Nuts & Bolts Publications

Volume 24, Pz.Kpfw.II Ausf.D/E and Variants

by  Heiner F. Duske, Tony Greenland and Detlev Terlisten

Reviewed By  Ben Guenther, IPMS # 20101

MSRP: $62.00 Soft cover, A4 format 8.25 x 11.75 inches, 160 pages, 249 B&W photos, 34 color photos, 14 pages of color plates, 18 pages of 1/35 scale drawings, 14 sets of detailed line drawings, eight organization charts and 41 tables. Review copy courtesy of Dragon Models USA Website: www.dragonmodelsusa.com Each new volume that Nuts & Bolts Publishing brings out is always eagerly awaited because armor modelers know that a highly intimate and detailed study will result. Volume 24 does not disappoint as it covers the Panzer II Ausf.D/E tank that only saw combat during the Polish invasion in 1939, after which they were withdrawn and converted into the variants described in this volume. I learned that the Panzer II Ausf.D tanks were assigned to armored battalions on lorry, meaning that the tanks were loaded on the back of trucks believing that this form of transport would be fast. Besides the one tank on the trucks back a second one was towed on a trailer. The Polish invasion proved this concept was flawed, when the battalion came upon a destroyed bridge or one whose weight limit was too low the tanks had to be unloaded, a very time consuming process. In addition, photos show that the trucks were top heavy and prone to tip, thus spilling the tank onto the ground. After Poland the two battalions on lorry turned in their extra trucks and converted into standard armored battalions. When this book looks at a tank or its variant the process is the same. It begins with a description of the history, development, structural details and operational use in English and German. Then a pictorial study proceeds, which is very useful for the modeler and finally presented are the 5-view drawings and perspective illustrations. Some subjects like the Bridge layer tank, the training tank and turrets on pill boxes suffer in the number of pages presented because they were not made in large numbers and few photos exist. The bulk of the book covers the Panzer II Ausf.D/E, the Flammpanzer and the Marder II self propelled anti-tank panzer in detail. From a modeling perspective all the photos and drawings will be helpful when time comes to build the Alan Panzer II Ausf.D kit and the Alan Marder II kit. Also I liked the fact that the color profiles incorporate a small photo in the upper right corner of the vehicle illustrated, so you can see what the drawing was based on. I can highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to use it as a reference to build a more accurate model or to anyone who is interested in military technology and history. I would like to thank IPMS/USA and Dragon Models USA for the chance to review this book.