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This book falls into two parts. We start with a short section of colour pictures, starting with the Sherman and coming up to the Abrams. This is then followed by a much larger black and white section, which begins with First World War armoured cars and tanks, and again moves through the inter-war years, into the Second World War, and up to the end of the twentieth century.
Most of the pictures are of excellent quality, but some have been blown up rather too far, making them a little blurry. The pictures take up the vast bulk of the space on each page, often going all the way to the edge to give more space. The captions are short but informative,
The focus is very much on the men, so there are very few pictures just showing tanks without crewmen visible, or even central to the image. I would have liked more pictures of the insides of tanks, to show where the crews actually lived and fought, but they can be quite hard to find. Of course the tanks also play a prominent role in the pictures, but for once aren't the actual focus.
I find the earlier pictures more interesting, partly because of their rarity but also because these early tanks were more varied. Here we do see some of the crew positions, including the drivers position on early Renault tanks or the rather exposed driver and hull gunner positions on the M2 light tank, seen here with the armoured covers lifted up (making you realise just how close to the front panel the driver was actually sitting).
Author: Christopher J. Anderson
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 72
Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
Year: 2016