Age of Tanks

The script is very shallow. Only the State approved version when possible. When not possible, just erase the whole thing. And the "mistakes" are there to mislead. Austria from the beginning is actually an Empire against which the French have spent enormous sums of money to destroy. Germany is actually Prussia. And so on. And the usual moral statements about the evils of personal profit and how happy the peasants were for they were given the chance to die for the aristocracy.

I'm always deeply interested in 20th century history particularly the world wars and the cold war. This documentary tells 20th century history from a whole new angle - tanks. It is a fascinating journey of following the primitive tanks from the Great War, through WW2 to the modern age

The main misunderstanding with this mini serial is that it's not really about tanks, but about events in our history, when tanks played important role.

So, if you're just looking for technical informations about tanks, or want to know the exact evolution and models produced - than this is not for you.

But on the other hand - if you're interested in history, and want to see some great materials from the past - than this is a wonderful source of knowledge.

From 1. World War, through second, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, Kuwait and Iraq, the story goes to last model produced in Russia. At each point of time there are tanks presented - models that took significant role in conflicts. It's just four short episodes - don't expect that all tanks' models around the world will be mentioned. But the interviews with people, who actually took place in those events, archival footages - this is the real value of this serial.

It's definitely worth to watch.

Impressive narrative, cohesive in treating the subject (tanks). The most likeable part is that it gives a brief picture of tank's evolution over the entire series, without getting lost. Neither is the series too technical nor too naive which is desirable to attract more viewers. They also have short interview clips about tank personnel of WW-II. They also mention about the notable commanders, tank designers, major events and tank manufacturing sites.

Overall it was a decent basic overview of the history of the tank with contextualizing narrative to explain the reasoning behind the changes over time. I found it to be a good approach to the subject and would like to see similar series about fighters, bombers, and helicopters. The narration and score were engaging, but not excessively dramatized the way that American documentaries tend to be.

There seems to be a pretty mild bias in favor of French and Russian tanks throughout, although nothing major until the end. The other reviews complaining of extreme bias one way or another seem silly and unfounded to me. The very ending turning into a bit of Russian propaganda about the fictional T-14 is pretty bad though. The bit about 2300 to be delivered by 2020 was good for a chuckle.