PanzerWrecks 3
PanzerWrecks 3 IntroductionThe PanzerWrecks series of books was the brainchild of William Auerback and Lee Archer, and each of the five Panzerwrecks so far in the series contains over 100 rare and mostly unpublished images from across the globe, many said to be from private collections and little known sources. The bookAs with Panzerwrecks 2, book 3 is roughly partitioned into four sections again, although Panzerwrecks 1 had three main sections. The book follows the same format as all the Panzerwrecks series, in that it's aimed at presenting a series of rare and mostly unpublished photographs of German armour, after the Germans had finished with it...either wrecked or abandoned. A hint of where this volume differs from the previous two is given on the inside of the front cover, where the author claims that the most of the pictures were taken by servicemen as opposed to professional journalists, and therefore not presented for their photographic quality, but instead their historical value. While he had a point...you can certainly see a difference in terms of quality of photographs between this and the previous two titles. The first section begins with a look at knocked out or captured vehicles around Schwarbach taken by a US cameraman attached to the US 26th Infantry. That's the river Schwarbach in the southwest of Germany rather than Schwarbach region of Bradenburg in the east of Germany! The first section is quite large and begins with a series of pictures of Jagdpanzers taken from different angles, followed by a DKW and a few of Maultiers surrendering. There's an interesting picture of a US M3 in German hands that had been fitted out with Wurfrahmen launchers on the hull sides. A Panther A is shown, and also Panther no. 221 of Kampfgruppe Peiper. There's a picture of a Kettenkrad followed by some Panzer III's and then wrecked StuG M42's. Something shown in this section that I really fancy having a go at modelling are a couple of 'mock' tanks used for training purposes. They look like toys....cute! |
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The second section which shows what's left of Abt.512 surrendering focuses on it's three Jagdtigers and some of it's support vehicles such a Bergepanther and some StuG III's and IV's. Most interesting here is the picture of a Tiger I loaded onto a British 30t trailer. Wonder if it ever got to it's destination? The third section begins with photographs of Panzer IV's of of 6./Pz.Regiment 15, as well as a good mix of other vehicles including a Panther G with it's turret almost cross-sectioned, a pity the photo isn't good enough to see any internal detail, 250's, 251's, Mobelwagen, a nice picture of a Marder IIIM and an Sd.Kfz.10. The last section is by far the shortest, only running to ten pages, and contains a series of pictures of surrendered Panzer IV/70's taken from various angles and showing various details. ConclusionThe captions are the strength of this volume, being up to the standard exhibited in the other volumes in the series, pointing out, as far as can be told the interesting features of each photograph, and identifying it if at all possible. However, having said that, as the author says at the beginning, the photographic quality is not up to the standard set in the first two volumes. Some of the photographs are very similar as well, almost tending to overkill on a particular subject. Still well worth the purchase price though in my view, and invaluable reading! Recommended! My thanks to Lee Archer for the review sample. For full information and ordering please see the Panzerwrecks website: PanzerWrecks. |
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