Allied-Axis
The Photo Journal of the Second World War
Issue No. 11

Ampersand Publishing
MSRP: $15.95

by Ray Mehlberger

 

This is the latest issue, in Ampersand's books about WWII armor subjects. These books cover Allied and Axis tanks and soft-skin vehicles, with usually never before seen and very clear photos. The books are similar in size layout to the Squadron in Action series of books, which is 11" x 8.5". This new book is 96 pages in length and contains 205 black and white photos. The text is pretty much limited to captions under the pictures and most of these pictures, in this new book, are full page.

The chapters in this book are:

  1. The 15cm Schwere Panzerhaubitze auf Geschutzwagen III/IV (sf) (Sd.Kfz. 165) 'Hummel' (Bumblebee). This translates into: The 15cm Heavy self-propelled howitzer on the Geschutwagen (sorry..could not translate that word) III/IV (sf) (Sd.Kfz.165) 'Hummel' (Bumblebee).

  2. Allied crawler tractors. We are shown several types of tractors: The Catterpillar model D4, International Harvester TD-18 Bulldozer, TD-19, Catterpillar model D7 (both open and armored), the Allis-Chalmers HD series tractor, D8 and a real wide dozer bladed tractor used by the USMC in the Pacific.

  3. Kradschutzen & Kradmelder at the Front. This is about German motorcycles and features some nice shots of BMW R-75s, the DKW NZ350, and the Zundapp KS600W being used by both Wehmacht and SS troops.

  4. Wartime Sherman variants. M32B1 recovery vehicles are shown, a T1E3 'Aunt Jamima'' mine roller is pictured in trouble, the M32A1, Shermans with fold down canvas floatation collars, and Sherman bulldozers.

  5. Cargo Carrier 'Weasel' M28, M29 and M29C. Lots of nifty pictures of these small tracked soft skin vehicles, most of them shown in snow.

The last picture in this book is of a GMC dump truck. This is to be one of the features in the next Allied-Axis issue No. 12 they say.

This series of books is of value to armor modelers and WWII historians. You can see a lot of clear detail on these vehicles in these sharp and clear photos. I personally cannot open one of these issues without getting a heck of a lot of diorama ideas in my head from looking at the photos.

Highly recommended.

I bought my issue at the local hobby shop.

pragolog-sm.jpg (5410 bytes)