.
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by Ian Baxter.
Softcover (6.7×9.7 inches). 119 pages. 2025.
Another volume in the series delivers lots of black and white WWII photos — 150 by my count. The wide range of photos cover the Ukraine, although most are traditional shots of various tanks, halftracks, and other armored vehicles. Most are fine, some even sharp, although my untrained eye finds more blurry photos than usual. Some are really blurry (p14, p 18, p55, p76, p82, and so on) and not being particularly rare in subject matter, perhaps other sharper photos could have been used.
Then there’s the text. It seems to have more typos than usual.
Typos: “launched a large began a large counterattack” (p42) needs a deletion of one or the other; “brought invisibility in the eyes of the Germans” (p42) should be invincibility; “following the fall of Sevastopol, the caves that surrounded Ukraine were almost entirely under German control” (p73) — no idea what “caves” is supposed to be; “identical to the cut of the to the Sturmartillerie uniform” (p51) needs “to the” trimmed; “they were produced in limited numbers and service on all fronts” (p84) is likely served; “panzergreandier” (p85″ should be panzergrenadier; “pulled between Some” (p87) needs a lowercase s; “Although the losses were huge in Manstein’s eyes another major disaster that had been averted in Ukraine” (p88) needs “that” deleted; and “Soviets continued driving its powerful units” (p89) should be “their” not “its” or “Soviets” should be “Soviet Army”.
It’s as if this file went in raw without an editor. And believe you me, if you read this AAR close enough, you’ll find the same sort of typos in my text because I’m a one-man band without an editor. Then again, the price of AAR PDF admission versus the $24.95 retail price of the book has something to do with it.
I suspect the text is less important to readers than the photos. And plenty of photos will give you plenty of information about uniforms, everyday armor, and model diorama possibilities. My favorite photo (p28) is taken from a fourth- or fifth-story window of a street scene that shows a horse-drawn field kitchen column, a command car, and two trucks heading down the road one way and two halftracks, one pulling a gun and the other a trailer, heading in the opposite direction. Runner up? A STuG III (p68) column in winter camouflage scheme driving along a snowy track. It’s just that a lot of them seem blurry. Ties still go to the author.
Enjoyed it.
— Reviewed by Russ Lockwood
