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Howard Thompson, builder of the award-winning RC model of M551 Sheridan "Arizona" is selling off some of his armor book collection. He will list on eBay if a decent offer is not forthcoming here, but I suggested that our membership might provide a "good home" for some of his. Among the titles he has are three "Hunnicutt's", to include an apparently "as new" copy of "Stuart", a good copy of "Sherman" (that had 2-3 pages removed, then replaced for copying purposes before he decided to model a Sheridan) and "Pershing". He's keeping his copy of "Sheridan", but that's not so rare now. See the last entry. I checked around and found NO copies in the U.S., but VERY high prices on a German website (on the order of 450 EURO for good condition).

He also has:
"I will be sending photos and descriptions of these other books in the next few days.

"Encyclopedia of GERMAN TANKS of World War Two" by Peter Chamberlain & Hilary L. Doyle

"U.S. Military Tracked Vehicles" by Fred W. Crismon

"The T-34 Russian Battle Tank" by Dr. Matthew & Dr. Chris Mann

"TANK" by Kenneth Macksey & John H. Batchelor

"The Illustrated Encyclopedia of 20th Century WEAPONS & WARFARE" by Benard Fritzsimons & John Batchelor
24 Volumes

"The Armies of George S. Patton" by George Forty

THE ABOVE BOOKS ARE ALL HARD COVER

I also have several soft cover books should I include these."

"I purchased the Sherman book in 1995 as my primary reference for internal details. However, most of the external detail and dimensions of my 1/10 Sherman design was
gleaned from a full size copy of a E size original installation drawing for the M4A3 (76) W HVSS provided by Katie Talbot, Librarian, Patton Museum on May 24, 1994.

As you can appreciate I paged thru this book hundreds of times between 1995 and 1997 when I decided to design and build the Sheridan instead of the Sherman. The reason for the change was I wanted a full size tank available for 'hands on' acquisition of dimensions and details. To that end I had visited the YPG in 1996 but they did not have a Sherman on display at that time. It was too far anyway. When I visited the YPG in 2007 they had many more vehicles on display including a Sherman.

I believe I told you I had removed and replaced two pages. In fact, it is three. I did some design work for another model builder on the M10 and M36 which accounts for removing two of the pages. The first was for the M4A3 layout.

I accept most parties would prefer a perfect specimen but they would get a lot more history with mine."

Re: "Stuart"

"The close up shows a tear and scuff mark that was there when I received the book. It had been tapped on the inside.
There is one other tear at the bottom of the front cover about
1/4" long. It is tight and has not been folded over. It is not tapped.

This book has never been paged through."

...and as far as I can tell, the real "prize" (apart from "Stuart") is:

"Encyclopedia of GERMAN TANKS of World War Two" by Chamberlain, Doyle and Jentz is a hard bound 9 X 11 1/2 X 1 inch book that was printed in the U.S.in 1978.
This particular book came from the Main Library at Fort Huachuca and is marked SALVAGE. I lived in Patagonia, AZ at the time and purchased the book from a fellow Patagonian who was a military retiree, collector and he dealt in used books.

This is a highly technical encyclopedia of German Tanks, self propelled guns, armored cars, half-tracks and foreign armored vehicles in German service. It covers the development of German armor during the period of 1933 to 1945. It has 1037 illustrations. It has a 4 page glossary of German technical terms, abbreviations and accompanying English translation. In the appendices it has articles with charts detailing tank armament, ammunition, radio equipment, optical equipment, supplementary armor and production quantities by year. It also identifies German equipment by Sonderkraftfahrzeug (Sd kfz) numbers and captured foreign equipment by Fremdgerat numbers.

The binding of the book is degraded. However, all the pages remain and are blemishes free. The dust cover is in very good condition with no tears or scuffs except very minor edge and corner wear.

This is a tremendous reference center for early German Armor. Anyone who appreciates technical and historical detail will find this book fascinating."


I'm posting this out of courtesy, as Roy and I, among others, provided some technical detail for his Sheridan model. I'm not a broker and get nothing from this. I have some pictures Howard took of the most desireable titles, but can't post them all for lack of space and time. If someone is interested, I can put you in direct touch with Howard if you plan to offer a fair market price. Don't ask me a lot of questions as my PM box is near capacity. He will break the collection, so it's not an "all or none" deal. Pictures of the "Stuart" show just a minor crush/tear at upper rear of the jacket. Other than that, it looks perfect.

I can vouch for the quality of Encyclopedia of German tanks. I'm not sure what the value of the hardback edition is. Mine is the soft cover reprint that Arms and Armor put out a few years back. The one thing to be aware of is that it would be state of the art when it was published in 1978. There has been some new information that has come out in the last 30 years but it remains an excellent source