bookAllied-Axis
The Photo Journal of the Second World War
Issue 14
Ampersand Publishing.
96 pages soft cover.


Review by Terry Ashley

The Book:
The fourteenth in the series continues the same formula of good close-up photos plus wartime photos. Many of the in action photos are one to a page which allows the details to be clearly seen with the large photos while the close-up detail shots are usually two or four to a page, still large enough to clearly see the details. Each page has brief descriptions at the bottom of each picture.

Contents of issue 14:

240mm Howitzer: (Pages 2 to 29)
A typical A-A coverage on the 240mm Howitzer with many wartime photos starting with a few shots of the howitzer on the six wheeled carriage being towed by an M35, M6HST and M33. Next follows a sequence of photos showing the preparation of a gun site and the assembling of the multi-part carriage and howitzer with the aid of a truck mounted crane and goes a long way to demonstrating the sheer size of this weapon.
Following this is another sequence showing the loading of the projectile and separate bagged charges and final firing.
The later tacked T17 transport wagons are shown loaded with a howitzer carriage and finally the T16E1 transport carriage is shown loaded with the howitzer for an excellent photo coverage of the 203mm howitzer.

Nebelwerfer: (Pages 30 to 46)
This section is a detailed photo coverage of the 21cm Nebelwerfer 42 and 15cm Nebelwerfer 41 with overall shots of the weapons and extreme close-ups of the spring loaded electrical contacts and sights as well as the tube wiring along the sides of the tubes. There are also some tech manual shots of the carriage plus wartime shots of a Nebelwerfer being prepared for firing. There is a good shot of rockets being unloaded from an Sd.Kfz.11 and and another being towed behind an Sd.Kfz.10.

Mercedes G4: (Pages 47 to 53)
This short section has two shots of wartime G4s, one with Hitler's vehicle and the remainder are and excellent close-up walkaround shots of the preserved G4 at the Auto & Technik Museum, Sinsheim, Germany and cover the exterior and interior to good effect.

M3 Lee Pt3: (Pages 54 to 78)
This third part on the M3 should really be titled "M3 Crews" as every photo has the crew posing in front of their respective M3 and are an excellent reference for the different informs and other equipment laid out in front as well as the state of dress between hot and colder climates and is definitely a useful photo essay.

Horch 901 Type 40 E.Pkw: (Pages 79 to 96)
This final section has many wartime photos of the Horch Type 40 (the type in the older Italeri kit #215, not the Tamiya Horch kit) and these show the vehicles and crews offering good details as well as storage and other details. Finally there are five pages with close-up walkaround photos of the Horch from the Auto & Technik Museum, Sinsheim, Germany with exterior and interior shots.

Another excellent book in this ongoing series.


Thanks to Ampersand for the review copy.

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Page created January 8, 2005


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