Showing posts with label Henschel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Henschel. Show all posts

Wednesday, 6 March 2019

Book Review: Luftwaffe Training Aircraft, Chris Goss



Covering a neglected and potentially interesting subject, if perhaps more up the avenue of a plane modeller, this is a good source of pictures. But the text is very minimal, consisting of a brief intro, a useful glossary, and then the picture captions. 

The intro gives some background context, and the glossary is very useful. But the captions are, by and large, a bit too dry, often consisting solely of info on the plane's werk nummer and service history. Where there's some info beyond that, say for example on the fates of the crew, or some other interesting little detail, it's better.

Focke Wulf FW 44 'Stieglitz'.

Under the Air War Archive banner this one's kind of in the vein of the Images of War series, inasmuch as it's primarily a pictorial resource. Given the author's acknowledgment of this as an understudied area of aerial warfare, it's a shame there isn't more in the way of interesting textual detail. Bit of a missed opportunity there.

Some of the planes covered herein are familiar, but many aren't. At least not to me. But then I'm more of an ground warfare freak than a air war type guy. Some of the images have sparked an interest  that might lead me to build something different. But then again, perhaps I should concentrate on all the stuff I already have in hand?

Heinkel He 50.

Of all the books I've been reading and reviewing recently, this one's certainly not amongst my favourite. I have been getting more into aircraft of late. But even so, this is perhaps a little too specialised and a little too dry for me. Still, it's always nice to have more pics in the library!

Wednesday, 30 January 2019

Bovington Tigers: Elefant, Sd.Kfz. 184


After lots of frustration with my dear little MX5, I got her MOT'd, serviced, and one or two faults repaired. And, finally, today I was able to drive down to Dorset, to the Bovington Tank Museum, and see their superb Tiger collection. 

I was particularly keen for several reasons: I love German WWII armour, and some of these particular Tiger variants are amongst my favourite tanks. I'm also currently building several Elefant/Ferdinand kits, as well. It's a pity they didn't have a SturmTiger. I learned today that they did try and get one from a German collection, but it didn't work out. All that they had of this vehicle was a barrel (I'll be addressing the other vehicles in another post).

I took loads of photos, particularly of the Elefant, and I've very quickly and roughly made a series of montages of some of the latter, to share here. Many of these images are cropped in the versions displayed in this post. I wanted as much ref as poss, as this particular tank goes back to the U.S. tomorrow! 

I'm sooo glad I made it to see these amazing tanks. I spent three hours looking at and photographing them, and chatting with staff. The staff were very friendly and helpful. I had a couple of interesting chats with David Willey, curator of the museum. I even got to see the collections own Tiger I, known as Tiger 131 (the very tank that was used in Fury), being worked on, and moved/driven off. More on this to come in another post.
























I think I once heard such posts as this being referred to as Panzer Porn. Well, yes, these beauties turn me on. The phrase seems fitting!