ISBN 0-7643-1038-0
190 pages

Introduction; photos; diagrams; scale drawings; sketches; Appendices

   The third and final book in this series on Germany's Tiger Tanks from Schiffer is actually volume one and contains chapters one through three. The second volume in the series, VK45.02 to Tiger II: Design, Production, & Modification, was the second title released and contained chapters four, five, and six. The third volume in the series, Tiger I & II: Combat Tactics, was published first and contained chapters seven, eight, and nine.
   Despite this rather uneven publishing schedule, the latest book fits nicely into the series and maintains a very close family resemblance both in terms of layout and contents.
   As with the previous titles, Jentz and Doyle have eschewed all secondary sources and have researched their book strictly in the archival documents of the design, manufacturing, and assembly firms such as Krupp, Henschel, Porsche, and Wegmann. The authors are adamant about the benefits of their approach:

   Not one single bit of information has been derived from other published books. If it couldn't be found in an original document, photograph, or surviving Tiger, it isn't in this book. The sources of information are stated in the text. Those desiring footnotes and an extensive bibliography are advised to look elsewhere. The goal is to create an accurate record of events, not prove that a list of over 200 publications can be accumulated.
   Events occur in only one way. A clear picture of these events cannot be obtained from stories, military intelligence reports, expert opinion, analyses of raw data, or secondary sources. Either the events were recorded by a participant or they weren't. Unfortunately some key records, such as Krupp's correspondence on the design of their turret for the period from June to December 1941, didn't survive the war. Thus the story of the evolution of the turret designed by Krupp for the Porsche Tiger will never be known. No amount of conjecture, supposition, reasoning, or opinion can fill gaps like this in the original records. Even though participants in the design of the Panzers made occasional mistakes in their records and sometimes slanted their reports to be more or less favorable, they were the only direct observers. Any gross errors that may have been made in an original report can only be discovered by careful examination of the end product and comparison to other independently created original reports and drawings.
   Many errors have crept into postwar publications through the use of popular nicknames for the German Panzers. If an author doesn't even know the correct name for a Panzer, what else is wrong with his information? The most commonly used names are often the most misleading. To set the record straight, the names found in the original documents have been used in the text and listed in the introductory sections of chapters. As can be seen from these lists, there was no single official name. New names simply evolved with time during the war. However, this does not give us license as postwar historians to fabricate, propagate, use, and spread misnomers....

   Sticking strictly to this philosophy, Jentz and Doyle begin their presentation of material with quotations from documents from 1936 with "[t]he first mention of a Panzer in the 30 ton class...." From there they proceed to offer a mountainous aggregation of factoids, specifications, and tidbits from a wide array of documents. These are interspersed with numerous photos of various versions of Tigers, Doyle's careful drawings, and excerpts from wartime manuals.
   This volume of Germany's Tiger Tanks also features tables of production figures, lists of external modifications, many close-up photos of specific parts and assemblies, and a great number of photos of the inside of a Tiger taken from various angles.
   In some ways, for each of these books as well as for the set of three, the whole is not really greater than the sum of the parts. Despite providing enormous amounts of information about many brackets, racks, hatches, periscopes, and other components and assemblies, there is relatively little sense of unity and completeness, as though the authors have minutely examined and described many individual trees but have imparted less about the nature of the forest as a whole.
   However, this is not likely to matter much to the target audience, and Jentz and Doyle have largely succeeded in producing the kind of record they intended, notably "...to provide modelers with sufficient information to accurately model the top, bottom, and all sides of a Tiger, even if they only [have] a single photographic view of the Tiger they want to model."
   Definitely recommended for modelers and others with an interest in the minutiae of sizes, shapes, locations, and colors of all the components of Tiger tanks.
   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from Schiffer.
   Thanks to the publisher for providing this review copy.