Casemate Illustrated- The Crimean Offensive, 1944

Book Specifics

Author: Ian Baxter

Price: $28.95

ISBN: 978-1-63624-435-8

Paperback, 128 Pages, 150 photographs, maps and artwork

What's Inside

The Casemate Illustrated series continues to be a wellspring for armor modelers looking to recreate specific battles in their pieces. In this book, we get a look at the Crimean Offensive of 1944 as the Russians looked to push the Germans out and back towards Germany. Contested between the two sides was the Black Sea port and fortress of Sevastopol. The German 17th Army was forced to stay and fight by Hitler against growing overwhelming Soviet forces. Hitler feared the loss of the Crimean peninsula would mean the loss of access to the Romanian oil refineries and the iron and manganese mines at Krivoi Rog and Nikopol. Soviet amphibious assaults forced their hand though, and with wanting to avoid the same fate his Army at Stalingrad had suffered, Hitler finally agreed to evacuation, codenamed Operation 60,000. This allowed German and Romanian warships to take some troops from Sevastopol. Of the 64,700 men still there in the beginning of May 26,700 were left to capture by the Soviets. The chapters are as follows:

• Timeline of Events
• Introduction: Barbarossa
• Battle of the Dneiper, August 26- December 23, 1943
• Kerch-Eltigen Operation, November 1943
• Hiatus, December 1943- March 1944
• The Crimean Offensive, April 8- May 12, 1944
• Aftermath
• Further Reading
• Index

Throughout the book are excellent color maps and black and white photos that help illustrate the struggles and challenges of typical combat on the Eastern Front. Many are in-action shots of soldiers fighting and some of them in between the action. Excellent ideas for your models and dioramas abound throughout. In some cases, the black and white photos are illustrated with color sketches by artist Renato Dalmaso. There are also 4 tank profiles included throughout by artist Oliver Missing. I have included a sampling of all this below...

Conclusion

The Casemate Illustrated series continue to be among my favorite sources for information and inspiration centered on key conflicts of the Eastern Front war. Photos are clear despite their age- they have been downsized here for publication. It is ironic to me to see the parallels between Germany in the 1940s trying to retain ownership of the Crimean peninsula from the Soviets to the modern-day conflict between Ukraine and Russia over the same real estate.

Highly Recommended for Beginner to Advanced builders.

Thanks goes out to Casemate Illustrated for this review sample.

Reviewed by Michael Reeves

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