Tiger I & Tiger II Tanks

Tiger I and Tiger II Tanks written by Dennis Oliver and published by Pen & Sword Books - £16.99 - Softcover - Pages 64

By the first weeks of 1945, the Eastern Front had been pushed back to the Carpathian mountain passes in the south and Warsaw on the Vistula River in the centre while in the north the German army was fighting in East Prussia. The Wehrmacht's armoured and mobile formations were now employed exclusively as fire brigades, rushed from one crisis to the next as the Red Army pushed inexorably westward. Critical to the German defence were the army's heavy Panzer battalions whose Tiger tanks, with their 8.8cm guns, were almost invincible on the open plains of central Europe. In his latest book in the TankCraft series Dennis Oliver uses archive photos and extensively researched colour illustrations to examine the Tiger tanks and units of the German Army and Waffen-SS heavy Panzer battalions that struggled to resist the onslaught of Soviet armour during the last days of the conflict which culminated in the battle for Berlin. A key section of his book displays available model kits and aftermarket products, complemented by a gallery of beautifully constructed and painted models in various scales. Technical details, as well as modifications introduced during production and in the field, are also examined providing everything the modeller needs to recreate an accurate representation of these historic tanks.

I do love a nice Tiger tank, personally, I think one of the more beautiful tanks, if a tank can be called that. So you can see that if I love a Tiger tank, then I must have enjoyed this book, and I did indeed. As usual with these books, they are very well written and informed, the research that goes into these books, although small is no less than a standard-sized book. You have all the tank dimensions, specifications and theatre of war camouflage, the history and the operations they are specifically well known for. Now obviously, these books are twinned with being aimed at model makers/collectors, now I’m not one of these but this particular section of the books always seems very well done. So in all, this book hits the mark in all ways, another good addition to the range.

Transport Curiosities

Transport Curiosities 1850 - 1950 written by John Wade and published by Pen & Sword Books - £20 - Hardback - Pages 208

Over the years many weird and wonderful types of transport have come and gone, some of which succeeded against all odds, others that spectacularly failed, and some that never got beyond a designer’s drawing board. Railway engines driven by horses, for example. Or maybe the surprising number of cars, boats and trains driven by aeroplane propellers. In this book you will find cars that flew, cars that floated on water and boats that ran on roads; steam-powered aeroplanes, electric submarines, railways driven by pneumatic air, aircraft with flapping wings… and a whole lot more. If you are a person who would like to have flown in an airship or travelled in a train whose carriage sat on stilts above the sea with its tracks below the water, or dreamed of riding on a London to New York railway that took twelve days to travel the long way around the world, or maybe just fancied fixing your bicycle to a railway track, then this book is for you.

This book is like a collection of ideas from British eccentrics, some of the designs in this book could fit into four categories as they were just not practical, didn’t get the financial support, physically impossible and just bizarre. In a way, all the designs shown were fantastic in their own ways and some were just out there. I must admit some of the bizarre inventions were my favourites but just impossible to work or be mass-produced. I found this book fascinating and I think the beautiful drawings and designs really make the book as it made every design seem cool but the book has that cool 50’s feel to it. As I said at the beginning this book looks like a collection of eccentric designs produced in the shed of a mad engineer. I really enjoyed this book and would happily recommend it for a good read.