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James H


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Two New Books on French Tanks
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In the issue No. 3 of Tank Zone there are 2 reviews of new books of French Tanks.

Les Chars Français Au Combat is by Bruno Jurkiewicz and published by ECPAD. It covers the actions involving the three French types, in 114 pages with over 130 photographs. The review expresses some reservations about the accuracy of the colourised depictions of the Tanks, but is otherwise complimentary. The text is in French. According to the cover, it comes with a copy of the ECPAD DVD Blindés Français. http://www.ecpad.fr/Ecpa/pagesdyn/data/asp/boutique.asp?cat=livredvd&ref=5

The work on the Schneider and St. Chamond is in the Polish series Gun Power, and is said to put more emphasis on the technical aspect than the book described above but also describes the operations in which they took part. The text is in Polish and (apparently not very good) English. It seems that of the 120+ photos, none is from French sources, but the reviewer says they are no less interesting - perhaps even more so. It's supposed to be available from www.blast-models.com although I can't find it on the site at the moment. It's available in the UK from here: http://www.ianallanpublishing.com/product.php?productid=62519

No connection with seller, etc.

On the subject of ECPAD, I made a tentative attempt to buy the DVD a while ago, but it doesn't seem to be very easy to pay them, and they don't go to a lot of trouble to help if you're not in France and don't use the Euro. Or maybe it's just me. Has anyone else had any dealings with them?



-- Edited by James H at 21:51, 2009-03-08

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TG


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Haven't seen the first book but I'd recommend the second one (from the Gunpower series) - it is true that the English is a little creaky in places but the book is large format and is the best collection of photos (nicely reproduced) of French medium tanks in a book that I've seen....The photos primarily come from the Imperial War Museum and private collections - The text seems to owe a lot to Henri Ortholan's La Guerre des Chars (2007) but it covers operations quite well, in addition to having lots of technical detail. I'm hard pressed to think where you could get more information on Schneiders & St Chamonds in English and therefore to those who don't read French I think this book is a must if you're interested in the French medium tanks.

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françois vauvillier


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Hello everybody,

I fully agree with TG. This Polish book is quite good on the whole. The photographic material is great (both in interest and technical quality), as well as the line drawings.
The profiles are nice also but the shades adopted seem to me (I was not there, however) a bit too restricted.
In reading carefully the part of the English text (because the Polish one is clearly unfamiliar to me) dealing with the design and adoption of the two competitor tanks, there are several misunderstandings of the whole - very complex indeed - matter between the Estienne-Brillié-Schneider 'French dream team' and their Mourret-Rimailho-Saint-Chamond challengers.

I am currently sorting this matter out in a series of articles in Tank Zone (Schneider in # 3 available, Saint-Chamond in # 4 to be published early in April) but, as I write my articles in French, this will remain unknown the the larger international audience.
I am sorry of this.

But the profiles I include in TankZone show a wide variety of surprising colours (especially in the forthcoming Saint-Chamond)

Regards 

François



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James H


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Just got my copy of the Polish book. Very good indeed, with 1/35 drawings of the vehicles. I'll be interested to see where François's version differs, and look forward to Tank Zone 4.

There's nothing wrong with the English text, after all. It's just a bit matter-of-fact. The French review said that lovers of Shakespeare would be disappointed, which is undoubtedly true, but worse things happen.

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James H


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Rather unfortunate misunderstanding in the Gunpower book (the Polish one). The first two photographs are, according to the author, of "a Holt tractor" boarding "a transport trailer". The trailer looks very much like a Knox transporter, but the "Holt" is most certainly a Schneider CD Tractor.

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Tanker


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Bonjour,

If "Schneider CA1 and St Chamond" from Lawrynowicz is really very interesting for English readers, not able to read in French Cne Dutil or Cdt Deygas books, there is some mistakes or imprecisions on photos to rectify.
It will be good for next edition or for a french edition. . . . . .

Sorry for no french speaking readers. Michel

.http://pages14-18.mesdiscussions.net/pages1418/Pages-d-Histoire-Artillerie/Artillerie-Speciale-chars-d-assaut/commentaires-schneider-lawrynowicz-sujet_614_1.htm

-- Edited by Tanker on Friday 25th of September 2009 05:37:47 PM

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