AJ Press Churchill Vol 1 - front cover

Title: Churchill, Vol. 1
Author: Leszek Moczulski
Publisher: AJ Press
ISBN: 978-83-7237-195-9
 
This is very much a book ideal for modellers and is another first class addition to this series of Gunpower, soft cover large format books from AJ Press.  If you have an interest in the Churchill, in it's many guises, this will be useful.  The other attractive news is that this is labelled as Volume 1, so we know there is more to come.
 
Filling 176 pages, this is packed with dual language text (Polish and English), which also applies to the captions for the many photos and drawings.  The text covers the early prototype and then the production versions of the gun tank, before moving on to the many speciaalised versions used by the 79th Armoured Division (The Funnies) and others, all backed up with a large number of archive photos, good scale drawings, colour side views and their excellent computer generated 3D Graphics of the early mark gun tanks, from Mk 1 up to the Mk III.
 
The text is good, and I discovered details about one or two variants that I hadn't been conscious of before, and they are backed up with good clear archive photos.  For anyone building the likes of the Tamiya or AFV Club kits this will be useful, and also for those using the conversion kits made by Inside the Armour, such as for the 3in Gun Carrier and the ARV Mk II.  There were a couple of very minor points in it I am not sure are quite correct, such as the surviving 3in gun carrier only being at Bovington, yet the remains of I think 3 (ex-range targets) are at the Cadmans site and pictured among the references in the ITA Models kit when you buy it.  These are very minor quibbles overall though and this is a really first class reference.  Anyone interested in the 'Funnies' will love it I'd suggest.  Among the things included are 'Onions' and 'Goats' (demolition charge layers), the different types of bridge, including the Italian eld workshop conversion to an ARK, where standard US bridging ramps were attached on each end, the turret removed and plated over then the vehicles that crossed it used the top run of track on the Churchill to drive over.  It also includes coverage of the Black Prince, a development for an upgraded variant to carry the larger 17lber gun, but in the end it was rendered unwanted thanks to the end of the Centurion design.
 
All in all an excellent book and good value for money, and ideal for your bookshelf if you have any interest in the Churchill gun tanks and AVREs. Highly recommended.
 
Thanks to Casemate Publishing, the distributors in the UK for our example, it is available now.
 

For full details on this title, and all other Casemate Publishing titles, please visit the Casemate website.

For ordering please see here: Casemate UK