Military Model Scene

Title: German Tanks in Barbarossa 1941
Author: Steven J. Zaloga
Publisher: Osprey
ISBN: 978-1-4728-6440-6

New Vanguard 339 from Osprey, and another neat book from author Steven Zaloga, plus excellent artwork from Felipe Rodriguez. A 48-page soft-cover book.
After a short Introduction, the book is split across 5 main sections, and three of these are sub-divided into separate topics. After the description of the Doctrine and Organisation of the Panzer forces at the time of Barbarossa, then there are the Tanks of Germany's Allies, which means Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Italy and Finland. These are followed by Technical Factors which tackle the various marks of Panzer, from I to IV, plus the 38(t), Panzerjager and Sturmgeschutz. The largest section covers the Campaign, which divides into Barbarossa Unleashed, Blitzkrieg Bogs Down, On to Kiev and lastly, Operation Taifun, the thrust to Moscow. That leaves the final part to give the Battle Analysis. There are archive photos to illustrate the story throughout the book, along with 3/4 view artwork of the various tank types plus a double page spread of a battlescene.
Steve is a well known author of the subject of armour in WW2 and his thoughts on the failure of the Panzerkeil in 1941 makes interesting reading. Within the book, some of the numbers given, both for German Panzer availability and the huge losses inflicted upon the Russian armoured units in this early part of the war on the Eastern Front are quite staggering. For a fairly small book, this makes a really good job of examining the topic. Another fine addition to the New Vanguard series, and good value.
Thanks to Osprey for the review copy.

Robin