Pen & Sword

Images Of War

German Self-Propelled Anti-Tank & Anti-Aircraft Guns 1939-1945

Pen & Sword Publishing’s Images of War series is pretty well known to military history enthusiasts and model builders. This wide ranging series of books are primarily photo heavy, with not an awful lot of text other than photo captions and chapter opening pages.The titles in this series generally share similar sizes and formats.

This particular volume covers the wide range of WWII German self-propelled anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns, both purpose designed and built by the Germans, as well as conversions of captured enemy equipment pressed into German service. The German forces fielded a wide variety of these self propelled AT and AA guns, making for for a very interesting range of subjects for study and model making.

Vital Statistics

Format - softcover, portrait format

Page Count - 108 pages

Size - 7.5” x 9.75”

Photos - 200+ Black and White images

Tables / drawings / diagrams - none

All text and photograph captions are in English

What’s between the covers?

Above - the rather basic but effective table of contents.

As this is a pictorial history, images are first and foremost in this volume. Text is limited to 4-5 pages opening each chapter and the photo captions, which are generally pretty informative. The captions do vary in terms of how much information is provided, likely due to where the image was sourced from.

The subject matter images are good sized, with most being 1/2 page sized with a few full page sized images as well. Some images are quite clear and sharp, others a bit less so.

The photographs are mostly of the “in-action” style, showing the vehicles in the field or preparing for action. In contrast to some other books of this sort, there are few if any after action, wrecked vehicle images.

Above - the images found throughout this book are generally of good interest, with a good amount of detail visible. The image on the right side above would be a good reference for an eye-catching camouflage scheme on a flak half track!

Above - among the more rarely seen vehicles found in this book, the “Sturer Emil” with its massive 128mm gun. Only two of these vehicles were built for the Russian campaign. One was captured by the Soviets at Stalingrad, the other was likely lost on the drive across the steppes to that city. Note the kill markings on the barrel in the top photo!

The quite wide range of mobile AT and AA vehicles featured in this volume illustrate clearly why kit manufacturers produce so many kits of German WWII subjects. It seems that the Germans mounted guns on just about any platform available, home-grown or captured from enemy forces. This book provides at least a glimpse at most of them.

The book concludes with a two page appendix which lists the self propelled Anti-tank and Anti-aircraft valiants seen in this volume.

Conclusions 

This volume would serve quite well as an introductory reference for those seeking basic visual information about the various vehicles used by Germany in WWII for anti-tank and anti-aircraft purposes.

While focus is rightly directed on the photos, the text opening the chapters is informative and the photo captions are clear and well written.

The images themselves range from quite crisp and clear, to a few of them being somewhat dark and grainy. That said, the vast majority of the photos selected by the author are of good interest. There are more than a few images in this book that sparked my interest for future builds!

Recommended

Thanks to Casemate Publishing for the review copy

Reviewed by Chuck Aleshire, AMPS Chicagoland

AMPS 2nd Vice President, Midwest Region 

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