IPMS/USA Reviews

The Karl "Gerat" (device) was a huge self-propelled siege mortar. The 60cm shells weighed around 5000 pounds and contained several hundred pounds of explosives. Hasegawa says that the Karl made a "significant impact" wherever it was used. The problems with Karl were that it wasn't very mobile, and it required special ammunition. When a Karl was in use, it had to be in a special firing position, which should be level and support the chassis.

This is Hasegawa's release of their Karl Mortar in 1/72. It includes the "Munitionschlepper" Panzer IV. This kit has been released before, with the Munitionschlepper or with the railway transport add-on. What makes this kit desirable is that you get more options for the basic Karl mortar.

The two big options are:

Gaining momentum on this side of the pond is a model company out of Taiwan called Ding-Hao Hobby, a sister company to AFV Club, that specializes in subjects not well covered (or not covered at all) in injection molded plastic.  Their kits are short-run, multi-media affairs mostly aimed at advanced modelers.  I first came across Ding-Hao Hobby from a pilot friend of mine who brought me a German Bussing Nag L4500S truck sporting dual MG151 triple machine gun mounts (DH96003).  I have since purchased several more DH kits before deciding to review their U.S. Army T77 Multiple Gun Motor Carriage.

The T77 is based on a modified M-24 Chaffee chassis with a specialized turret studded with no less than six U.S. M2 Browning 50cal machine guns - a frightening prospect for anything that would have the bad luck of straying into its line of fire.

The book goes into fantastic detail on the subject of the Panzerwaffe between 1942 and the end of the war in 1945. The great German military war machine was founded on the Panzer and this book shows in great depth the units, their function and the reports written at the time on the designs and short comings of different panzers. I found the pictures in this book fascinating and I can say these were all new to me! The book kept my attention from beginning to end with the most informative way to tell all the facts and history of the Panzerwaffe. When I was only halfway through, I had already ordered the first book in the series as these are a must have for anyone with a love for tanks!

I recommend this book to everyone with an interest in the Panzerwaffe, and tanks generally.

Thanks go to Osprey Publishing for providing this book to review and IPMS USA for allowing me to review it for them

Background

During the 1930's and the early period of the Second World War, British tank tactics involved having two types of tanks: the faster Cruiser tanks that would act as mechanized cavalry or break out vehicles, and the slower, more heavily armored Infantry tanks that would lumber into battle at a speed commensurate with supporting infantry maneuvers. Of the Infantry tanks produced, the Valentine series was the most numerous, accounting for 30% of the entire British tank production of the Second World War: 7,315. Production took place in Canada as well as the United Kingdom. Nearly 4,650 Valentine tanks were provided to the Soviet Union under the Allied Lend-Lease program. A total of 12 variants of the Valentine were produced, the majority being the Mk.II/IV vehicle produced here by Tamiya.

DavidDoyleBooks.com (Schiffer Publishing) out of Memphis TN, is back again with another Legends of Warfare (Ground) book entitled Panzerkampfwagen IV - The Backbone of Germany's WWII Tank Forces, by popular author David Doyle. Anyone familiar with armor modeling literature and research will recognize this authoritative combination, and like usual, this latest release won't disappoint.

Looking across my personal bookshelf of maybe 200 titles, I can spot several of Mr. Doyle's books, including Panzer II, 251 Halftrack Visual History and Tiger I In Action, and, of course, my beaten-to-death copy of German Military Vehicles, among others. If you've been building armor models for any length of time, you're probably familiar with his work as well.

Panzerkampfwagen IV comes as a hardcover book, and follows the format of Mr. Doyle's previous Legends of Warfare volumes, containing high-resolution images printed on heavy, high quality stock paper.