John F. Milsom

Excellent book on Russian armored vehicle industry, from the early beginnings before WW1 with introduction of armored cars, through WW1 and experiments with captured tanks, inter-war period marked with significant (and tremendous) motor industry expansion that brought with it further mechanization advancement that set the field for rise of high quality armored vehicle production.

And before anyone says anything, high quality is meant exactly as that, high quality. It is weird how contemporary works always start from the point of how Russian/Soviet tanks were unergonomic. Initially I was surprised by this but after years of reading and learning about military vehicles I see that this is really weird thing to say. These are vehicles of war, they are not meant to have upholstery and luxury of sports cars because this is not something anyone wants to spend money on. And also it is not that contemporary Nazi Germany and Allied tanks were some highly luxurious vehicles. They were cramped, with lots of operators (driver, gunner, loader, commander) with accent put on delivering as many grenades onto target while evading opposition's attempts to do the same. And same thing thing applies to Russian/Soviet armored vehicles. Constant downplaying the technology used as sub-par to Nazi Germany and Allied vehicles, due to the low education level of average Soviet army trooper (especially by Liddell Hart and contributing surviving officers from the Nazi Germany army troops that wrote with Hart lots of post-WW2 examinations of Soviet armed forces) always sounded weird (although people tend to accept it at face value to be honest, in most cases out of not knowing anything about the topic or just because it's Russians). In light of today's events, one can see that this is nothing more than confirmation of post-WW2 and Cold War stance towards Russia and Soviet Union (ironically driven by views of surviving Nazi Germany officers).

What author shows is that Russians created sturdy and reliable combat armored vehicles. Even when working off the bought examples (Christie tanks, various Vickers tanks and tankettes, various types of armored cars), these were never accepted as is but reworked as per requirements of the expected field of combat and conditions on it. As author mentions he tried to avoid any propaganda in this work and I think he managed it.

Author split the book into two parts - first is historical development from 1900 to early 1970's (to be honest I think around 1967); second is actual look at the machines and details about development and use.

In first part, we are given a very good overview of development of armored vehicle industry, development of armored corps branch as such and very destructive events that made Nazi Germans' work at the beginning of their invasion of Russia much easier - political purge of high ranking military officers by Stalin and in general, wrong conclusions drawn from the Spanish Civil War and limited use of armored forces during the same. Onset of WW2 and invasion by Nazi Germany is shown in some detail, although point of view given here is Soviet side (with some comments by Nazi Germany surviving officers). Again, this is as expected because author did not want to go into political discussion nor go off topic by giving detailed Eastern Front operations - what we are given is situation overview in broad strokes, and very clear view that, although Soviets lost a lot (huge amounts) of their armored units, it was not exactly easy drive for the Nazi Germany forces either. Introduction of more deadly armored vehicles from Soviet side, concentration on speed, armor and firepower in new models, and secured military production that started out producing the Nazi Germany, soon spelled the death of Hitler's forces and they were slowly rolled back to German proper.

Throughout the book author provides many comments of author's from all over the world - Russians, Americans, Brits, even French - and bibliography is truly magnificent (especially good are Underhill's works on development of Russian/Soviet tanks and self propelled artillery). Author provided comparisons between the combat vehicles when actual combat data exists but never wondered off into assumptions about who-is-better, because without direct confrontation that would be difficult to ascertain. Besides some of the Western biased works (Liddell Hart and Nazi Germany officers) author also shows blunders and propaganda from the Russian/Soviet end. So all in all very balanced and extremely informative book on Russian tank development.

Overview of actual vehicles comprises the second part of the book and is broken into chapters on light, medium and heavy tanks, followed by self propelled guns/artillery and ends with armored tracked and wheeled vehicles. Since overview ends with vehicles in late 1960's, last version of tanks presented is T62, BTR60 wheeled APCs are just introduced and so is BMP1 (although id at the time was different than this). It is very interesting to read about logistic vehicles (predecessors of ubiquitous MT-LB tracked vehicle) especially various all terrain tractors and semi-tracked vehicles used for transportation but also artillery towing and as platforms for various weapon systems (rocket launchers, AAD and even tactical missiles).

Isn't it interesting that almost 100 years later another incentive from the West jump started the armored vehicle development and production in today's Russia. And they say history does not repeat itself, hah!

Excellent book on the topic, highly recommended.… (plus d'informations)

I carri armati dell’Esercito sovietico, attualmente l’arma terrestre non nucleare più potente del mondo, hanno dietro di loro una lunga storia che risale alle prime realizzazioni in fatto di mezzi corazzati. In questo volume, terzo dell’Atlante Mondiale dei Mezzi Corazzati, viene esaminato nei minimi particolari, attraverso i progetti, le caratteristiche tecniche e il ruolo svolto in guerra, il completo sviluppo e l’evoluzione tattica dei velivoli da combattimento sovietici, dai primordi alla fine degli anni sessanta.
Sono presi in considerazione tutti i carri russi, visti sullo sfondo storico-politico. Non si deve infatti dimenticare l’influenza esercitata dai grandi avvenimenti, quali le «purghe» effettuate da Stalin nel corpo ufficiali durante gli anni trenta, probabilmente responsabili in parte delle sconfitte subite dall’Esercito sovietico da parte dei tedeschi nella prima fase della seconda guerra mondiale.
Il contenuto del volume si può dividere in due parti. La prima prende in esame l’impiego cui erano destinati i mezzi corazzati, il superamento di problemi tecnici e tattici e i motivi per cui tali mezzi sono oggi considerati fra i migliori del mondo. Inoltre include i problemi industriali, politici e militari presentatisi nell’Unione Sovietica nel corso di sessant’anni e gli analoghi sviluppi avvenuti negli altri paesi. La seconda parte descrive l’evoluzione dei vari tipi di mezzi corazzati, dal periodo dell’industrializzazione fino ai giorni nostri, avvalendosi di dettagli tecnici e di illustrazioni. Le fotografie sono 366, moltissime delle quali rare e inedite, e sono la prima dimostrazione della vastità della ricerca svolta dall’autore. Questo volume è stato infatti realizzato da John Milsom in molti anni di difficile e costoso lavoro di ricerca e si può considerare l’unica opera al mondo su tale argomento che si presenti così completa. così dettagliata e così illustrata.… (plus d'informations)