Book review – Images of War – German Guns of the Third Reich

Images of War – German Guns of the Third Reich –Rare photographs from wartime archives, Ian Baxter, Pen & Sword Books, 2004, 128 pages.

One book I really miss in my WWII library is one on German WWII artillery. I would like something with technical and operational details and detailed descriptions on the guns, preferably with a lot of photos and a blue-print or two.

This book looked promising.

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So, what’s in it?

The chapters are

- Introduction

- Structure and training

- Infantry guns

- Heavy guns

- Anti-aircraft guns

- Anti-tank guns

- Transporting guns

- Super heavy guns

- Mounted self-propelled guns

Now this looks promising, and leafing through the book I was hopeful. But what I found out was that the text wasn’t that good really. Very basic about the different gun families, and a bit about some of the guns. But no hard facts.

But the photos? The book title does mention photos. No worry, they are here, there are a lot of really good ones, and it’s hard to find them.

Who decided that this book didn’t need an index?

That was a really bad decision! At the moment I build a couple of Pak 36. It would be nice to easily find some detailed photos of them.

That will not happen, unfortunately. If I check through the book, I find pictures of this 37mm gun on pages 25, 83, 84, 85, 90 and 109. And none of them give me a clear look on how it looks on the backside of the shield, the info I was looking for…

Well, I have a photo of that of my own, from Museo Militar in Seville

So, all in all, I’m a bit disappointed. On the one hand good photos, on the other hand… they are hard to find and don’t necessarily give the detailing I wanted, and the text wasn’t that informative really. But, the title really says it all, it's about photos. So, not the book I was looking for, but not a bad book. Not necessarily a great one either.

I give this book a rating of a 3 out of 5.