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Introduction

This book, the fourth so far in this series is a photo album with captions of abandoned/destroyed German armour from 1944/45. Printed on high quality art paper there is no vehicle history or performance data as this is outside the remit of the book and would leave a lot less room for the pictures.

Featuring 116 rare and in many cases unpublished images sourced from either military archives or from private collections often taken by servicemen in the field it depicts a wide variety of vehicles in both armoured and soft-skin flavours either post capture or destruction at the hands of the Allied forces. As with previous volumes the book is divided into either individual image groups of say a single vehicle or a sequence of photos from a particular location or unit.

The main sequence groups are :-

· Jagdpanther of s.H.Pz.Jag.Abt.559 8 images
· Pz.A.A.20 surrenders at Pilsen 9 images
· 4.7cm Pak(t) auf R35 walkaround 5 images
· Stabskp./Korps Pz.A.A.FHH surrenders 26 images
· A trip to the Tiger factory 13 images

Scattered in between each 'feature' are other shots in either singles or in small groups of other AFV’s.

I won’t go into a complete list of the vehicles featured in the photographs but ones that stand out are:-

· Panthers
· SdKfz 234’s of various subtypes including some interesting one-offs
· PzKpfw IV’s
· Jagdpanzers
· Stugs
· And a myriad of trucks, personnel cars and halftracks and other AFV’s

Some suprises are also thrown up by the photographs such as a Panzer I in Czechoslovakia 1945, a weapon-less Panzer II a/1 that had been used for driver training and a 1933 vintage Kfz.13 scout car surrendering with the FeldHernHalle unit in 1945!

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Conclusion

Overall the book is very well laid out with the majority of photographs presented near or full page along with a handful grouped onto a single page but even where this occurs the image is large enough to see the all important details which we modellers desire of course.

As with the previous three books from Panzerwrecks there is a multitude of vehicles that are crying out to be replicated in miniature and will provide much inspiration for modellers of WWII German vehicles for a long while to come. The featured groups of images especially the final one “A trip to the Tiger factory” provide insight to the happenings during the final days of WWII when the much vaunted Wehrmacht finally crumbled against the overwhelming Allied war-machine.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone with an interest not only in the modelling of German AFV’s but also those interested in military history from this period and I eagerly await volume five due Autumn this year.

Book provided courtesy of my paypal account!

More info on this series along with sample images can be found at Panzerwrecks website.