introduction

Tiger Tanks At War is the latest release in The At-War Series made available by Zenith Press. Written by Michael Green and James D. Brown, the soft bound book contains 128 pages broken down into three chapters plus an introduction and index. Clear photos of surviving vehicles, excellent black and white wartime photos, diagrams and line drawings are generously sprinkled throughout the book. Excerpts of intelligence reports from German, Russian, British and U.S. Army, as well as personal accounts make for a very interesting read.

between the covers

Chapter one, Background And Description, delves into the need of a heavy tank by the German army. This chapter also covers the competition between Dr. Porsche and locomotive builders Henschel & Sohn for the chassis design on both the Tiger E (Tiger I) and Tiger B (Tiger II). An interesting section of this chapter describes the duties of each of the crewmen and how the tank accommodated them.

Chapter two, Firepower, gives a brief history of the 88mm main gun and covers the various main gun rounds. Also covered here are main gun ammo storage, optics, recoil mechanisms, fire control systems and secondary armament. Included within this chapter is a 6 page personal account from Berent Isenberg, a gunner on a Tiger I.

Chapter three, Protection, deals with the Tigers’ armor and the weapons that were used against it. Armor arrangement, thickness and turret design are discussed. Once again, extracts of reports give a real life view of the strengths and weaknesses of the mighty Tiger. Four- view line drawings of both the Porsche and Henschel Ausf. B design are provided with the Porsche being in 1/35 scale (or very close to it).

conclusion

To quote a part of the introduction by the authors, “this book is not the definitive technical or combat history of the Tiger tanks. Rather, the authors have strived to provide the reader a better understanding of how the vehicles and their crews actually functioned in combat.” In that respect, the authors have done a magnificent job. The book reads very easily and is highly enjoyable. In a modeling perspective the interior photos and drawings will prove to be a valuable resource and there are a few good exterior shots as well, though this is more of a text book than a picture book.
Recommend to entry level and intermediate modelers and to those that want an easy to understand, interesting to read and affordable book on the Tiger tanks.