PzKw. VI Tiger Tank: The Official Wartime Reports

PzKw. VI Tiger Tank: The Official Wartime Reports

ALL TWELVE OFFICIAL WARTIME REPORTS ON TIGER 131 are brought together in a single volume for the first time, complete and fully restored, after careful selection from surviving copies, and overlaid with higher-resolution images than were available for the original printing. These reports are illustrated with 65 photographs and 60 technical plans and sections, including 4 three-dimensional colour paintings. The pages are reproduced at the same size and format as in wartime, except to be cleaned of any amendments and annotations added after printing. The illustrations have been replaced with new copies of the rediscovered originals, except where the unique style of the original presentation is preferred. Bruce Oliver Newsome, Ph.D., provides a new introduction, describing how the Tiger tank came about, how Tiger 131 was employed, how it was captured, what happened to it after capture, and how these reports were compiled. Within the reports, Dr. Newsome provides explanatory notes where, for instance, images were printed without caption or technologies appear without introduction. These reports reveal what the Allies knew, as they discovered it. The reports also reveal the facts to counter the propaganda and myths that have accumulated in subsequent history books. PUT YOURSELF IN THE SHOES of the first investigators of Tiger 131, the first of its type recovered to Britain, the tank that would become the most studied and photographed tank anywhere, and the only running Tiger in the world today. In the author's introduction to this new copy of these original reports I learnt that part of the history of the capture of Tiger 131 was a little different to how it had been presented in a number of books over the years, and how that story had been altered. It goes on to include new copies of the original wartime reports, printed on better quality paper than the originals, plus with higher resolution copies of the original images that were used in the first place...With the additional explanations added by the author it builds onto the authenticity of these original reports. It also gives a good idea of how detailed examinations are carried out on examples of new enemy equipment when the first examples are captured intact...These wartime reports make for fascinating reading, and the detail they contain remains a helpful reference for the museum to this day (Military Model Scene). Bruce Oliver Newsome Ph.D. served in the British and US Army reserves, latterly on M1 Abrams tanks. As a research scientist, he worked to improve Army acquisitions. Now he lectures on intelligence and counter-intelligence, and volunteers in the Tank Museum's archives.