Concord Publications Company

British Armour in North-West Europe Volume 1. Normandy to Arnhem

by  Dennis Oliver

Reviewed By  John Ratzenberger, IPMS# 40196

MSRP: approx. $14.00 ISBN: 962-361-164-1 Website: Website: www.concord-publications.com Review Item Supplied by Dragon Models USA: Website: www.dragonmodelsusa.com Vital Stats: soft-cover, 8-1/2 x 11, glossy paper; 70 pages of material consisting of 6 pages of text, 8 pages of color profiles, and the rest fully captioned black-and-white photos. This book, from their Armour at War Series, covers what the title says. The first 6 pages contain a brief outline of the organization and structure of major British armored forces at regiment, brigade, and division level, with coverage of both corps and divisional units. Note these are British units, not Commonwealth. Also note that 79th Division "Funnies" are not included in this book, and some special formations, such as the RAF Regiment, get only cursory mention. Still, it is a nice summary and a nice introduction to the meat of the book. The bulk of the book, some 56 pages, contains fully captioned black/white photos -- nearly all of them very clear and sharp. The photos run more or less chronologically and show a broad range of units and vehicles. Not many of the photos are "combat" but that's OK, they're all wartime Northwest Europe. There are 2-4 photos per page, for a total of well over 150. All photos are from the Imperial War Museum (IWM) collections and tagged with the IWM number, and this is also used to tie related photos together by the captions where needed. Having the numbers available allows a researcher to dig a bit deeper. The photos show a broad brush of vehicles and units -- there is a lot of variety here, not just dozens of shots of a few vehicles. The captions are very well done and informative -- there is an effort to point out things in photos that may not be obvious because of photo quality, shadows, etc -- such as units, uniforms, cap badges, AoS markings, and one case where the vehicle track has been put on backwards, etc. There are 8 pages of color profiles, 2 per page, which are interesting and useful. What this book is not, is a reference on British vehicle camouflage and markings. Nor is it a historical reference -- you won't find much about the campaigns, the equipment, the tables of organization and equipment, etc. For all that you'll need other, sometimes more specialized, references What this book is, in my opinion, is a very valuable resource for the armor, figure, and diorama modeler. The photos are natural pictures of vehicles and soldiers doing things -- riding, fixing, chatting, loading up, etc -- mostly all natural, not posed. Particular note should be made of the foliage used as camouflage. Highly recommended to the British modeler; I await the next volume eagerly. My sincere thanks to Dragon Models USA for the sample, Concord Publications for producing the book and IPMS/USA for allowing me to review it.