Osprey Publishing

T-62 Main Battle Tank, 1965-2005

by  Steven J. Zaloga

Reviewed By  Mark Aldrich, IPMS# 39295

MSRP: $16.60 ISBN: 978-1-84603-390-2 Website: www.ospreypublishing.com Finally, a book on what I consider to be an important Armor vehicle has been written in English for the first time. Why Osprey waited till now to release it, I have no idea. I am however grateful they did. Osprey's latest offering in their New Vanguard series is a soft bound 48 pages long. It has a concise history, a mix of black and white, color photographs, and several color plates. As many T-62s that are currently available throughout the world, I was hoping for more photos and more color photographs. Another interesting point is that while I was searching for the MSRP, I found three different covers for this book. There is the one I have, a different one on Osprey's site and yet another one on Amazon's website. I am not sure if Osprey has done this like some DVD releases or if these different covers may have been pre-production releases. Either way Steven Zaloga does a great job of writing about the T-62's fraught history. He covers Khrushchev's "missile tank" demands, internal political turmoil, factory production turmoil, and "bigger is better" issues. To me, the most interesting part of this book was learning that the T-62 was similar in production to the American M-47 tank. It was never designed to be a production vehicle. It was a stop gap/interim design fielded to counter the arrival of the American M-60 and British Chieftain with their 105mm guns. The T-64 and T-72 were the "supposed to be" Soviet main battle tanks but were too far down the "research process" to be ready to produce quickly enough. Another interesting face was that, unlike the T-55, the T-62 was never license built by any other country. Of the 19,000 plus produced, over 5,000 have been exported to other countries, with Iraq being the largest receiver. One feature I wish Mr. Zaloga would have covered better photographically was the IT-1. Owing to its secret nature and the fact that the project was cancelled is the reason for lack of period photographs. The IT-1 was basically the Design Bureau's answer to the missile tank that Khrushchev demanded. It was basically the T-62 with the ability to carry 15 Drakon missiles. Though the vehicle was never put into production, the hull and turret (modified) would become the basis for the T-62 tank program. This is a great book to pick up and I highly recommend it. This and any of the fine New Vanguard series of books can be purchased directly from www.ospreypublishing.com, Barnes and Nobles, and any well stocked hobby shop. Thanks to Osprey Publishing, Kerry Serini of Osprey Publishing and IPMS/USA for the review sample.