Military Model Scene

Title: German Armour Lost on the Eastern Front

Author: Bob Carruthers

Publisher: Pen and Sword Books

ISBN: 978-1-47386-844-1

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Another new book in this series from author Bob Carruthers and an obvious companion to his other one covering the Western Front.  This one opens with a few pages of introductory background text, and then it is followed by a fine selection of well captioned photos that illustrate a large number of panzers knocked out on the Eastern Front, from the early period of the invasion in 1941 through the huge tank battle of Kursk in 1943, and on to the end of the war.

There have been a number of books over the last few years illustrating  battlefield wrecks.  While this has a few photos I had seen before, the majority were new to me.  It also features a good mix of AFVs which are being illustrated.  So there are plenty of Tiger I and II, Stug III and Pz IV variants but good to also see the Elephant, Marder IID, Pz III gun tanks, and even the rarer Waffentrager among others.  Other points I found interesting are the variety of equipment seen at various wreck collection points, the attractions of these armoured vehicles have for not only the advancing Russian troops when the fighting has moved on but even later, for the local children to use as a climbing frame.  The other thing is to notice how good the Russians were at counting the battlefield wrecks, painting plain white numbers on them to indicate when they have been counted.  One of the many useful pointers in this collection that hold interest for modellers as well as the WW2 historian.  It is also worth saying that a number of the pictures include the bodies of their crew members alongside as a reminder of the human cost of those battles.

A good selection of archive photos, and with helpful captioning.

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Thanks to Pen and Sword for this review copy.

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Robin