Panzerwrecks 22

Desert

World War II in North Africa fans rejoice! The Panzerwrecks team has at long last left continental Europe and crossed the Mediterranean Sea to cover your front. Yes, from Tunisia to Egypt, we now have a Panzerwrecks volume that covers this fascinating early theater of the war. It took them until volume 22 in this highly regarded series of photo studies to get around to the North African front, but it’s very welcome news.

As explained by author Lee Archer on the book’s inside front cover page, this is the first volume of the series NOT centered on the years 1944-45, and a “chance find in the depths of an archive” made this volume possible. Here’s to tireless researchers!

It has been a couple of years since I’ve last reviewed a volume in this long running series, I’m very eager to examine this book.

Vital Statistics

Format - Paperbound, heavyweight, glossy paper, landscape format

Page count - 96 high gloss heavyweight pages

Size - 8.25" x 11”

Photos - 140+ Black and White images

Tables / Drawings / Diagrams - six full page sized artists renderings in full color

What’s Between the Covers?

The hallmark of a Panzerwrecks publication has always been high quality ( more on that in a moment ) photograph selection for their books, as well as the full page sizes of the vast majority of the photographs. This book is chock full of interesting full page sized photos, including the one above of the interesting Panzerjager 38 mounting a captured Soviet 7.62 cm gun on a Czech chassis. This photo also illustrates clearly how the Germans tried to make the high profile vehicle less of an obvious target by digging it into the desert sand ( not that it helped...).

This volume contains an interesting cross section of many ( but not all ) of the vehicles fielded by the famed Afrika Korps, including examples of the Panzer II, III and IV, armored cars Sd Kfz 232, 233, and 261 as well as an occasional view of a few other vehicles including some Sd Kfz 251’s and a couple of other half tracked vehicles.

There are a great many ( a whopping 16 or so pages worth ) images of the Sd Kfz 139 Panzerjager 38 in varying degrees of “distress”, making this book a great reference source for that vehicle. There is also quite a nice selection of photos of Allied equipment ( beute panzer ) presses into service by the always resource-strained Afrika Korps, including Brit Valentines, Crusaders, and Stuart “Honey” tanks, as well as some nice images of Yank M3 halftracks adorned with German camo and balkenkreuz. 

There are no images of Italian equipment other than 3 stray photos on the inside back cover.

New to me in examining this book is the inclusion of six very nicely done full color artworks by a gentleman named Felipe Rodna. These renderings are paired up with the vintage black and white photos of the same subject, allowing the viewer to see more clearly what black and white photos ( taken in bright sunshine in most cases ) sometimes do not clearly show: camouflage colors and markings on these vehicles. This strikes me as a very nice inclusion in the book.

A note on the photographs; the vast majority of the photographs selected for this book are bright, crisp and clear, showing detail very well. The very few that are not, are still quite worthy of inclusion in this volume due to their subject matter and interest. The majority of the photographs are full page in size, with some 1/3 or 1/4 page sized photos sprinkled throughout the book. Even the smaller sized photographs are easily large enough for good viewing of their content. 

The subject matter chosen in this book is both fascinating and useful to those with either an interest of a general nature, or to military modelers in more specific cases.

Above - this would be a great diorama idea!

A note on text and captions; as this series of books is intended largely as a photographic study, text is largely reduced to captions for the most part. The captions do a very nice job of describing what the reader is seeing in the photographs, with the relevant facts ( if known ) well described.

Conclusions

As always, Lee Archer and his Panzerwrecks team have delivered another very well done entry into their highly regarded line. This volume conforms to their usual very high standard.

Crisp, clear, interesting photographs, very solid, informative captions to along with the eye candy, and a whole new theater of war being covered. What’s not to like?

Panzerwrecks publications are as reliable as it gets. I came into this review a fan, and in examining this book closely I remain so.

Highly Recommended ( a MUST HAVE for Western Desert aficionados )

Thanks to Panzerwrecks for the review copy

Reviewed by Chuck Aleshire, AMPS Chicagoland

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