Vehicles of the Modern Norwegian Amry - book cover from Tankograd Publishing
 
Title:  Norge Haerens Stryrker
Author:  Clemens Niesner
Publisher:  Tankograd Publishing
 
'Vehicles of the Modern Nowegian Land Forces' to give another description. I can't say I've seen a lot of detail over the equipnment used by the Norwegian armed forces these days, but that's what makes this an interesting title.  For all those years of the Cold War (and no, that is not meant to be a pun about the snow) we got used to seeing NATO exercises that included deployment by NATO units to the Norwegian flank.  We had the oversnow vehicles (now doing equally well over sand!) while Harriers and Jaguars with white camouflage were fairly well documented.
 
With the end of the Cold War and the perceived threat from the Warsaw Pact, that has moved our focus elsewhere.  The Norwegian Army though goes on of course.  Not too much of a surprise I guess to say that snow features in a lot of the many photos that illustrate this soft cover book from Tankograd.  The first 10 pages are the dual language text that gives details of the recent development of the Norwegian Armed Forces, their history and development through the Cold War and beyond.  See the organisation, deployments and the policy behind it all explained.  This is followed by some 70 pages or so of good quality and well sized photos of all sorts of vehicles, from small patrol cars, through engineering equipment, trucks, APCs, tanks and an unusual tank destroyer.  In the album below we can show you just a random selection from the book to give you an idea of what you will find.
 
Of course there are the Volvo Bv 202 and Hagglunds Bv 206 over snow vehicles in various guises but there are also US built M113s and M557, M109 and MLRS.  Added to this find German built Fuchs APCs, Leopards 1 and 2 along with the Hagglunds CV90 combat vehicle.  See MAN trucks and bridgling equipment, along with the fully tracked Biber as well.  One of the unusual items included is the NM116, a 90mm armed tank destroyer based on old M24 Chaffee chassis.  These served up until the early 1990s apparently, not one I was familiar with.    Assorted Scanias and then the smaller Hummer-like Iveco LPP (which is also the Panther in British army service).  The shear variety of equipment, colour schemes and their use in the snow white environment of Norway gives this lots of inspiration for modellers.  All the photos throughout are well captioned, both in German and English.  All in all a very interesting read, and covers one of the less frequently talked about NATO nations and the commitment they make to the organisation.  If you are looking for something a bit different to model, you could well find it here.

Thanks to Justin at Bookworld for the review sample. To see other titles from Tankograd, please see their website.