Tiger!; The Tiger Tank; A British View

Oversized book, measuring 11 inches by 8-1/2 inches. iv, 264 pages. Abbreviations. Photographs. Diagrams. Technical information. The book is filled with photographs, diagrams, accounts and military reports. Correction sheet laid in indicating that Pages 107-116 have been duplicated as Pages 117-126. David John Fletcher MBE (born 1942) is a British military historian specializing in the history of armoured warfare, particularly that of the United Kingdom. He was an employee of The Tank Museum, Bovington from 1982 until December 2012, becoming the museum's longest serving member of staff. Earlier that year, he was a panellist on Operation Think Tank, an international symposium on tanks, held in California. He also presents contemporary media such as YouTube for the Tank Museum. avid Fletcher hosts a regular video series on The Tank Museum YouTube channel called 'Tank Chats', in which he gives viewers a brief insight in to a specific tank in the Museum's collection. In his final year at Bovington, he was appointed an MBE in the Queens New Year's honours list for services to the history of armoured warfare. This book may be divided roughly into four sections. The first is a brief introduction to the subject, that tries to explain some of the mystique surrounding this famous tank. The second is a selection of items that show the Allied reaction to the new tank from the time it was first noted by Military Intelligence until, in 1944, a fully operational sample machine arrived in Britain for extensive evaluation. Part three is a full copy of the actual report on this captured tank as issued by the School of Tank Technology and the Military College of Science in Britain. The final section deals with those aspects of the Tiger that came to light while the main report was being compiled. Excerpted from the Introduction. As an object of popular enthusiasm the tank stands in line a long way behind many other evocative machines. Railway engines, aircraft, motor cars and ships have devotees worldwide who are numbered in millions whereas armoured-fighting-vehicle enthusiasts probably do not exceed a few thousand. For all that some famous tanks have impressed themselves on the general public to the extent that they have become household names and, among these, the German heavy tank Tiger is probably best known of all. That its reputation is founded on the same sort of factors that give certain dangerous insects and reptiles an aura of fascination no doubt accounts, to a large extent, for this notoriety but it is probably the best-known tank of all. Naturally, for this very reason, it has been the subject of much serious study and, in all probability, more books have been devoted specifically to the Tiger than to any other type of tank; the jaded enthusiast might ask what on earth is the justification for yet another. The answer can only be that there is still something left to tell, and indeed there is.…