Panzerwrecks 24- German Armour 1944-45

Book Specifics

Author: Lee Archer

Artist: Felipe Rodna

ISBN:  9781908032249

Price: £24.99

Softcover,  128 pages with 141 photographs and 7 artwork pieces

What's Inside

Lee Archer and Panzerwrecks are back at it with another excellent volume in the series. Anyone who's reading this review is probably pretty familiar with the Panzerwrecks series so I won't go into great detail describing the format. In just a few words- if you are new to armor modeling or learning more about armor, you can't go wrong with perusing through these books and taking your time closely viewing the contents. The Index is tacked into the inside of the front cover which is a bit out of the ordinary, but it doesn't detract from the content. It includes a list of the vehicles you'll find inside, Identified Locations, and Identified German Units. Here's the list of vehicles directly from the Panzerwrecks website:

The majority of the images inside are full-page photographs, although some spreads include two or three photos per page. The majority of the photos are clear and crisp, and some do have the blur of motion and in some cases age has not been kind to them. However, they are all of value to the reader and modeler and provide a wellspring on excellent reference material.

Some of the things that stand out to me that I really like about the book are that in many cases, there are more than one view of a tank, like seen in the above photo. So often, one only gets one view of a tank in profile, so it is great to see a tank from different aspects. I also really dig the QR code aspects of some of the photos- which when scanned lead you to a modern-day view of the area from the photo's setting in Google Maps. It is amazing to me how in many cases, so little had changed in an area nearly 80 years later. Many of the buildings are recognizable and in cases, rebuilt to look exactly the same.

There are seven instances in the book where a photo is recreated by Felipe Rodna's excellent art skills. I have included one such example below:

I have tried my best to scan the images and stay true to the quality of the book, but as you approach the center, it is increasingly difficult to scan well so I apologize for some of my scans. I don't need to tell you how difficult it was to narrow down the scans from the many excellent choices inside. There are some real excellent reference photos inside-- including close ups of interiors, gun and breech details, and surface details like zimmerit, concrete armor, and the like. The accompanying captions also provide excellent information and details that the average reader might completely miss.

Conclusion

Lee Archer and Felipe Rodna and their team at Panzerwrecks once again do not disappoint. Every page is well worth a close look and inspiration flows from each page for the modeler. The late-war German armor is not my go-to favorite, but one or two of the Rodna art pieces have me thinking of picking up a Jagdtiger or Jagdpanther kit in the future maybe. Any book in the series is worthy of picking up- and this one follows suit to be sure. Well worth the cost and another quality volume!

Highly Recommended for anyone interested in late-war armor.

Thanks goes out to Panzerwrecks for this review sample.

Reviewed by Michael Reeves

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