Basic Item Information

Review Summary

Detailed Review  

Although I jumped at the opportunity to review this book, to be completely honest, I wasn’t expecting to 1) See a lot of uncommon photos of the 6 and/or 8 Rad (wheeled) Sdkfz 231 series of armored cars OR 2) To learn a whole lot about those vehicles that I didn’t know already.  No offense to Tankograd, but there has been a LOT of books published on these vehicles, especially the 8 rad Panzerspahwagen.  Plus, I have a lot of those references in my collection as I am a full blooded “wheelie” (i.e. wheeled fighting vehicle enthusiast).  You may or may not already know that I am the founder of the WarWheels.Net website, which centers on “wheelies”.  Just visiting the website would fully explain my interests.

Back to the review… Anyway, I have to say I was not only surprised, but literally stunned by this book.  There are TONS of uncommon photos in this vehicle and I did learn a bit by reading this book.  Awesome!!  The author provides 121 high-quality black and white photos of all the versions of both the 6 rad (wheeled) and 8 rad (wheeled) series of Sdkfz 231 armored cars. The vehicles covered in this book are as follows:

Accuracy of Information

Comparing the book to the information/references I have in my personal collection, I find it to be very accurate.  Among the sources I consulted are “Panzerspahwagen: Armored Cars Sdkfz 3 to Sdkfz 263 (Panzer Tracts No. 13)” and “Schwerer Panzerspahwagen (Sdkfz 231) 8 Rad (Museum Ordnance Special Number 11)“ by Thomas Jentz, “Puma and Other Heavy Reconnaissance Vehicles” and “German Eight-Wheeled Reconnaissance Vehicles” by Horst Schreiber and “Die Gepanzerten Radfahrzeuge: Des Deutschen Heeres 1905-1945” by Walter Spielberger.

I did not identify any wrong or misleading information contained in this book and there is absolutely no reason for me to believe the information is inaccurate in any way. I don’t think I missed any significant errors either. 

Editing of Information/ Text Flow

All in all, the text flow (e.g. the writing ability of the author) and editing of the information is good. The book was originally written in German with a full translation in English done afterward.  Therefore, the typical differences/nuances in word use between the two languages can seem odd at times.  Also, I did find a few typos and misuse of words, but those were few and far between.  Ultimately though, there is absolutely no problem understanding what the author is trying to convey and I didn’t find myself getting at all distracted by these slight issues.

The information is provided in a logical and organized way and wasn’t confusing.  The book structure makes sense too in that it the book is presented by vehicle type (6 vs. 8 wheeled vehicles) and then each of the vehicle variants of those types are described.

Photograph Quality and Selection

The quantity, quality and selection of photos provided in this book are exceptional.  First of all, the quality of the photos is superb, especially considering the number provided, their content and the age of these photos.  They are clear and crisp and rival any photographs taken in this day and age (except for them being black and white vs. color).

As for the number of photos provided, a whopping 121 (42 of the 6 rad/ 79 of the 8 rad) are provided in 64 pages.  Considering these vehicles served mostly in the beginning/middle of WW II, and photos of that period are not too common, that fact is even more impressive.  The point about this book that really impressed me though was the sheer amount of photos of these vehicles which I hadn’t seen before.  The selection was top notch!!  And even the photos I’ve viewed in other sources were not the same 5-10 overused ones contained in most other books about both 231 series of armored cars. 

Another great feature of the book was that a lot of the photos were such that you can recognize specific details and are easily useable for modeling projects.  Basically, you don’t just get a lot of photos with 231’s and 232’s in the far distance, but clear close ups of the vehicles.  Sweet!!

The only minor issue I have regarding the photos is their placement in the book.  That is, just about every one of the 120 photos are placed after the text information, rather than interspersed throughout the volume. I found myself leafing back and forth numerous times between the text in the front of the book and a specific photo(s) at the end of the book.  Although this isn’t a huge issue to most people, I prefer books to be arranged such that the text and photos of similar topics are together, rather than apart.

Use as Reference

Although this book is not the “end all” resource on the 6 and 8 wheeled versions of the Sdkfz 231 series of Armored Cars, it is a VERY good resource to have in your collection if you are even remotely interested in these vehicles.  This book is an excellent reference for modelers as well as vehicle enthusiasts. Although, the amount of information given by the author about the vehicles is not huge, it is more than sufficient for anyone but the diehard 231 lover.

With that being said, this book offers a lot to even those hard corps armored car enthusiast types like me.  For instance, the author VERY effectively uses the photo captions to point out the basic differences between production variants (early vs. middle vs. late) and vehicles manufactured by different companies (Bussing-NAG, Daimler-Benz and Magirus).  He makes it almost easy to tell the differences between these complicated vehicles.

Lastly, even omitting the text information, this book is really worth the money due to photographs provided. Instead of reinventing the wheel by repeating my thoughts on the photographs, please read see the section “Photograph Quality/Selection” if you haven’t already.

If you could only have one book in your reference library on the two series of Sdkfz 231 Panzerspahwagen, you couldn’t go wrong picking this book as that one source.

Quality of Print Medium

This edition is a sturdy 8” x 11 ½” soft cover book.  The construction of the book facilitates fairly frequent use/reading of the book, but probably won’t hold up extraordinarily well with constant use.  Obviously, all soft cover books suffer from the fact that they don’t hold up as well as hard cover books.  The pages are a bit on the thin side when compared to other books in the same quality/price range.  However, there should not be any problems with the book being easily damaged as they are sturdy enough.  With all this being said, in my opinion, this book is a bit sturdier than other soft cover books due to the slightly thicker material used for the cover. 

Conclusion

Once again, Tankograd has produced a great modeling/vehicle resource.  If you are at all interested in WWII era German armored cars in general or interested in 6 and or 8 wheeled Sdkfz 231 series, this book is for you.  This book would be a great addition to your reference library if you have a cursory interest in armored cars or you are a full fledged Panzerspahwagen enthusiast. All the major variants of both series of cars are fully covered and there are a large number of high quality and uncommon black and white photographs provided.  You can’t go wrong by buying this book!!

Recommendation: “A Must Have”

Thanks to Tankograd Publishing for the Review Sample.