Historical Background

This book tells the story of the development and operational career of the Nakajima B5N Japanese Navy torpedo bomber, known as the Kate to the Americans, who developed a sophisticated identification system which avoided the linguistic problems associated with adapting the Japanese language to American use. In general, fighters had boys’ names, while bombers and other types used girls’ names. Therefore, Zeke, Nate, and Jack were fighters, while Nell, Betty, and Kate were bombers. The story of the development of that system is another story.

Ammo bunkers were used in Vietnam at Fire Support Bases-FSB (artillery emplacements) for the storage of ammo, powder, and fuses. Built with any available material including 105mm wooden ammo crates, metal culverts, PSP, or wooden planks these ammunition bunkers were everywhere a FSB was located. Some of these structures were also used as personnel shelters.

Tiger Werke has done the modeling community a service by providing not one but three different style of ammo bunkers that are suitable for any 1/35 scale Vietnam-era fire base diorama or vignette This particular review revolves around TW-35217, the Type III Ammo Bunker. This style shows a section of culvert stacked with sandbags protecting a small bunker that was constructed from empty, wooden ammunition crates.

Tiger Werke is adding to its line of resin diorama accessories with a U.S. Vietnam Ammo Bunker. The company has two other types of ammo bunkers available but this missive is only concerned only with the Type II version.

These ammo bunkers were ubiquitous in Vietnam during the U.S. participation in that war. Used at fire support bases (semi-permanent artillery emplacements) as a means of protecting ammunition for the artillery pieces. They were somewhat of a DIY project as most of these structures were constructed using the empty wooden ammo crates and loads of sandbag reinforcement for the roof. Often the ammo bunkers would be incorporated into the sandbag or earthen parapet surrounding each gun emplacement. These ammo bunkers were also used as personnel shelters (in the event of a mortar attack) or for other storage.

The Airbus Atlas A-400M is a 4 engine, turbo prop, military transport filling a place (size wise) between the Boeing C-17 and Lockheed’s C-130. It is operated by the French, Italians, Britain and others.

This soft cover book is made using high quality paper and is superbly put together. It shows the aircraft in its various air force colors, variants and an extensive pictorial excursion around it. There are hundreds of beautifully detailed photographs of every part of the A-400M, from close ups to action shots of the aircraft on the ground and flying.

The reader of this book is taken on a “walk around” of the subject aircraft in pictorial form and each picture, or series of pictures includes a brief explanation of what we are looking at. The book starts with an introduction and history of the Airbus A-400M, followed by a few pages on the different variants produced and Air Forces that flew them.

Introduction

An Austro-Hungarian engineer, Günther Burstyn, designed a "land-ship" vehicle in 1911, which was tailored to cross trenches, provide infantry support and crush barbed wire entanglements. This was the Burstyn Motorgeschütz. It was relatively small, with a revolving turret and potentially armed with a light 37 or 47 mm gun, and a crew of two. The unique aspect of this experimental design was the articulated arms that could be deployed to assist in trench crossing, and "push down" barbed wire. These arms were lowered to help cross trenches, angled to push down wire entanglements, and up for normal terrain . Burstyn received a patent and built models and a wooden mock-up; but the design went no further. He proved to be a visionary. His design anticipated trench warfare years before WW1 and included the basic layout of a tank.