Reviews of books or magazines relating to scale modeling.

Book Author(s)
Authors: Dean Wilson;
Illustrators: Pablo Patricio Albornoz, David Bocquelet, Luca Canossa, Tom Cooper, Micky Hewitt, and Anderson Subtil
Review Author
Frank Landrus
Published on
February 9, 2024
Company
Helion & Company
MSRP
$29.95

Helion is a UK-based company that produces books on many aspects of Military History from the Late Medieval period through to the present day. Helion was established in 1996, and since then they have published over 1,200 books, with 100 or more new titles coming out every year, for readers around the world.

Book Author(s)
Ian Baxter
Review Author
Andy Taylor
Published on
February 6, 2024
Company
Pen & Sword
MSRP
$26.95

Ian Baxter has done it again. Not only is he an amazing, captivating author, he once more approached a very difficult topic, and did it well, presenting the horrifying facts in a manner that honors the dead, but doesn’t sugar coat it. This book follows the familiar Images of War format with brief introductions for each chapter followed by a lot of photographs to complement his topics.

Between the covers of this (9.6”x7.4”) paperback book are 144 pages, with over 250 black and white photographs, and two very detailed appendices, is the story of the Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps during 1944 and 1945. It is composed of the following:

Book Author(s)
Ravi Rikhye
Review Author
Gino Dykstra
Published on
February 6, 2024
Company
Helion & Company
MSRP
$29.95

Human beings sure like to squabble, and the more history they share, the more enmity they seem to feel. America is little over 200 years old, and has had only one internal conflict during that time, and yet it still impacts the country to this day.Imagine, then, a region occupied for millenia2, and the potential only increases.

India and Pakistan have been at each other’s throats since the day of partition, and the author Ravi Rikhye, does a good job of explaining the incredible complexities of the hostility for the average reader.Suffice it to say that my head was buzzing after reading the introduction. It’s very hard for someone not born in that part of the world to really understand what the grievances are. The author himself states flatly that writing history is a subjective experience, and that there are no “bad guys” or “good guys” in this struggle. After reading the entire book I have to agree.

Book Author(s)
Tom Cooper, Dave Watson and Dimitris Vassilopoulos
Review Author
Gino Dykstra
Published on
February 6, 2024
Company
Helion & Company
MSRP
$29.95

I’ve read a number of books about 20th century so-called brush wars, and it becomes fairly obvious over time that these small, relatively isolated conflicts often serve as relief valves for larger nations who dare not directly confront each other. In the nuclear age, such aggressiveness would almost certainly be fatal.

Book Author(s)
Edward Crowther
Review Author
Andy Taylor
Published on
February 3, 2024
Company
Helion & Company
MSRP
$29.95

This is the third book in the War in Ukraine series (currently at five volumes). The previous two volumes were reviewed by Orlando Reyes of the IPMS/USA Review Corps:

Book Author(s)
Authors: Juan Arráez Cerdá, Eduardo Manuel Gil Martínez
Illustrators: Jose Fernandez, Teodor Liviu Morosanu, Claes Sundin
Review Author
Frank Landrus
Published on
January 24, 2024
Company
Helion & Company
MSRP
$45.00

Helion is a UK-based company that produces books on many aspects of Military History from the Late Medieval period through to the present day. Helion was established in 1996, and since then they have published over 1,200 books, with 100 or more new titles coming out every year, for readers around the world.

Juan Arráez Cerdá is a Spanish Aviation expert and owner of one of the best pictures’ collections of Spanish Aviation. He is the author of many books and articles about Aviation (in French and Spanish).

Book Author(s)
Simon Forty
Review Author
Andy Taylor
Published on
January 20, 2024
Company
Casemate Publishers
MSRP
$28.95

Having just reviewed the previous book in the Casemate Illustrated Series (No. 37 – The German Infantryman on the Eastern Front), I expected this book to follow the same format. While the outline of the book and its chapters are the same, the content differs vastly, and in a good way, especially for modelers. This book has a lot more focus on the Soviet Infantryman through re-enactor photographs focusing on uniforms and weapons, and more personal Soviet infantrymen accounts.

From the book’s conclusion,

The Western view of the Soviet infantryman and Red Army is colored by the Cold War. As the Soviet Union moved from valued ally to likely adversary, the Eastern Front battles were dissected by the German generals who had fought them. They pushed their own agendas and tended to undervalue their opponents, blaming the German defeat on hordes, poor strategy from the top, and almost anything other than the prowess of the Red Army.

Book Author(s)
Simon Forty and Richard Charlton Taylor
Review Author
Andy Taylor
Published on
January 20, 2024
Company
Casemate Publishers
MSRP
$28.94

From the book’s conclusion,

In 1939-1942 German infantrymen were the best trained and most efficient soldiers in the Western world. Their victories in Europe optimized the use of new technology and old skillsets to overpower their enemies in a series of lightning thrusts. Spearheaded by airborne special forces and amor, fully supported by a rampant air arm, quite simply they blew away the opposition and made fools of the Allies who had defeated an older generation of Germans so comprehensively in 1918.

Book Author(s)
David Grummitt
Review Author
Joe Terry
Published on
January 20, 2024
Company
Pen & Sword
MSRP
$29.95

In the thirteenth volume of Pen & Sword Books Land Craft series, Dr. David Grummitt provides an informative and detailed look US Self-Propelled Artillery from the post Korean War era to present. Having previously authored six other books for Pen & Sword, covering armored fighting vehicles and tanks, Dr. Grummitt now turns his attention to self-propelled artillery in his latest book: Kings of Battle, US Self-Propelled Artillery, 1963-2023. A professional Historian by trade, Dr. Grummitt is also an avid modeler and serves as the editor of Military Modelcraft International, which unique background combines to present a work that is both historically interesting and relevant to the scale modeler.

In this book the history of US Self-Propelled Artillery since 1963 is covered over sixty-four pages divided into twelve chapters outlined as follows

Book Author(s)
Richard A. Franks
Illustrators: Richard J. Caruana, Juraj Jankovic, and Jerry Boucher
Review Author
Frank Landrus
Published on
January 13, 2024
Company
Valiant Wings Publishing
MSRP
$53.00

Valiant Wings Publishing was founded in 2010 under the guidance of Richard A. Franks and Mark Peacock. Valiant Wings has released several series of primarily airplane monographs [Airframe & Miniature, Airframe Album and Airframe Detail series] with the first Airframe Album dedicated to the Heinkel He 219 ‘Uhu’ released in 2012.