[.uk] Swimming Shermans: Sherman DD amphibious tank of World ... (ISBN 1841769835)

mildly disappointing:
WW2 marked the first use of tanks being used to support a force attacking from the sea. The Allies had to develop ways to get tanks ashore to support their troops, especially in Europe where the threat of a counter a attack by German tanks was always present. This book is not one of my favorite of the Osprey Vanguard series. This book is flawed by too narrow a focus and too much extraneous material. The proper title should have been "British Swimming Shermans in Europe". All the material is about the British attempt to develop and use the Duplex Drive version of the "Sherman" tank. This book goes into detail about the process of developing and training British tank crews on the DD tanks - starting with the developments based on a British "Valentine" tank. Later there are accounts of several British units use of the DD "Sherman", but very little on the US Army's use of the same equipment, and no mention of the fact that the US built 350 DD tanks using plans provided by the British. There is NO mention of the US use of DD tanks in Southern France or the Rhine crossing. There is also not even passing mention of the US developments in floating tanks ashore. There is a lot more to the DD story, from both nations, that was omitted. This book does provide information on the original engineering of the project, but little else in the way of new material.

Excellent coverage of an intriguing tank:
The amphibious DD tanks was one of the more interesting weapons to be used in World War II. Tanks are interently heavy and dense objects, so making one float is clearly a major engineering project. The British response to the need for floating tanks to support amphibious invasions was an interesting if clumsy technological solution. This book is a standard Osprey New Vanguard treatment of the subject: background, technical description and operational overview, with excellent color plates. After reading the book, I had a good understanding of how the DD tanks worked, how it was used in combat, and what were its limitations.