The images of war series, published by Pen and Sword but distributed by Casemate Publishing, is a prolific series that covers a huge variety of topics. They will often feature a campaign or a particular vehicle and then provide a brief narrative and photographic coverage of the vehicle’s service life. The author’s do their best to find photographs that have not been widely published. The audience for these publications are history buffs and. I would say, modelers.

This is the first of a new series of books for military modellers and enthusiasts. Each book in the series centers on a particular subject and numerous model builds, step-by-step guides, and tips and techniques along the way. Models in a variety of scales are included- some full kit builds, some conversions, and painting guides. This particular volume looks in depth at various vehicles that serve with the Israeli Defense Forces. Some of the topics covered include urban warfare, mine clearance, main battle tanks, and armoured personnel carriers.

What’s Inside

After a brief two page introduction, the book continues with 21 different builds or conversions of kits. The titles pretty much give an indication of what is occurring in each build and what kits were used. The builds break down into the following:

This book is devoted to the T-54 and Type 59 tanks. It is a visual reference with a great number of photographs to help the modeler distinguish the difference between the variants of T-54A / Typre59 and T-54B.

The book begins with a nice historical section explaining the models of the T-54 family. The timeline explains the changes that occurred to the models of the tanks in chronological order.

After the historical section, you dive headfirst into the first photo section of the book that begins with the T-54 / Type 59. This section has several excellent photographs including extreme close-ups of the tank and its many details. The photographic section is broken down into two sub sections entitled Turret and Hull. The detailed photographs are excellent and were extremely helpful to me as I am currently getting ready to start building a type 59 tank.

From the publisher’s notes on this book: “This volume is the most detailed study yet presented of the M3 Lee/Grant tanks, illustrating and describing the development, production, and use of these iconic vehicles by US, Commonwealth, and Russian forces during WWII. The tanks, their power plants, and production techniques used by each manufacturer are shown from assembly line to front line through this profusely illustrated book, including numerous never before published vintage photos.”

The Table of Contents provides this basic outline:

The “Camera On” series focuses on ‘lived in’ images of a specific subject. The subject in this case is 3.7 cm Flak 18/36/37, but the real value of this book is the images of its crew, their uniforms -sometimes even in civilian clothes-, the locations where the pictures were taken, the equipment -and litter!- around the gun emplacement.

The book is divided in the following sections

• Foreword, with high level description of the weapon and its history
• 3.7 cm Flak 18
• 3.7 cm Flak 36
• Tun antiaerean Rheinmetall calibru 37 mm model 1939
• 3.7 cm Flak 37

Each section has dozens of pictures, some of them show a close up of the weapon (with very good detail for your model), most of them show the crew around the weapon (with very high value for a vignette as it show all the ‘stuff’ around a gun emplacement).