Military Model Scene

Title: German Self-propelled Artillery Guns of the Second World War
Author: Craig Moore

Publisher: Fonthill Media
ISBN: 978-1-78155-695-5

 

A new soft-cover book from Fonthill Media with author Craig Moore tackling the subject of the variety of self-propelled artillery used by the German army in WW2. As explained in the introduction to the book, this takes on the subject of German Field artillery in WW2, so no anti-tank or anti-aircraft weapons, but field artillery capable of firing high explosive fragmentation rounds.

Essentially the book is divided into two sections, and each of those sub-divided by gun/vehicle type. The first section looks at each of the different artillery pieces within the category used by the German army in WW2.  This includes weapons such as the 10.5 cm leFH 16, a gun first used in WW1 though still in service during WW2. Perhaps best known is the 10.5cm leFH 18, the later replacement design for the leFH 16 and fitted in many of the vehicles that make up the second element of the book. Others include the 15cm sFH, the 15cm sIG 33  plus the larger 17cm K18 and 21cm Morser 18.  Each gun us described with design and development story, use, specifications and ranges. These are also illustrated with modern photos showing examples held now in various museum collections.

The second and major element of the book provides information on all the various vehicle types used to mount the different field artillery weapons, again with design and production details, including the numbers of each built, where that number is known. They include guns fitted to German tank chassis as well as those fitted in adaptations of foreign built tank chassis captured in the early period of the war in particular. Some were built in large numbers, such as the Hummel and Wespe, while others were only made in small numbers (as few as 1 in at least one case. We get background, armament, identification features, operational use and specifications. They include many well known types along with others less well known, such as the Hummel-Wespe, with the 10.5cm leFH 18 fitted in the Pz IV based Hummel chassis.  Each one is illustrated with colour profile artwork by David Bocquelet rather than archive photos, which is a slightly different approach to many AFV books, and hence focuses more on the details in the text.

​

Thanks to Fonthill Media for our review copy.

​

Robin