I quite enjoy documentaries about war and war machines. I'm not sure why this is, probably because of my fascinations with World War II.
This is a decent documentary that makes a couple of really annoying mistakes in the first two episodes but overall, for someone who appreciates war history, this series was quite informative and well-done.
The series begins really early on during a time when certain individuals came up with the idea for armored vehicles that could cross all terrain... Pre World War 1, and it was interesting to see that these designers were turned down because their governments saw no use for them in war. Even once trench warfare had begun in World War 1 they were turned down and this seems just evil to me since so many people were dying on both sides specifically because something like a tank didn't exist.
Some of the earlier tanks had some critical (and quite tragic) flaws including the fact that the sides of the damn things were not bullet-proof. The enemy figured this out quite rapidly and flanked all tanks, slaughtering all those trapped inside quite easily. This was obviously remedied quite quickly.
It is also rumored that the Germans hadn't even thought of building such a machine until the captured one of the English tanks nicknamed "Mother." Early tanks had no forward facing "canon" so to speak, because the design of the vehicle was for one purpose only (at the time): Crossing the "no man's land" and getting over deep and wide trenches (a forward facing weapon would have gotten stuck in the ground.
This was all fascinating information but the creators of this show made some really annoying mistakes in Episode 1 that carried on into episode 2.
The entire show is presented in English as you might expect, but they senselessly have "testimonials" being read by the native language of the speaker. This would be going on in the background at the same time the "translator" is talking so you've got two languages being spoken at the same time. This is completely unnecessary because the original speaker's words are not a recording... recording devices were not widely used and it is just someone reading a hand-written letter. It was distracting and unnecessary. I am easily distracted by too much going on at once and I found that it kind of made me angry.
Also, the subtitles can not be turned off for some reason. They are on even when someone is speaking in English, and they are synced incorrectly. Therefore, you've got dialogue on your screen that doesn't even occur for sometimes up to 10 second later - this is a crazy rookie mistake and I can't believe it made it all the way to the global Netflix screens in this form.
Whatever, maybe it wouldn't bother you but I hate that crap and even though I was really interested in the material, I had to turn go to the next episode where they apparently got their timing issues worked out about halfway through.
In episode 4 they focus on modern-day tanks and this section might blow your mind a bit. These beasts weigh 80 tons and can go 70km / hour. The technology in them is insane and when the operators are describing how easy it is to use the weaponry compared to previous models, it is hard to not be impressed. As you might expect, modern tanks are also extremely expensive.
The show concludes with detailing about how tanks are being phased out in modern warfare because of various advancements that exist that have made them "sitting ducks" for aircraft and long-range missiles. The last time they were used in any sort of large scale was when Russia invaded Chechnya from '96 - '99. They invaded with superior firepower only to have their tanks annihilated by quite simplistic tactics in urban warfare. There simply isn't much practical application for tanks in warfare anymore since a pinpoint airstrike can be called in from several km away and no one really uses artillery anymore. An armored Hum Vee can be deployed far faster and at substantially lessor cost.
tl;dr
Overall this series has some "technical issues" stemming from poor production choices but those mostly disappear after episode 2. If you are a person who enjoys war history you might find this series very interesting, the way I did. IT covers pretty much the entire history of tank usage all the way up to its near retirement phase that we are going through now.
If you don't care about that sort of thing, or you don't like learnin' then I don't think you would enjoy this one.
