The Illustrated Directory of Modern Soviet Weapons

by Bonds

Book Overview

Shows and describes Soviet tanks, self-propelled artillery, rockets, missiles, mortars, small arms, submarines, surface ships, and aircraft and discusses the organization of the Soviet Army, Navy, and Air Forces.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0138237581
• ISBN13: 9780138237585
• Release Date: January 1986
• Publisher: Prentice Hall
• Length: 480 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Three books in just one

I read this good book, here in Brazil.This book has many good things: 1-Even having 480 pages, more than 2/3 of it are illustrations.Hundreds of color photos, B & W photos are printed, only when color photos weren't available.Some color maps. 2-Text concise and easy to understand.This book is for the normal persons, not for experts. 3-The paper is of excellent quality.After almost 25 years after its printing, I recieve a book like new, here in Brazil. 4-This book came from three others, in just one.It is divided in three sections.Section one - Land weapons and equipment - begins on page five.Section two - Naval weapons and equipment - begins on page 161.Third section Air weapons and equipment - begins on page 321 and goes until page 480. 5-Almost all most used soviet weapons are focused.Even nuclear soviet submarines are with its articles; one for each class. ******************** Weak parts of this book: 1-Not all principal soviet weapons are on it.There's nothing about big soviet helicopters, such as Mi-26,Mi-24, Mi-10, Mi-6 and Mi-8.There's nothing about RPG-22,RPG-18,etc.About APCs, there's nothing about BTR-80; just one article about BTR-60 and BTR-70.About MBT, there's nothing about T-80; but there's an article about T-72. 2-Being printed in 1986, this book has nothing about the Su-27, with the exception of a photo (page 327), taken from a soviet TV and with bad quality.There's nothing about mig-29. 3-There isn't any general table of contents.Each of the three sections have its own table of contents.And these three table of contents are in different and distant pages and aren't specific.To example, in part one there's on the table of contents "small arms", but you must search on the book, to find the article, about the Ak-47 or the article about the SVD sniper rifle.The same happens, in all the three sections and for all kinds of military equipment. 4-Writing at the time of Cold War, about a closed country, this book has some mistakes.To example,the article about T-72/-80, on page 16 claims that T-80 had a diesel engine.In fact, such as M-1 Abrams, the T-80 had a turbine engine.Years later, the T-80 got a diesel engine, but with many differences from the T-72 motor. ************************** Even with failures, this book remains good and usefull.Winston Churchill told:"The history of manking is the history of warfare".These weapons are almost all in use today, in places such as Afghanistan and Irak.