"Forczyk's Desert Armour, 42-43" Topic

Fair warning! The text looks to match the first volume, but when I turned to the "Major Tank Deliveries" Appendix--well, I can't find the arrival of 10 Panzer at all. Maybe there's a subtlety I'm missing there, but on the "Allied" side, there appear to have been no tank deliveries after some Cruisers in January 1942. Evidently all those Grants and Shermans in our 8th Army forces are some sort of mistake--or Osprey left out a page or so of text, which might say something about how well the rest of the book was edited.

I wrote Osprey on the 9th. They assured me the editors would look into this and get right back to me.

Always sad to see very low expectations not met.

I've read these two books (first on loan from a friend, second I purchased).

Overall the books are a good addition to the campaign history of the North African campaigns from 1940 through 1943. The author is a retired US Army armor officer so he does have experience in tanks.

In the first volume I found the analysis of the development of tanks and armor doctrine among the four powers invloved in the campaign (Britain, Germany, Italy, and US) to be very enlightening. The descriptions of the campaigns and battles in both volumes are good. But the internal editing is poor in places, an example is the description of Montgomery's operation to break the Wadi Akirit position in April and May 1943. The operation is first called Scipio but then several sentences later is called Scorpio. And in the index it is labeled both as Operation Scipio and as Operation Scorpion, which was Rommel's May 1941 attack that pushed the British out of the Sollum/Halfaya Pass area.

But where the books fall down is with the maps. Although there are some good maps, there aren't enough. Several of the more involved battles do not have an accompanying map. That presents difficulties in that a reader either loses track of the action or has to find another source for the map.

But the two most critical downfalls with the maps are the internal editing of the individual maps and, more importantly, the placement of the maps in relation to the descriptive text. There are several instances where unit designations are either missing or incorrect (example: indicating a British tank regiment as a division). But even more egregious is the placement of the maps in relation to the description of the action. I don't have the first book in my possession, having returned it to my friend. But I di have the second book. Here are two examples: the description of Operation Aberdeen is on pages 66-70 but the map is on page 143 and the description of Operation Supercharge is on pages 162-184 but the map is on page 257!

There are plenty of pictures of vehicles and weapons, which is no surprise in an Osprey publication. But they could have cut done on the pictures and put in more maps.

The author definitely has strong opinions about some of the "characters" in this history. He doesn't have good things to say about many (if not all) of the Allied leaders and some of the Axis leaders, including Montgomery and Rommel. He also denegrates the influence of British author Basil Henry Liddell Hart, at times referring to him as Liddell Hart and others as just Hart.

I agree with Robert about the missing data in Appendix 1, Major Tank Deliveries to North Africa, 1942. That appendix id definitely missing much information, not only about the 10th Panzer Division but also about all of the tanks delivered to the 8th Army after January 1942. And there are no entries for 1943!

So, buy these volumes with open eyes. Or better yet, borrow a friend's or a library's copies.

Jim (a retired Army officer and a 50+ year wargaming veteran)

Thanks for the rundown on the poor editing. I can live with maps located far from their mention in the text, but I was especially keen on these volumes for the tank delivery information that was mentioned. Now that I know that info is only partially present, I will skip getting both volumes.

The map situation is bad enough in the first volume, but, in the second volume, it is just woeful. I am new to WW2, so I don't have other maps that I can use. Google Maps isn't much help. These are not cheap books. They also seem to be intended to become standard works on the subject. So why Osprey would spend so little on maps, editing and proof reading is beyond me.