Military Model Scene

Title: Tank
Author: Mark Urban
Publisher: Penguin Viking
ISBN: 978-0-241-74150-4

The 10 War Machines that changed the World and the Remarkable Men behind them, a new title from author Mark Urban and publishers Penguin Random. A 344-page hard-back which does also include 3 blocks of archive photos.
Written with the assistance of the Tank Museum, this uses 10 tanks to tell us the evolution of the tanks from the beginning, from the British Mk IV and right through to the M1 Abrams. The other 8 featured tanks are the FT-17, Pz IV, T-34, Sherman, Tiger, Centurion, T-64 and Merkava. As well as basics on their designs and how they were used over the years, and brought right up to date with recent combat in Ukraine for the T-64 and Abrams, as well as the Merkava in the Middle East. One of the things I found interesting were the original costs per unit of these tanks, along with that value converted into modern equivalents. As well as the basic factors of firepower, protection and mobility there is much more to the story of the evolution of the tank and this is neatly covered in a consistent thread running through the whole book which I felt knitted everything together very well. The unit cost of a modern tank is quite mind boggling and even the major powers have reduced their numbers in recent years as more and more resources are devoted to finding ways to disable/destroy a modern tank. A final chapter, titled Extinction or Renaissance considers the question of whether the days of the tank are numbered, or not. It's a question I have heard many times for a lot of years now and this makes for interesting reading.
Mark Urban is an experienced author and journalist, and who did himself once serve in the Royal Tank Regiment, so he is well placed to have written this examination of the tank, and bringing the story up to date. With access to plenty of never-before-seen archive sources, and accounts from soldiers, designers and politicians such as Winston Churchill, and more recently, Volodymyr Zelensky, there is a lot I here. I found it to be a thoroughly good read.
Thanks to Penguin Random for the review copy.

Robin