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251 Half-Track Book


Mike

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251 Half-Track

Ampersand Group by David Doyle

 

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When you think of a German WWII half-track, most people will automatically conjure up the Sd.Kfz.251 in some shape or form, unless they've fallen for all the 60s and 70s movies where the American Half-Track was substituted with some suitably Germanic paint-jobs, mostly because there just aren't that many of the original left, as evidenced by the high prices they go for in the vintage military vehicles world, unless you fancy cheating and converting a Tatra TO-810 at a fraction of the price.

 

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The basic chassis was developed and converted to mount all manner of weapons beyond the original troop transport role, some of which defied practicality and you could argue sanity, as you will see within the pages of the book.  It is landscape bound in a hard back with a glossy cover that should stand up to plenty of wear, and has a black card inner leaf to further protect the pages within.  There are 168 pages on thick glossy paper, all printed in black and white due to the fact that all the photos are contemporary from either official sources that survived the war, or from personal collections.

 

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The book's strapline is "A visual history of the German Army's Sd.Kfz.261 armoured half-tracks", which is a perfect description as you would imagine from leafing through the pages.  The introduction briefly details the development of the initial vehicle and its chassis before discussing the major variants in a potted format over the following few pages.  For some reason they gave up numbering the variants after 22, but as there was only one following this that was only a semi-official Luftwaffe anti-aircraft conversion.  As we've come to expect from this publisher, the quality of photos is high, with only one exception where a large scratch is still visible across the centre of a picture, which could have been Photoshopped out with a little care to leave the reader non-the-wiser.  The captions are informative whilst brief, allowing the maximum space to be devoted to the primary reason for this book.  The photos.

 

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A great reference on this once ubiquitous Wehrmacht workhorse that will both give the reader plenty of detailing opportunity as well as some inspiration for load-outs and diorama ideas.

 

Highly recommended.

 

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