M18 Hellcat VS Panther Arracourt 1944 ISBN 9781472862198 Author, William E. Hiestand . Illustrated by Richard Chasemore
This 80-page book in the Osprey "duel" series is surprisingly comprehensive for its brevity. While the focus is on the Lorraine tank battles and the relative effectiveness of these two adversaries, there is also a useful history of their conception, design and development, and the command and combat organization of both forces. The book has 40 photographs, 7 tables that contain comparative statistics on the 2 vehicles and also the strength of the German units at the start of the campaign, and their losses, 7 nicely rendered color illustrations and 2 maps that show the relative position and movement of the opposing forces at the start and end of the operation.
The opening section of the book describes the development path of each vehicle and the conditions under which they were conceived. the next section compares the technical specifications of each vehicle and their relative effectiveness.
The next section, The Combatants, discusses the organization of the US and German forces, training and combat unit make-up and effectiveness, and then Combat describes the actual chronology of the Lorrane tank battles, culminating in the 4th Armored Division's 37th Tank Battalion's amazing performance at Arracourt, supported by elements of the 704th Tank Destroyer battalion. The last two sections are an analysis of the battles and the reasons for the US forces complete domination over the theoretically technically and numerically superior German units.
Again, despite its brevity, it's a comprehensive and well written book that's also easy to read, and I recommend it to anyone interested in tank combat in western Europe in World War II.