There is an old axiom that amateurs pursue tactics, but professionals manage logistics. It is a topic that largely goes unexplored in the voluminous literature of the Second World War. Outside of the modeling world, I am an academically trained military historian who works in the public history field. I have had a keen interest in the topic. Given my background, I was keen to review this work. From a production point of view, Pen and Sword knows what they are doing – high quality binding, heavy paper, and well produced photographs, contemporary to the war and modern, color photographs of restored vehicles form the Second World War. My criticisms are with the content.

About the Author

Dr. Nigel Thomas, PhD, is an accomplished linguist and military historian, formerly at Northumbria University, now a freelance military author, translator and military uniform consultant. His interests are 20th-century military and civil uniformed organizations, with a special interest in Germany, Central and Eastern Europe. He was awarded a PhD on the Eastern enlargement of NATO.

About the Illustrator

Johnny Shumate works as a freelance illustrator living in Nashville, Tennessee. He began his career in 1987 after graduating from Austin Peay State University. Most of his work is rendered in Adobe Photoshop using a Cintiq monitor. His greatest influences are Angus McBride, Don Troiani, and Édouard Detaille.

There is somewhat of a recent trend in home furnishing circles that gives renewed life to older furniture and kitchen cabinets. The painting technique of which I speak is dry brushing. The trend has even caught the eye of Bob Vila, once and former host of the PBS series 'This Old House'. Bob is no longer affiliated with the program after lambasting (allegedly) a homeowner for being a lazy twit, but that's a story for another time.

This dry brush technique involves dousing your paint brush into the paint of choice, removing almost all of it from the paint brush bristles and applying the minute amount of remaining paint onto the selected object. In the case of a home improvement project that might be cabinet doors or the odd tabletop but for our purposes this missive will focus solely on scale models.

I have been using enamels for many years (decades) now. Enamel hobby paints are getting harder to find and there are the health considerations on enamels, so I have been exploring different acrylics options out there. I was excited to see I had the chance to review the AMMO products, as some of my modeling buddies had good things to say about them.

Readying the AMMO website, you learn that these paints are odorless, water soluble, and non-toxic. All of those above make these paints interesting alternatives as non-toxicity is a great thing and odorless makes the rest of the family happy.

I have to say that I did find a very faint smell on these paints. It is not strong at all and it is not offensive nor headache-inducing as enamels or lacquers. The best I can describe the smell is ‘earthly’. A bit like mud or clay, from a pottery workshop.

This new photo book series presents various selections of rare wartime photographs. They are selected based on numerous subjects. Each volume introduces photographs from battles, operations, vehicles, or complete photo albums from soldiers who fought in World War Two.

This volume is divided into two separate subjects. The first part presents a number of new photographs from the personal photo album of Oberleutnant d.R Peter Prien who began his army career with Pz.Nachr.Abt.37 with 1.Panzer-Division in January 1941 and finished the war as Führer of the Stabskompanie of Pz.Rgt.3 of 2.Panzer-Division. His album contains mostly photos of his time with 2.Panzer-Division around the time of the Kursk battles. The second part presents a series of photographs of the 8.8cm Flak 18 mounted on the chassis of the Sd.Kfz.8 half-track officially known as the 8.8cm Flak 18 Sfl. auf schwere Zugkraftwagen 12 t (Sd.Kfz.8) als Fahrgestell. Most are new and previously unpublished.