News for all things related to Tanks and Armored Fighting Vehicles
Today we present an article from the July-Aug 1946 issue of ARMOR titles “The Interphone System for Armored Vehicles” by Lt. John Heran. This piece explains the operation of the interphone system in US WW2 era tanks. It includes a list of terms used by tankers of the period.
A couple weeks ago we had posted some reviews of the book “Steel Steeds Christie” by Edward Christie in the 1986 issues of ARMOR. Steel Steeds Christie is a rare and largely forgotten book and it generated an overwhelming negative reaction from knowledgeable AFV historians at the time of it’s publication. However, it remains one of the few books dedicated exclusively to the topic of Walter J. Christie, one of the most important figures in post WWI tank development. Shortly after posting the old ARMOR reviews of the book, friend of the site “Volketten” informed us that he had recently purchased a copy of this hard to find volume. He wrote up a description of book which we have posted below.
“Steel Steeds Christie by J.Edward Christie
a book review by Vollketten
This is a difficult book to review because I really wanted it to be good. The designs of Walter Christie have interested me for quite some time so I got hold of a copy of this rather hard to find and far too expensive book with an inbuilt bias to want to like it. And that bias continued despite reading the rather unpleasant reviews of it in old editions of Armor Magazine which failed to dissuade me from getting a copy. This continued right until I opened it and started reading.
With all the attention focused on the new Russian T14 Armata tank, we thought it was appropriate to post this article from the Jan-Feb 1996 issue of ARMOR on the issues involved with an external gun turret. According to what is known so far about the Armata, it features all three crewmen seated in the hull with an unmanned turret. The article addresses some of the advantages and disadvantages of such a layout, although it is primarily critical of the idea. Of course, the article is almost 20 years old so the author’s concerns about crew visibility and situational awareness do not take into account the huge advances in miniaturized cameras and video devices in the past decade.
The October-December 2014 issue of ARMOR was posted online on March 20th. ARMOR is the official magazine of the US Armor Branch and has been published in one form or another for 125 years. As the Armor Branch’s professional-development bulletin, ARMOR issues will vary in terms of how much they will be of interest to the average person interested in tanks and armored vehicles. Fortunately, there is a search feature on the eArmor page and select back issues are available for download. Of particular interest is a series of articles from past issues collected as eArmor Heritage Historical Series. It is worth noting that this list includes an article by Richard Ogorkiewicz titled “The Ten Ages of Tank” from the May-June 1952 issue. Considering that Ogorkiewicz just recently had a book on tanks published by Osprey, it’s fair to say he much hold the record for longest writing career on the topic!
The newest issue of ARMOR may be downloaded here. Back issues are available here.
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