 Panzer Tracts No.20-2,
Paper Panzers
Aufklaerungs-, Beobachtungs, and Flak-Panzer (Reconnaissance, Observation, and Anti-Aircraft)
Assembled by Thomas L Jentz
Scale Prints by Hilary Louis Doyle
Published by Panzer Tracts
ISBN 0-9708407-7-2
116 pages The Panzer Tracts team strikes again! I’ve watched these two in action and their attention to detail is second to none. The results are visible in the Doyle plans included in this book, not “concept sketches” but full-blown plans using all the information available in the original German archives. The data quoted is equally authoritative, with none of the errors and misunderstandings found in books that rely on secondary sources. I’ll use quotes here to indicate some commonly recognised short names, since the proper full names are quite long but I don’t want to upset purists. As the title says, this volume covers all the recon, observation and flak tanks that were designed for the German army of WW2 but never went into production – those that did get into production are of course covered in other Panzer Tracts books, either already in print or to come.. No 20-1, if you missed it, deals with tank, sturmgeschuetz and Jagdpanzer projects and No 2-3 will cover self-propelled anti-tank guns and artillery.
So what’s in this one? It starts with
the Pz II Ausf M, then looks at the fabled “5cm Luchs” and the WW2 Leopard
project. Next comes Porsche’s design for a recon tank with 5.5 cm auto-cannon
firing through a slot in the hull front and an Auto Union design for
an open-topped, turretless, fully tracked recon vehicle. A BMM project
for a recon tank with the standard six-sided 2cm turret mounted on a
“Bergehetzer” chassis follows, then there’s a similar variant of the
Pz 38 Ausf D and one with a 7.5cm KwK L/48 on a new mount, and finally
the recon section ends with two .SdKfz 251 variants carrying the same
2cm turret and 7.5 cm gun and an SdKfz 234 armoured car also with the
new 7.5cm.
The artillery observation section details the projected “Beobachtungs-Panther” with 5cm gun, and then the book moves to look at the Flak projects. There are so many of these that I won’t try to list them all, suffice it to say that yes, all the “Flak-Panthers” are here and so is the Kugelblitz turret on a Pz 38 Ausf D chassis. AS I said above , the text is as authoritative as anyone could hope for. Hilary Doyle’s plans are as detailed as possible, given that many of these projects never got as far as fully-details drawings. In fact there are no fewer than 21 multi-view plans here with enough detail for model-builders (some very complete indeed), plus several side views. Several of them are improved versions of earlier plans using new information, so don’t assume that just because you have a Doyle plan in some other book or magazine that you don’t need this one for your modelling project. Very highly recommended to students of German armour as well as to modellers! The Panzer Tracts team has a website under development at www.panzertracts.com but if it’s no operational when you try it, write to Panzer Tracts, PO Box 334, Boyds, MD 20941-0334, USA or email panzertacts@aol.com prices including postage. | 
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