Panzer Truppen: The Complete Guide to the Creation & Combat Employment of Germany's Task Force-Formations, Organizations, Tactics, Combat Reports, Unit Strengths, sta (Schiffer Military History Book)

Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: Both this volume and volume 2, are excellent sources of primary documentation. Both use war diary, and after-action reports to describe tactics and weapons evolution. As I said in a review of vol.2, by allowing the crews and their platoon-battalion commanders to speak the book has an immediacy that can't be duplicated in other works of the same subject. The author assumes the reader has at least general familiarity with German operations, and knowledge of German WWII military terms and ranks. Probably not for a general interest reader.

Rating:
Summary: Essential to any WWII historian
Review: Both this volume and volume 2, are excellent sources of primary documentation. Both use war diary, and after-action reports to describe tactics and weapons evolution. As I said in a review of vol.2, by allowing the crews and their platoon-battalion commanders to speak the book has an immediacy that can't be duplicated in other works of the same subject. The author assumes the reader has at least general familiarity with German operations, and knowledge of German WWII military terms and ranks. Probably not for a general interest reader.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: I agree with the other reviewers. These two books are excellent! If you have any interest in German panzer, tactics and deployment i strongly recommend you to buy them. The 'combat reports' from the officers writing about there experinence during there fight with the enemy, trying to explain the good and bad how to use there tanks is great and gives you a deeper feeling of the problems they had. A must buy!

Rating:
Summary: Best $50 I've spent
Review: This is perhaps the most usefull book on the German panzer forces in World War II, and anyone interested in the subject needs a copy.

In the first portion of the book, Jentz provides a thorough history of the development and employment of panzer formations. This includes initial formation of the first units, the development of prototypes and early equipment, as well as German armored doctrine and tactics.

The remaining portion of the book covers the employment of the Panzer divisions in war from 1939-1942. In this section, Jentz provides a wealth of information. One very usefull feature is that the organization of panzer companies, battalions, and divisions are tracked (along with the translated text of orders changing the organizations) and presented in tables or figures. Given that the Germans frequently changed the organization of these units, this is very valuable information.

Jentz also presents tank strengths and tank types for each division at the start of major operations as part of orders of battle for the panzer divisions. For example, it is thus possible to quickly look up how many Panzer II tanks were available for the invasion of France, and the amount that each division had.

The end of the book has a number of appendices, which provide data on monthly on-hand strength of each tank as well as technical data on for German and a variety of Allied tanks.

I also strongly recommend Jentz's follow-up to this, which is Panzer Truppen volume II, and covers 1943-1945.

Rating:
Summary: A concise and exacting summary of the Panzertruppe.
Review: This work is outstanding!! It has become an irreplaceable edition to my library. Thomas Jentz's research has produced an outstanding work that displays the evolution of the German Panzer machine. This book is a must for anyone with a desire to learn more about the German military genius. This book covers from platoon to division and corps level. It adds battle reports discussing the positive and negative aspects of each machine and the tactics and techniques used to fight them. I also suggest volume two which covers 1943 to 1945 to complete the history.

Rating:
Summary: A concise and exacting summary of the Panzertruppe.
Review: This work is outstanding!! It has become an irreplaceable edition to my library. Thomas Jentz's research has produced an outstanding work that displays the evolution of the German Panzer machine. This book is a must for anyone with a desire to learn more about the German military genius. This book covers from platoon to division and corps level. It adds battle reports discussing the positive and negative aspects of each machine and the tactics and techniques used to fight them. I also suggest volume two which covers 1943 to 1945 to complete the history.