|
|
This is the second of three books looking at the tanks deployed along the Iron Curtain, and covers the first generation of tanks developed after the Second World War. The bulk of the book looks at the main tanks developed in the Soviet Union, United States, Britain, France and Germany, and we get coverage of the Leopard 1, AMX30, Chieftain, M60, T-62 and T-64, along with a series of more ambitious designs that never reached production, light tanks and missile tanks.
One theme here is the belief that missile tanks would soon replace gun tanks. In each case this proved to be false – missile systems proved to be rather more difficult to develop than their supporters believed, and tanks could only carry a handful of missiles, more than negating the potential advantages of the missiles.
Thankfully the Tanks in Battle chapter can’t include any direct clashes between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. There were plenty of occasions where these tanks saw combat, but few where the two sides tanks directly clashed. The most notable was the 1973 Middle Eastern War, and this gets some anaylsis. There is also a look at a Soviet report that attempted to rank tanks by effectiveness, although this includes some rather odd rankings.
This is a useful overview of an entire generation of tanks, allowing us to compare the development processes and their resulting vehicles from five of the main producers of armoured vehicles in this period.
Chapters
The Tanks, Doctrine and Organization
Tanks in Battle
Technical Analysis
Author: Steven J. Zaloga
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 48
Publisher: Osprey
Year: 2022