Product Description

The German Tiger heavy tank was a monster of a machine that dominated the battlefields of Europe. One of the most feared weapons of World War II, the Tiger gained an aura of invincibility that was only shattered by the introduction of the Sherman Firefly during the summer of 1944. Designed by the British to combat the Tiger, the Sherman Firefly was based on the American M4A4 Sherman, but was fitted with a powerful 17-pounder gun which made it a deadly opponent. This book describes the design and development of these two opponents, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses, assessing their tactics, weaponry and training. Gunsight artwork puts the reader 'inside' the tanks during famous battle scenarios, in a victory of superior Allied numbers, tactics and engineering.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #84431 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 80 pages

Customer Reviews

A little disapointing
The title of this book is misleading. It is not a straight comparison of the Firefly & the Tiger rather it's a study of how the Firefly defeated the Tiger. Don't get me wrong this is not a bad book and has some very usefull information but the author is obviously quite partisan about the Firefly and knowing a little on the subject already I think his view is a little blinkered. None the less not a bad book and I am not sorry I bought it I just wish it had been a little more balanced.

Definitely worth buying but too short!
Considering that there are so few books on the Sherman Firefly I suppose it's churlish to complain when one does appear. The main problem is that while definitely worth buying, the book's pretty short. After a brief overview of the Firefly and Tiger it concentrates primarily on one engagement in Normandy, where German Tiger ace Michael Wittman's career came to a sudden end as his unit of Tigers blundered into an ambush by tanks of the 1st Northants Yeomanry and were knocked out by one Firefly gunner, trooper Joe Ekins (who like every other allied soldier serving during the war had never heard of Wittman). This the book portrays as THE definitive encounter between Tiger and Firefly, almost as an excuse for not bothering to cover any of the other encounters between the two types that took place during the war.

This naturally leaves the reader feeling a little short changed. For instance so far as this book is concerned 'Tiger' means 'Tiger 1' tanks - there's no mention of King Tigers, let alone how Fireflies fared when the two types clashed (head on, a Firefly's only chance was to attempt to ricochet a shell off the underside of the gun mantlet and down through the thinner armour of the hull roof - risky!!!). Secondly despite all the pics of Wittman there isn't a photo of Joe Ekins. More bizarrely, despite the in depth examination of the action (not to mention modern day photos of the battlefield from pretty much all angles) the only known photo of Wittman's wrecked Tiger isn't reproduced, even though it's freely available on Wikipedia. This in fact is very surprising as a section of the book does discuss other units' competing claims as the killers of Wittman (the book probably correctly comes down in favour of Joe Ekins detailed account of what actually happened).

Finally as a minor niggle there are several photos of 1NY tank crews featured, many of which are mentioned by name, but even though Ken Tout appears in several of the pics he's not mentioned - this is a bit surprising as he's written several books on the unit and also covered events that day. Considering that so far as I am aware no other member of 1NY who was there that day has written on the subject, it's surprising that this eyewitness' books aren't even mentioned in the bibliography.

battle of le petit ravine
This book is short and not technical enough for my tastes but is worth every cent as it tells the little known story of a battle that should be known by every tank or ww11 buff in the uk.How trooper joe ekins killed michael wittmann the great panzer ace with over 140 kills to his name all the more remarkable as this was the first time trooper ekins fired the 17pdr gun of his sherman tank in battle,he also took out the rest of wittmanns troop of tiger tanks with 5 rounds in 12 min,hero!