Crowood Press

Scale Military Vehicle Conversions

by  Duncan Howarth

Reviewed By  Mark Aldrich, IPMS# 39295

MSRP: $29.95 ISBN: 978-1-861268-88-4 Now this is one of the really cool model building books. This fantastic tome is 174 pages long. It is soft cover bound and full of great model ideas and useful hints. Mr. Howarth is an incredible model builder. All the models included are constructed from scratch. Well, almost all the models are constructed from scratch. The book is broken down into 17 chapters. This includes un-chaptered Acknowledgements, Tools, bibliography, and index. The chapters are all model builds with each chapter progressively getting harder and more complicated conversions as you progress through the book. The builds include a Hetzer Flammpanzer 38(t), a Canadian Ford Ambulance, a T27 Jeep Rocket Launcher, a T19 105mm Howitzer Motor Carriage, a Panther Raketenwerfer (Skoda), a KV3 Obieckt 220, a M31 Lee ARVII (my personal favorite), Diorama Construction, Panzer Kampfwagen II Ausf C mit Schwimmkorper, a Sherman BARV (Beach Armored Recovery Vehicle), a BAD 2 Amphibious Car, and finishing with a Vomag with 88mm Flak. The builds are incredible. Mr. Howarth, unlike many other model builders, does not use any of the name brands most of us have grown accustomed to. He does it the old school way. Or at least the way I wish I had more confidence to do. Almost all of the conversions in this book were done with plastic. Throughout the book, he uses almost every possible form of styrene and Plastistruct on the market. The only resin he uses is the Vomag wheels that a friend sent him for this project. They appear to be "FAMO" style wheels. I would like to thank John Wurm of the MBI Publishing Company and IPMS/USA for this fine book to read and review.

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