Search - Great Fighting Machines of WWII on DVD

Mile wide and inch deep

Jeremy Mccormick | 09/11/2005

(2 out of 5 stars)

"The set of vehicles covered by this boxed set is too broad, making for only skimpy overviews of the well-known primary fighting vehicles. Instead of focusing on a few key ones, the series covers many of them, from multiple countries, sometimes ten or more in a single episode. This means that coverage of individual models is often less than 5 minutes apiece. Many of these vehicles are models from the early 1930's and were rapidly phased-out after 1939. These precursors should not have been given as much time.

For instance, the Axis tank coverage does not focus on the core German models, e.g. Mark II-IV, Panther and Tiger. These alone would provide more than enough interesting material for an hour-long episode on Axis tanks. Instead, it gives a typically shallow overview of too many vehicles, like all the German tank models and every insignificant and outdated Italian tank, of which there were many. It doesn't make any sense to devote equal (and short!) time segments to the Tiger and a light Italian tank model that was rarely used in battle. Similarly, the Allied tank episode covers way too many vehicles from too many countries and gives extremely short shrift to the T-34, which was (by far) the primary fighting tank of the Russians and a real key to their victory on the Eastern Front.

The plane episodes are marginally better but suffer from the same problem of too many airplanes covered with little detail about each one.

There is zero coverage of naval vehicles.

Also, this set just isn't worth the money. It has 6 discs, but each DVD only has a single, one hour episode. This is a total ripoff price-wise. At this length, all the episodes could have fit on two DVDs, and the set would cost half as much. At around $55, it costs more than "Big Battles of World War 2", which has more than twice the amount of footage plus greater replay value.

Though I don't own it, "Great War Machines of World War II" would seem like a better buy in the same area (WWII vehicles), with 8 discs for a bit less money. The coverage looks more narrow, but it really isn't all that interesting to learn only a little bit about each vehicle, which is the approach taken by this disappointing production."