Monday 11 May 2015

Aw, Shucks

In a recent interview at Tank and AFV News, famous tank historian Steven Zaloga mentioned something that's been a bit of a hobby of mine:

"In spite of all the stuff that’s been written about the German side, the stuff that’s out there is not very good. A lot of what’s out there on Tiger tanks is very one sided. There are some very good Russian websites that are pointing out all the errors in those Tiger histories, you know German accounts will say “Oh Tiger regiment such and such went this Russian tank unit and destroyed 57 vehicles.” And then the Russians go and look at the unit histories from the Russian side and find that the incident either didn't occur at all or the German tank claims were grossly exaggerated. "

At the time I thought that "very good Russian websites" certainly referred to battlefield.ru or iremember.ru, armor.kiev.ua or one of the other Russian tank history "giants". However, the author of Tank and AFV News recently got a copy of Armored Champion and you'll never guess who's in it.


I must say, I never expected to be next to Thomas Jentz on any list, but here I am.

20 comments:

  1. Nice to see recognition from the likes of Zaloga.

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  2. You're not even mentioned by name, what a crank! He is not shy to note the reference, but making a ridiculous generalization, that some "Russian Historians" were responsible for those publications, is an affront! Was it too much to mention that Peter Samsonov should be accredited to it, the person behind Archive Awareness?

    Sorry Peter, but this is clearly an affront, you being minimized for your hard work, by just a ridiculous reference note to your blog? How you can be happy about that?!

    Shame on you Zaloga !!!

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    1. If you're reading this, I will accept a signed free copy of the book as reparations :)

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    2. To be fair, this is a blog, and he probably isn't even sure if "Peter Samsonov" is the real name rather than an alias, or even that it is necessarily one person.

      Further, I think a couple of people like a Yuri Pasholok (or something similar) were mentioned here who were actually finding some the original Russian docs separately so "Russian historians" isn't so bad.

      On the positive front, Zaloga did use the word "historian" rather than fanboy or web pundit, and the fact he even references articles is a sign he feels they are credible.

      So in one step, a Big Name Author (and Zaloga is perhaps the top 5 when it comes to armored vehicles) gives his thumbs up to a website, bringing it up to something that might be citable even in a serious paper. He's telling us all that this is more than just a "rabid Russian" (which this site is likely labeled by some due to how it goes against published sources that would be considered "citable").

      That's not so bad.

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    3. Oh yeah, for sure, I'm honoured to be included in a publication by such a reputable author. The email address in the header is there to resolve any kind of authorship questions, among others.

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  3. Congratulations,
    nothing is more disgraceful than white washing history; and nothing is more honourable than pointing out the truth.

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  4. That must give you a massive recognition boner.

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  5. By the way, maybe you should put the series in the top banner.

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    1. There aren't too many of them, but I've been thinking of marking "cross-examination" tagged articles in the "Battles" section.

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  6. Congratulations! I follow your blog every day, it is one of the best on this subject.

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  7. Zaloga's been wrong before.

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    1. I can vouch that everything in that photo is completely factual :)

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  8. Truly a well deserved recognition for your work.
    I send you some long overdue beer money.

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  9. Trust me, the book is littered with mistakes in almost every technical characterization. Wrong armor specifications, dubious penetration values, (no reference; very contradictory to common publications) and with some controversial opinions regarding armor penetration. I'm deeply disappointed, it's just a warmed up summarization, nothing which was already well known. (Argumentum ad nauseam) However, the well founded opinion to the tankers and commanders choice, was the only refreshing breeze overall. I really miss the professionalism and attention to details, much seems unfinished and hurried piece of work, not comparable to excellent previous publications by Zaloga. Over the top, it also bites me that you have not being accredited personally, Peter.

    I had really suspected more, going to hand it back.

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    1. To be fair, it does have some new stuff (at least compared to his previous works) like the computer modeling done by the Brits and Soviets. Perhaps if you are *really* into Tank stuff you'd have this stuff already but at least for me is new. I also liked how some of the propellant weights are listed (again they are kind of hard to find).

      For all that, I did notice the errors. There were also some errors in Armored Thunderbolt. Whoever is working on those darn tables need to be replaced.

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  10. Zaloga should try and read the commentaries of the therein quoted articles -or even better, start an investigation on his own so he doesn´t quote other´s mistake as gospel...

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    1. I told you it was a matter of time before you include Zaloga into the Putinist conspiracy :)

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    2. I don´t. But Zaloga made a mistake by presuming the articles he quoted are from good research -probably caused by a lack of source access to verify on his own- As I demonstrated, the information in the articles are ranging from incomplete to outright incorrect.

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    3. Right, so yet again you've fallen back to your convenient narrative of all historians having no sources or analyzing them incorrectly, while you're the only one with all the sources and your analysis is perfect and flawless.

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  11. Maybe you should just accept the Nazis were lying scumbags.

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