2024 in Review

With 2024 coming to an end, it's time to look back on my achievements in military history over the course of the past year. 

2024 was a major year for books. Thanks to several release dates coinciding, I had quite a number of titles come out this year.

The first was Achtung Tiger: How The Allies Defeated Germany’s Heavy Tank. This book represents the culmination of over ten years of research that started not long before Tank Archives did. Some of that work went into a number of Tiger-related articles on this website, but most of what I uncovered lay dormant until the publication of this book. As traditional with titles written by the Military History Group, I sat down for a discussion with The Chieftain, which you can watch on Youtube. The book itself was also quite well received by the Panzermuseum Munster.

2024 also marked the release of my first title for a fairly well known publisher: Osprey. This was a part of the popular Duel series. In Panzer III vs T-34 Eastern Front 1941 I touch on the subject of my first book but from a very different angle. This book compares the performance of the main German and Soviet medium tanks from the disasters of the border battles to the Battle of Moscow where the Germans' luck turned. 

Last but not least comes a spiritual successor to my second book, Sherman Tanks of the Red Army. At the publisher's insistence, British Tanks of the Red Army tackles a more ambitious topic with coverage of all British tanks shipped to the USSR during the Second World War, from the well known Matilda and Valentine to the less successful Cromwell and Tetrarch. As with Sherman Tanks of the Red Army, this book is almost entirely based on primary sources with maps, diagrams, and other documents showing how British tanks performed in the hands of Soviet crews.

Of course, print wasn't the only place to find my content. My Youtube channel continues to grow with nearly 5000 subscribers up from less than 3000 last year thanks in no small part to one of my most popular videos Myth of the Disposable T-34 and Panzer '46 series. 

My Facebook Page also continues to grow hitting 15,000 followers with a 50% increase year over year. Unfortunately, Twitter (or X if you prefer) has not done so well with a mere 3k increase in followers. Fortunately, there is a new competitor. Bluesky seems to be doing pretty well compared to my attempts to branch out on Mastodon or Threads with 1500 subscribers after about a month and a half on the platform. Let's see if this momentum continues!

Despite a change in focus to video and other platforms, the Tank Archives blog itself lives and thrives. Over this past year I saw 1.54 million new views, crossing the mark of 10 million views since I started this website. After a slump in traffic seen in 2022-2023 the site rebounded hard with every monthly total competing for an all-time high. Two records were set with over 150,000 views in January and then in May. Another relatively small change is the acquisition of tankarchives.com. Fans of maple syrup, hockey, and single-payer healthcare can continue to use tankarchives.ca and of course tankarchives.blogspot.com still redirects to the main site.

That's it for this year's overview. 2025 is sure to bring new articles, new collabs, new videos, and of course more tanks! Happy Near Year to all my readers!