark IV Tanks of World War I” (Haynes 1990) is presently the definitive English publication on German Tanks during WW1. Pity it’s out of print and where available is comparable in price to RP Hunnicutt’s Sherman book. If you are fortunate to own one, I’m very green with envy.

The Landships website is also mention as “Another excellent source of information…”.

Sorry - I should have posted a link to Landships, but I'm spending quality time in a field near Colchester and I don't see my PC much at the mo'.

I was interested to see the artwork uses a neutral grey rather than Feldgrau as the base colour for the A7V, Steve Zaloga usually bases his work on good documentary research and I wondered if he'd come up with a source for the usage.

Think I bought my copy of Hundleby and Strassheim at the same time as Hunnicutt. BTW there is a also a Schiffer book on the A7V by Strassheim, but that doesn't have much colour content.

David