Panzerschlacht - Hungarian Plains 1944

My Easter reading has been Perry Moore's book 'Panzerschlacht: Armoured operations on the Hungarian Plains, September- November 1944.'

The text covers, in some detail, the battles on the Hungarian Plain in the autumn of 1944. In particular the battles at Torda and Debrecen. I have driven around this area and can confirm that this is prime tank country, broken only by the many rivers that became a feature of the defensive positions.

Hungary became a battlefield in late 1944, when the Romanian border was breached by the Russians and the Romanians switched sides. Heavily outnumbered Hungarian and German units fought a series of strategically defensive operations, with some local counter attacks. They often held up large Russian and Romanian units, but in the end numbers prevailed.

This is a big book physically, almost coffee table size. The level of detail is a remarkable testimony to the research that must have gone into this book. Ideal for wargamers, as it describes German battle groups down to the numbers of men and tanks for a huge number of actions. It is not so strong on the Russian and Romanian units.

The level of detail makes the narrative hard going in places, but it's supported by good maps and plenty of them. Again, something you don't often get with this type of publication. Helion's high standards show throughout this book. However, the book is worth the price for the photographs alone. Hundreds of them that make full use of the books size. Plus orbats and some nice colour plates of the main AFV's.

If you are planning on gaming this section of the Eastern Front - this is a must have book.