My Tank is Fight

[carebear]

Not out yet but you WWII gearheads will probably enjoy it.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0806527587

"My Tank is Fight" is an upcoming book from Something Awful and Kensington Publishing. Zack Parsons is adapting and expanding his series of articles that look at the most bizarre inventions of the Second World War with a generous portion of humor. Detailed black and white illustrations by artist Mike Doscher and lush color artwork from Josh Hass will bring these ridiculous inventions to life. Many of these strange inventions have never been professionally illustrated before!

* The P. 1000 "Ratte" - A German super tank so large that it used a cruiser turret with two huge naval cannons.

* The Seeteufel Submarine - A midget submarine with tank treads that could drive on land or along the bottom of rivers.

* The Nazi Space Program - A multi-stage rocket booster, reusable spacecraft, and plans for an orbiting space station.

* The Project C - A huge flying aircraft carrier laden with a half-dozen jet-powered German suicide bombs.

* The Christie Flying Tank - American efforts to combine a tank with an airplane.

* The P. 1500 "Monster" - The biggest cannon ever made stuck to the biggest tank ever made. What could go wrong?!

* Plus an orbital bomber, a nuclear weapon aimed at New York City, a submersible cruiser, a super aircraft carrier made out of ice, early infrared scopes, anti-ship missiles, and many more inventions!

Over 20 inventions each thoroughly researched, lavishly illustrated, and approached with the wit and humor that made the original Something Awful articles so popular.

Something Awful's Zack Parsons and Kensington Publishing are teaming up to bring you a book about the strange inventions of World War II. Tentatively titled "My Tank is Fight" like the article that started it all the book will feature old and new inventions researched in eXtreme detail, the Percy Cat Kitty Webring Top 100 award-winning commentary of Zack, and the Zack Parsons Award for Artistic Excellence winning artists Mike Doscher and Josh Hass. The book will be delightfully packed with inventions ranging from everyone's favorite 1000-ton tank concept to a submarine that could drive along the bottoms of lakes and rivers!

"My Tank is Fight" is a 144 page large format soft cover book covering incredible inventions of the Second World War. The book includes 16 or more pages of full-color artwork and dozens of black and white illustrations. It is scheduled for completion in January of 2006 and will be reasonably priced. All of that bound in real human skin assuming everything goes well with our Indonesian supplier.

Each chapter of the book covers a single invention and each chapter incorporates the following:

* One or more detailed black and white illustrations
* A corresponding color "action" illustration
* Straightforward technical specifications
* An overview of the project
* The project's development history
* In depth technical capabilities and information
* Details on variants, if any existed
* An acerbic analysis of the project's feasibility and usefulness
* A fanciful hypothetical deployment history

Every invention and every project covered in this book is real. Some are amazing, some are silly and some are just plain bizarre.

 

[carebear]

In response to the massive, er, response to my post, an update.

Now available for pre-order.

 

[Atomic Glee]

Personally, I'm really looking forward to "My Tank Is Fight." The original articles at Something Awful were great. Zack Parsons is a real WWII geek, and I'm sure the book will be very entertaining.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

The Seeteufel

I think is a reality. I remember reading in the papers at the height of the cold war about how there were repeated incursions of unidentified submersibles at a high security Scandinavian, (Swedish?) naval base. It was something that left visible tracks on the seafloor. Maybe the Soviets appropriated the technology after the war?

 

[carebear]

I've got it pre-ordered. Supposed to ship Oct. 3.

 

[BellyTank]

This site is nice to look at.
Some fantasi-ful aircraft- some factual too.

http://www.luft46.com/luftart.html

B
T

 

[Tony in Tarzana]

Is this the sequel to "All Your Base are Belong to Us"?

 

[johnnydnh]

You have no hope to survive. Make your time.

 

[carebear]

Is this the sequel to "All Your Base are Belong to Us"?

That was in space, this is Nazi's.

 

[MikeyB17]

Where does the ungrammatical title come from?-I like it!

MB-17

 

[carebear]

The title is, I believe, a riff on poor translations from "______" to English.

So the "All Your Base" comment isn't far off. The author started writing the articles for a comedy site called SomethingAwful (they are archived there, some stuff on the site may be offensive to some, so no direct link).

 

[carebear]

The book came yesterday, stayed up all night reading it.

It opens with a dedication

"To Michelle
The greatest gift a girl could ever hope for is the dedication in a book about Nazi tanks."

And gets funnier, and more informative, from there. Each wonder weapon, is described and illustrated, its technical specs given and then a hypothetical employment and a bit of "story" written around it.

On the Ratte land cruiser:

"It is probably to the detriment of the world that the Ratte project was cancelled. It would have been cool just to see one of these hideous machines built and, more important, it would have taken the place of perhaps fifty or a hundred more useful tanks like the Panther or Panzer IV. The Ratte would have meant an earlier end to hostilities in Europe, and it would have provided a damn hot ticket at a museum in the United States or the Soviet Union."

On the IR weapons:

"By the time any of this equipment was deployed in modest quantities, the war of numbers had already been lost by the Germans. Fat lot of good seeing in the dark is going to do you when all you can see is that there are more enemy tanks than you have anti-tank rounds."

The rest of the book is just as wry. I gather it's in the stores now. Its worth picking up.