Pen & Sword- Images of War: Tanks and Armour in Ukraine, 1941-44

The newest book in the "Images of War" series is Ian Baxter's "Tanks & Armour in Ukraine 1941-44". This is a paperback, nice quality paper, with about 150 photos and accompanying text. The Table of Contents is below. 

The layout of the book is typical for this series, with short chapters of text and a photo collection that is typically presented with one or two photos per page. 

There are a few quality issues with this book. I'll start with the title, which is truly misleading. From the title I expected a photo collection of both German and Soviet AFVs from the Ukrainian portion of the war. In fact, the front cover features a T-26. However, the actual content is mostly German. There are only three photos in the entire book that feature Soviet equipment as the main subject of a photo. Also, there are many photos of things that are not AFVs, such as trucks, personnel, horse-drawn transport bridges, etc. A better title would have been something like "German Units in Ukraine". At least then the prospective reader would know what the subject was. 

Below, a nice portrait of a group of soldiers. Stuff like this is useful, but, you might not expect it given the title. 

Here we have a guy on a horse, with a bridge and some artillery vehicles in the background. Not a great photo of any of those things. 

A second issue is the quality of the photos. There are a lot of poor-quality photos here, some severely out of focus or very poorly composed. Although it is true that many of the photos are previously unpublished, they were unpublished for the very good reason that they are poor photos. One photo is literally just a dust cloud with a faintly-visible AFV in the cloud. Others are so out of focus one wonders why anyone would publish them. Finally, some are very poorly composed, with the subject mostly outside the frame. The best photos are ones that have been seen many times before. This really diminishes the value of the book. 

Below, a light flak halftrack. The poor focus is, sadly, typical of many of the photos in this book. 

Below, another pretty typical photo. This Panzer IV B or C would be a useful photo if it were in focus, but without that it has little value. 

A third issue is the quality of the writing. I have reviewed other books by Mr. Baxter and wondered if perhaps he was writing in another language that was simply being badly translated to English-language editions. But that guess was wrong; he is a native English speaker. The writing in this book is so bad I gave up on it halfway through. This is not simply a critical reaction to an author's style. The book is filled with sentences that make no logical sense. It is repetitious to the point of absurdity. A minor issue is that place names are not used consistently. Some place names use the current Ukrainian-language names. Others use the old Russian-language forms.  For example, "Kyiv" (which many readers may recognize as "Kiev" from the old USSR days) but "Kharkov" instead of the current "Kharkiv", and "Odessa" instead of the current "Odesa". Given the topic of the book, WW2-era place names would be acceptable, or, the modern forms would also be acceptable. But it is sloppy to use both inconsistently. Finally, many equipment items are misidentified, and the author seems to be under the impression that any soldier who is not on a vehicle is an infantryman. 

Below, the "dust cloud" photo. There are a couple Stugs in there somewhere, but honestly, what is the value of this photo?

In addition to the photos, the book has a few short chapters on the course of the campaigns in Ukraine. Given the poor writing, these are not especially useful. I would recommend anyone interested in these campaigns pick up something else. There are several OOBs (orders of Battle) that are very, very basic and not connected to any maps or decent campaign history. The OOBs are for the German side only. 

This is a poorly-organized, superficial, badly written book. The photographs are uneven at best. I cannot recommend it.     

Not Recommended.

Thanks goes out to Casemate Publishing for this review sample.

Reviewed by Dan Egan

 

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