Military Model Scene

Title: LandCraft 2, M2/M3 American Half-Tracks of the Second World War

Author: Robert Jackson

Publisher: Pen and Sword Books

ISBN: 978-1-52674-655-9

 

This is the second book in the new LandCraft series from Pen & Sword, a companion series to their TankCraft books. In this case we see a mix of support vehicles rather than tanks.  The first book covered the famous Jeep, while this one deal with another armour protected vehicle, the US built M2/M3 half-track series.  A soft-cover book of 64-pages. Over 40,000 of these were built and they served the allies on all fronts.  The chassis proved to be very flexible, reliable, and easy to maintain.

It follows the format of their other titles, with an Introduction followed by the Design & Development story, the M2/M3 In Detail; M2/M3 Variants then Camouflage & Markings with 8 pages of colour artwork. Then a Model Showcase featuring 2 Dragon M3 1/35 builds, theiur M4 Morter Carrier and the large Trumpeter 1/16 M16 AA variant. That leads neatly into a look at Model Products, in both small and large scales. So kits from Academy, Airfix, Plastic Soldier Company, Dragon, Tamiya and Trumpeter all make their appearance.  This leads to a final section on the M2/M3 In Service and Action.

The model content has some fine models, while the historical content is heavily illustrated with archive photos. There are more extensive books on the subject, but equally more expensive. For a modeller looking for a basic reference on the subject, I reckon this offers an excellent value option..

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Thanks to Pen and Sword for this review copy.

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Robin