Book Review: M36/M36B1 Tank Destroyer, Dennis Oliver (Images of War)

NB: Sometines I illustrate these reviews with pics from the book under review, and sometimes from imagery found elsewhere. In this instance all the images used here can also be found in the book.

This came rather serendipitously right after I'd finished reading/reviewing the Tank Craft title on the M10. Basically an up-gunning from the M10 which, due to the larger armament (up from 75mm to 90mm) also entailed a new turret design, albeit designed along very similar lines to the M10.

Dennis Oliver's above mentioned book looks at the M10 in British service, which has come to be known as the Achilles, as it served in the latter stages of the war in Western Europe. This Images of War title differs in several ways: a smaller format (closer to A5 than A4), more pages, and slightly broader coverage (inc. post-WWII usage, in Korea and elsewhere).

Cpl. Herbert winter whitewashing his M36, Luxembourg, Jan '45.

In a manner somewhat similar to another recent Images of War title I've just read and reviewed, on the M29 Weasel, this makes much heavier use of images of contemporary surviving examples of these vehicles than I'm used to. But whereas the Weasel book was overly weighted to the latter, on this occasion the balance is much better.

There are some fabulous series of archival images here, such as the Massey Harris production-line photos, and a series showing the aftermath of a towed M36 tank that's overturned on an icy road. The first 100 or so pages cover the M36, with just a short section at the end looking at the M36B1.

Lt. Boutillier inspects recently arrived M36, France, 1944.

I won't go into great detail about the vehicle, that's what these books do so well. Personally I love these books, and find them both very inspiring and very useful in relation to my modelmaking and wargaming hobbies. Definitely recommended.

Crew rest beside their disabled M36B1, Germany, '45.

Book Review: Achilles & M10, Dennis Oliver (Tank Craft, 12)

This is number 12 in the excellent Tank Craft series, by the very diligent and thorough Dennis Oliver, and as with the Images of War title on the M7 Priest, I enjoyed this immensely because it's a vehicle/variant I'm less familiar with. 

Oliver's contributions to this series are quite distinctive on several counts: he goes into great detail on quite small chunks of particular campaigns, and uses certain presentation devices - campaign maps, timelines, unit histories and organisational schematics, etc. - to convey a quite prodigious level of detail.

This rather different approach means his contributions to the series don't follow the more standard format many others do, which usually start with the design and development history, whereas this starts with an intro on British army organisation, then looks at the campaigns in NW Europe in this late (44-45) stage of the war.

A British M10 'Achilles' on Sword Beach, D-Day.

And in turn this means that much of the technical data you encounter early on in the more standard format books in the series is at the back end of this book, in a chapter titled Technical Details and Modifications, where the other titles might more normally have the In Service and In Action chapter. So olivers kind of working almost exactly in the reverse order!

But the good news is that the book in no way suffers from the idiosyncratic change of form that Oliver favours, thanks to the lucidity of his writing and the well organised material. What remains in their standard places are three key segments: Camouflage and Markings (aka, colour profiles), the Model Showcase, and Model Products. These three sections are all excellent, as indeed the whole lot is.

Ramon Sagarra's exquisitely rendered 1/35 Italeri M10.

Another slightly unusual but welcome inclusion is the brief Aspects of British Army, which goes into explaining some of potentially confusing stuff about how the British Army, both in general and at this time, was/is organised. 

I have only one criticism of this otherwise near perfect book, which is that on page 63 the middle row of photos sports the wrong captions, which appear again, but this time correctly, under the bottom row of pictures as well. The result of this editorial/layout gaffe is that a series of pics of wheels are not explained, and instead we get two servings of info on tracks! This is a shame, and I deduct 1/2 a balkenkreuz for it. 

But, like all the Dennis Oliver contributions in this series that I've seen, and indeed the series as a whole, this is an excellent resource for tanks buffs in general, and modelmaking tank buffs in particular. Highly recommended.

German tankers examine a knocked out M10.