Book Review: Strabokran, Volker Ruff

Got myself this for Xmas, 2020. I have a yen to scratch-build one or two of these cranes, in 1/72. The few kits of the Strabokran I found in 1/72 seem to be about £30-40+. I managed to get my copy of this book for a little over £20. That seemed, to me, better use of my limited funds; this way I can build my own models, for the cost of a few bits of plastic profile, plus I get this plush reference work, for about the same cost, or poss’ even less, as buying an off the shelf kit.

Of the several similar format books I've bought in the last few years, this isn't the best, or my favourite. The minimal bi-lingual text (in English and German) isn't terrific, and the quality of the images is quite patchy. But, nevertheless, overall it's still excellent reference, gathering together plentiful contemporary photographic imagery - albeit of very mixed quality - and supplemented by numerous line diagrams. 

The latter include 1/35 scale plans, which will be very useful for me, once all the dimensions are halved. Another of my minor gripes, however, relates to the overall clarity of all the info', both textual and graphic. I'm well past my third, fourth and now even fifth perusal of the book, and I still find it all very confusing, what with all the differing variants, and issues around the quality of the translation from German, and clarity of images, etc.

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Still, despite these several caveats, I'd like to add my 'amen' to the 'hallelujah chorus' of approval that this book has received elsewhere online. 

Momentarily returning to the translation from the author's German into English, it almost feels like it’s been arrived at by simply running the German text through Google Translate, or something of that ilk. The resulting combo of strangely Germanic lumpen prose and editorial slips make the text heavier going than I'd like.  

And, despite the huge number of illustrations, which are - unusually for books in this line on similar subjects - split between mostly WWII archival photographs, and more recent line diagrams, I don't feel that there's as great a degree of visual clarity here as one might wish for. 

I bought this book partly simply because I'm a WWII/Panzer nut, and partly because, following on from the former, I wish to build models of these cranes. Repeated intensive perusal of the masses of material presented here still leaves me uncertain on several details of these fascinating machines.

However, having returned throughout this review to certain critical points, I'll end by conceding that it'd be pretty churlish to score this much less than five kreuz stars. As, after all, it does indeed gather together an immense amount of reference on its subject. 

The following short recitation of certain section headings (and contents) gives an idea of the level of detail:

After a brief intro, there's a potted history of the company that made the cranes.

Then we have info on the 15t, 16t, 20t variants, plus other stuff (inc. postwar production).

Parts of an Allied report, Operation Backfire, are reproduced, which includes illustrated descriptions of deployment.

'Strabokran in Action' shows them in use with Tigers, Panthers, Elefant and V2 rockets.

Further sections on rarities (other cranes used when Strabokran weren't available), survivors, patent applications (!), and unit formations/allocations add detail.

But best of all, for the modeller like me, there’s both a detailed photographic 'walk around’, and lots of 1/35 scale drawings.

And, whilst not perfectly rendered, nearly all the textual content is presented in both English and German. 

All in all, then, whilst admittedly not perfect, this certainly is a fascinatingly interesting and very useful resource, if - like me - you're a dedicated 'beyond hope' Panzer nut.

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Volker Ruff's strabokran website

https://www.strabokran.de/index.php?seite=strabokran

Misc: Model Mag Haul

Recently picked this lot up, free.

Approx' 40 mags, of which half are Airfix Model World.

 I do love Freecycle. I'm a member of two local groups; one for Cambridge, and the other Fenland. The former is very active, the latter a lot less so. Nonetheless, I just picked up a load of modelling magazines - 40-ish, mostly Airfix Model World and Tamiya Model Mag' International - from someone on the Fenland group.

I'm not sure how many of these I'll keep (nor what I'll do with any I don't keep). But a cursory flick through all of the non-Tamiya titles has revealed numerous articles of interest, sometimes directly - a 1/35 Maultier Ambulance build will aid my 1/72 Opel Ambulance, re interior detailing - and sometimes simply in broader technique terms, as for example general painting/weathering methods, and suchlike.

This 1/35 build by Kev Smith might help me...

... with the interior of my Opel Blitz Ambulance.

Some really helpful visual ref'.

The Tamiya titles, only one of which I've glanced through thus far, seem less likely to be of direct use, as my main scale is 1/72. That said, I do have a few 1/35 kits, including some Tamiya stuff - an 88mm, for example! - so I'll look through them all at some point soon as well. There are also a few aircraft themed titles. Again, of less interest to me, as I'm mostly a land warfare modeller. But that said, I have amassed a pretty large stash of 1/72 WWII German aircraft, and even a few items outside that favoured niche area/scale.

Having thumbed though a good three-quarters of these mags already, one thing very apparent to me is the bewildering array - mind-numbing, perhaps? - of material on offer. The kits themselves, and the humongous amount of ancillary stuff, from the paints and modelling equipment to aftermarket detailing stuff, and decals, to all the reference resources, books, museums, shows, etc. It's amazing! 

In the same issue as the Maultier, there's this 1/76 oddity...

... a captured British armoured staff car/mobile office.

Another thing that constantly astounds and sometimes even bemuses me is the degree of obsessional interest in detail. Very few of the featured builds in these magazines are simple straight out of the box affairs. Most of mine, by contrast, start that way. Adding detail and modifying kits is something I do do, of course. And I'd say it's one of the aspects of this hobby that's potentially the most fun. But it's also an area where the 'anorak'-ish aspect of the hobby can sometimes make me feel ill at ease, most especially at shows or club events where it can become an unattractive form of point-scoring display (rivet counting, I've heard it called).

Having said this, the upside of this obsessional aspect of the way so many of us engage in these hobbies is the abundance of information, which grows continuously, both in print, online, and elsewhere. In case anyone hadn't noticed I've been getting into WWII German 88mm Flak guns recently, and what started as simple out of the box pleasure is evolving into obsessive researching and a desire for a bigger collection of models of this interesting weapon.

Show Report: Scale Model World, Telford, 2019

Under cover of buying opportunities for xmas and birthday goodies, I was able to persuade Teresa to accompany me to Scale Model World in Telford. I first learned of the show, IPMS' flagship event, via model-making pals at the Wisbech IPMS branch. 

I booked us a night in an AirBnB place, near Wenlock Edge, in a very beautiful spot (and at a bargain price!), which turned out, having just had the car washed, to be down a muddy potholed lane. The weather, which had started sunny and turned rainy, had been an almost biblical deluge for most if the latter half of the journey.

We didn't get to see the countryside, or the local historical attraction - the world's first Iron Bridge, built by Abraham Darby III  - due to the poor weather and lack of sufficient spare time. The first day we barely saw anything through the heavy rains and eerie mists! The view across the valleys from the picture window of our B&B, on waking on Sunday, was magnificent in the sunshine. My photos don't really convey the splendour, alas.

The view from our AirB&B bed.

And up by the window itself.

Day One

Having dropped our gear at our accommodation, we headed to the show for the last hour or two of the opening Saturday. A fairly rapid tour of the three enormous main rooms at the Telford International Centre revealed the enormity of the event. Apparently it's the largest model show of its type in Europe, possibly even the world? And there's a strong International presence that tends to back that idea up.

In the end I didn't even look around either the competition area, or the 'kit swap' room. Doh! Nor did I take many, or in fact any, photos of the hundreds, possibly thousands, of models on display. I did briefly say hi to the Peterborough IPMS group, who are local (but I haven't visited), and the Wisbech group, who are even more local, and who I regularly attend.

One item I was very interested in beforehand was the Horton Ho-229, in 1/72 (also available in 1/144, 1/48 and 1/35), by Japanese co. Zoukei-Mura. Sadly for me, at £40 this was way too dear. It's a splendid looking kit, however, and a fascinating modelling subject. But I reckon I'll get a Revell one for now! Some pictures from the show follow.

Two 1/72 examples, and the dinky 1/144 version.

A very funky 1/35 version of the model.

Also available in 1/48! Note very cool wood textures (decals?).

Another view of the 1/72 kit: in both skeletal and skinned form.

The stall that stood out for me on my first dash around was Collect-a-Kit, on account of their vast stock of 1/76 and 1/72 kits, including lots of old Esci, which I feel peculiarly nostalgic about. Almost all of these kits were priced up at £8, which seemed quite reasonable and attractive. In the end I bought quite a few. But, and rather strangely, no Esci kits.

We rounded off our first day at SMW with a delicious Italian meal at Wildwood, followed by a trip to the pictures to see Roland Enmerich's Midway movie, which we both thoroughly enjoyed. After the ordeal of the overly long and foot to the floor oddysey of getting there, this was a great way to complete our first day.

Day Two

The Sunday allowed me to spend more time checking the entire show out more thoroughly. Sometimes I was accompanied by Teresa. But more often she was off doing her own thing. She showed most interest in bigger shinier models, and even suggested I buy her a lunar lander kit as we perused the very impressive NASA SIG stand.

Fool that I am I overspent on both days. And what with fuel, food, cinema and accommodation this proved to be a very expensive weekend. I'm going to have to find some stuff I can flog, to get money back into my haemorrhaging bank account. Pictured below, my haul from the show; all 1/72 or 1/76, except for the 1/35 Tamiya 88mm. The latter, something I always lusted after as skid, Teresa bought me as a b'day or Xmas gift. Bless her!

I do love these old kits; beautiful box art paintings!

More 88mm guns for a battery, and some IBG models (new to me).

Preiser figures, IBG mags (!), and the Tamiya 88mm.

I really love Preiser's 1/72 WWII German figures. I don't often see them on sale anywhere in the UK. A pity, as they're amongst the best for WWII Germans in 1/72. . The set I acquired at the show, whilst rather pricey, are beautifully sculpted. And come in kit form on numerous sprues, giving many assembly options. The Preiser boxes are also jam packed with info, inc 'Gestaltung- und Bemalvorschläge', or design and painting suggestions!

These figures, the IBG Stug, and the Hasegawa Mercedes G4 (inc. saluting Hitler and entourage!) were the first things from the show I unboxed and started working on. I'll be posting on these soon..

Book Reviews: Panther Tanks, Normandy '44, & Defence of the West '45, Dennis Oliver

Taken together these two titles, numbers 3 and 18 in the Tank Craft series, give a very decent account of the Panther tank, as deployed on the Western Front circa '44-45. One might immediately think 'what then of the Panther's history and development before this, and it's service on the Southern and Eastern Fronts?' I'll return to these thoughts in due course.

As ever with Dennis Oliver, he deploys his own particular approach, utilising maps, timelines, organisational schematics, unit histories, and so on. Where he follows the standard Tank Craft template is in the central three segments: Camouflage and Markings, Model Showcase, and Modelling Products.

A Panther pauses on a French road, Normandy, '44. [1]

U.S. troops gathered around a disabled Panther.

The Normandy title features five models, all in1/35, and all very impressive. The Defence of the West  book, on the other hand, has just two 1/35 models and a single 1/48 example, the latter getting more pages than are normally given over to any one model in the Showcase section. Between the two books that's eight models, all bar one in 1/35. I'd have liked to have seen at least one bigger kit, in 1/16, perhaps, and one or two smaller models, in 1/72 or 1/76.

The colour profiles in the Camouflage and Markings chapter are nicely done, and are both fascinating and exciting. The range of styles and approaches the Germans employed, despite a palette of just three basic colours (which admittedly varied in themselves) was very diverse and, I find, endlessly intriguing. My only gripe on this front is that either the work of the illustrator, or perhaps the printing process, has rendered the core trio of colours less than 100% satisfactorily.

Panther in 'ambush' camo' scheme with infra-red sight.

Fabulous Panther Ausf G, by Lim Kian Guan, aka ChefLim. [2]

This is particularly noticeable with the green. The Dunkelgelb and Rotbrün, whilst only approximate, are near enough. But the green is way too light and bright. This is exaggerated even more in the bottom of the two cover images, shown at the top of this post (the Defence of the West one, sourced from Pen & Sword's own website listing for the book), where the green is almost fluorescent marker-pen bright! The actual books are closer colour-wise to the very top Normandy Campaign cover image.

Panzer graveyard with Panthers in the foreground.

A grimmer graveyard scene. Is this 'Ursula' again? [3]

It's this colour issue that leads me to dock half a balkenkreuz. Whether Oliver's obsessively detailed coverage is a blessing or a curse - what of Panthers in Italy and Russia, and prior to '44? - depends on how much hardcore info you can take, and whether you can stretch to buying so many titles on the one vehicle.

At an RRP of £15 a time (£14.99 to be exact), they aren't exactly cheap! NB: at the time of posting this review both titles are available at reduced prices, at Pen & Sword's website. I'm lucky in that the publishers have been generous enough to send me copies gratis, for review. Otherwise I'd be lusting after these whilst lamenting the lack of brass in my pockets! Anyway, as regards useful info and inspiration, etc, these books are fab. And I'd highly recommend them.

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NOTES:

Note on photos/pictures: in this post I've tried to use images that do appear in the books under review.  The two exceptions are the final black and white image above, and the colour picture of ChefLim's model, which is from his website.

[1] This picture appears in a smaller/cropped format.

[2] This superb model appears in the Showcase section of the Defence of the West title.

[3] The more eagle-eyed might notice that a charred corpse lies atop the rear deck of this knocked out tank. In fact more than one German soldier died on the back of this particular Panther - which may be 'Ursula', a Panther featured in Oliver's book on several different occasions - as other pictures I found online show clearly. A grisly reminder of the true nature and costs of war.

Book Review: M29 Weasel, David Doyle (Images of War)

Another vehicle that's new to me, this time the M29 Weasel. Prolific veteran author on such subjects David Doyle (who's published a book on this vehicle before) gives a good account of the development of this interesting little vehicle, copiously illustrated with, in the main, contemporary images of surviving examples. 

US communications troops laying telephone wires on Okinawa, 1945.

These images are a superb resource for vehicle buffs, modellers, wargamers, etc. But I must confess, as great and as useful as they are, they tip the balance rather too far from the usual archival content these Images of War titles are named for. That's the chief reason I give this otherwise excellent book just fours stars.

A Weasel serving as a stretcher bearer, Belgium, '45.

Originally intended as a 'special' for use in a one-off raid in Norway, after the mission was cancelled the Weasel gradually evolved into a very versatile vehicle that would be used in almost all theatres,  working in heavy snow, thick mud, tropical conditions, in the water, dropped in planes or gliders, and serving on into postwar times, such as the Korean War.

Nice view of a Weasel' interior with weapons and ammunition.

Water is no obstacle to Weasels.

I'd like to have a few for my Allied WWII forces, but have only seen 1/35 and 1/48 kits. Can anyone tell me if there are any 1/72 models out there? Anyway, another highly informative and very interesting book in this very useful series.

Many have survived to be restored.

A nicely built 1/35 model.

Book Review: Achilles & M10, Dennis Oliver (Tank Craft, 12)

This is number 12 in the excellent Tank Craft series, by the very diligent and thorough Dennis Oliver, and as with the Images of War title on the M7 Priest, I enjoyed this immensely because it's a vehicle/variant I'm less familiar with. 

Oliver's contributions to this series are quite distinctive on several counts: he goes into great detail on quite small chunks of particular campaigns, and uses certain presentation devices - campaign maps, timelines, unit histories and organisational schematics, etc. - to convey a quite prodigious level of detail.

This rather different approach means his contributions to the series don't follow the more standard format many others do, which usually start with the design and development history, whereas this starts with an intro on British army organisation, then looks at the campaigns in NW Europe in this late (44-45) stage of the war.

A British M10 'Achilles' on Sword Beach, D-Day.

And in turn this means that much of the technical data you encounter early on in the more standard format books in the series is at the back end of this book, in a chapter titled Technical Details and Modifications, where the other titles might more normally have the In Service and In Action chapter. So olivers kind of working almost exactly in the reverse order!

But the good news is that the book in no way suffers from the idiosyncratic change of form that Oliver favours, thanks to the lucidity of his writing and the well organised material. What remains in their standard places are three key segments: Camouflage and Markings (aka, colour profiles), the Model Showcase, and Model Products. These three sections are all excellent, as indeed the whole lot is.

Ramon Sagarra's exquisitely rendered 1/35 Italeri M10.

Another slightly unusual but welcome inclusion is the brief Aspects of British Army, which goes into explaining some of potentially confusing stuff about how the British Army, both in general and at this time, was/is organised. 

I have only one criticism of this otherwise near perfect book, which is that on page 63 the middle row of photos sports the wrong captions, which appear again, but this time correctly, under the bottom row of pictures as well. The result of this editorial/layout gaffe is that a series of pics of wheels are not explained, and instead we get two servings of info on tracks! This is a shame, and I deduct 1/2 a balkenkreuz for it. 

But, like all the Dennis Oliver contributions in this series that I've seen, and indeed the series as a whole, this is an excellent resource for tanks buffs in general, and modelmaking tank buffs in particular. Highly recommended.

German tankers examine a knocked out M10.

Book Review: M2/M3, ed. Robert Jackson (Land Craft, 2)

After the disappointments I mention in my review of the previous publication on the Jeep, it's great to be able to report that this, the second in the new Land Craft series, is back on track (boom-boom!). 

This iteration of these very useful publications follows the standard form - Design & Development, In Detail, Variants, Camouflage & Markings (aka 'colour profiles'), Model Showcase, Modelling Products, In Service & In Action - covering each aspect with a good balance of clarity and thoroughness. 

The archival and contemporary images are superbly chosen, conveying maximum info with great concision, and the colour profiles are excellent, and include front, back, side and plan elevations, for maximum coverage. The difference in quality between the rather poor illustrations of the Jeep in the previous title, and these - crisply detailed, terrifically coloured, and with nicely rendered shading/texturing - is very noticeable.

M3 mounting 75mm gun, Sicily, (1943?)

Whilst no 1/72 examples are included in the Model Showcase section - they're all 1/35, with the lone exception of one 1/16 example - they're much better covered in the Modelling Products segment, with mention made of PSC, the Italeri fast-build kits, Hasegawa and Academy kits. The old Airfix 1/76 is there as well. And they even cover the large range from Milicast, also in 1/76, a manufacturer I haven't seen mentioned in this section until now.

As is normal for me now, when I enjoy these books as much as I've enjoyed this one, I feel more than a little tempted to acquire a model or three and have a crack at building and detailing them, using the images herein as inspiration. Uh-oh... I can feel a trip to either the Ely model shop or Creative Models in Chatteris coming on!

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Thanks to the middle of the black and white photos on the cover, of an M3 ambulance, I fancy making up one kit as this vehicle, as well as some more typical variants. So I tried to find that very photo, but couldn't. I did however find the following:

Possibly taken at the same photo-shoot as the image I can't find?

An example in context.

A contemporary survivor.

Looks fab!

Book Review: The Jeep, Lance Cole (Land Craft, 1)

With this title on the iconic Jeep, Pen & Sword launch a new series called Land Craft, a companion to their already well established Tank Craft series. The Jeep is an excellent place to start, being one of the most recognisable vehicles of WWII (and beyond). Indeed, it's iconic position is such that it's been used as the logo for the Land Craft series, in the top right corner of the cover.

I've been lucky enough to receive a new copy from the publisher, for review. I'm really chuffed to be getting to review a fair amount of books on a variety of Pen & Sword imprints. And thus far I've loved and been very impressed with pretty much everything I've read. So much so I've rated practically all of them around four to five stars. Alas, this title hits the first bumps on this particular road!

It's still a book worth having, primarily for the visual reference, and secondarily for the model-related sections. This said, the non-model related picture content is not up to the usual Tank Craft standards, mixing WWII period photos with more contemporary images apparently randomly, with too many of the latter. And within the latter there's too much repetition of images of the same vehicles.

A very well known image, of a Jeep in British North African service.

Tamiya's 1/35 kit helped cement (boom-boom!) the SAS image in our minds!

The colour profiles are also not as good as in other similar titles I've received from the Tank Craft line. On the plus side this volume does include aerial/plan views in the colour profile section, which most of the Tank Craft equivalents don't.

But where this particular title differs most is in the text, which is very poor, in my opinion. I mean no offence to author Lance Cole. He obviously loves his subject, and doubtless knows a lot about it. But it simply doesn't read well. I've struggled to about half-way through the written part, and given up. It's headache-inducingly prolix, meandering around aimlessly and constantly repeating information. It could be cited as a definition of the phrase 'lumpen prose'. 

Although the book is structured similarly to the Tank Craft series - listing the chapter titles shows this to be the case (Development and Design, The Jeep in Detail, Camouflage and Markings, Model Showcase, Modelling Products, In Service and in Action, Variants) - it doesn't read that way. Compared with the lucid, well-structured writing of, for example Dennis Oliver, this text is like treacle. Strict and severe editing is required. Judicious editing from what's here would probably reduce it by 50-60%. But it's so poor a total rewrite would be best.

Another Jeep, also in British service; is this Burma?

All the Jeeps in the Model Showcase section are 1/35th. It'd have been nice to see one or two in other scales. Anyway, in conclusion, I'd say that thanks to the imagery herein this is still worth having. But I'd forewarn potential purchasers/readers re the quality of the writing. 'Tis a pity that what will surely be a very useful series (I also have the next one, on the M2/M3 halftrack) gets off to a somewhat shaky start.

If you did think you might want to buy this, now is a good time, as both this and the M2/M3 title are currently reduced from the RRP of £14.99 to just £12.99, over at the Pen & Sword website.

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NB: I used to write regularly for the now sadly defunct Drummer (UK*) magazine. I remember several occasions where the editor intervened to temper my criticisms, usually either on account of personal or professional connections between the subject and the mag. So, for example, I was asked to review a particular CD by a certain band (I forget who now, thankfully). I thought it was awful, and said so. However, our editor was trying to cultivate the drummer of this band as a potential contributor to the magazine. My review wasn't used. 

I also recall having to soften critiques - or finding them having been editorially softened for me - of products. What galled me most about the latter was that I was prevented from speaking the truth as I saw it, and usually re cheapo gear from big manufacturers, whereas there was a freedom to pan the little independent concerns, 'cause that wouldn't threaten advertising revenue unduly. I mention all this because I want it to be known that opinions expressed on my blog (at least by me, at any rate) are genuine.

* Not the US Drummer magazine, by the way, a gay leather/porn mag!

The following photographs include some great Jeep images... none of which feature in this book, alas:

Jeep goes airborne... yeehaw!

UK or Commonwealth soldiers posed as if thumbing a ride.

A US vehicle graveyard on Okinawa, '45.

Jeep ambulance. Not sure where this is, or what nation it's being used by?

Jeeps roll off the production line and onto the transport supply lines.

Maintenance work; is that an engine powered lathe? 

Another Jeep auditioning for the airborne!

Jeep ambulance. Note bullet holes in windscreen!

They sure made a lot of Jeeps!

Jeeps are sexy!

Cole meanders in and out of his timelines all over the place, one minute talking about wartime Jeep history, and often (too often for a book aimed at WWII Jeep modelling) talking about postwar Jeep stuff. But he doesn't include the rather amazing almost James Bond-esque image above.