Review by Peter Brown

This new book is not from that series however, but comes from Poland in a companion series to the established Armor Photo Gallery which, from its number, is the first of more. It deals with a subject which is often overlooked, that of armoured vehicles in an infantry division. At the start of WW2, British divisions included a Divisional Cavalry Regiment equipped with light tanks and carriers, later their role was taken over by the Reconnaissance Corps with the tanks replaced by armoured cars. Infantry battalions themselves had carriers, while artillery units had armoured observation post vehicles in the form of specially equipped carriers and later tanks.

All these are covered here, firstly in a series of contemporary photos from various sources with many coming from private collections. As such, a large proportion will be "new" in that they have not appeared in print before. Each type of unit is dealt with in a separate chapter, starting with the Divisional Cavalry Regiment in a range of Light Tanks including old Mk II and III in Egypt, then Mk VI in various forms including AA versions carrying less than the full complement of guns, plus carriers, the Marmon-Herrington armoured cars - which should properly be called South African Reconnaissance Cars - then later various Stuarts including the command vehicle operated by the Divisional Commander and his protection unit. Next come different artillery types, infantry battalions with their carriers in various forms and colour schemes including some unusual armament. Final section is a move to "real tanks", as the New Zealanders converted three infantry battalions to armour and trained on a range of vehicles from old Crusaders to the Shermans they would take to war.

Photos are good considering that many were taken by the men themselves, all are clear and well printed. Captions give a lot of information, with details of markings and colour schemes which is very useful. One small error has crept in, as the white-red-white recognition marking adopted for Operation CRUSADER in late 1941 is misidentified as so often in the past. However this is a minor point, as long as modellers only apply it where appropriate all will be well.

Following these and adding to them are several colour drawings, front or side views printed to 1/35th scale which is a minor bonus with extra views of markings. These show all the main types in a range of schemes from "Caunter" to styles adopted before the move to Italy.

Tables list all the arm-of-service numbers and colours for the Division and Base Training Unit at various times, a page of special markings for artillery units and organisation tables for the Divisional Cavalry Regiment in Greece and a typical artillery regiment which include the relevant tactical signs.

Most if not all the material here will be new to readers outside New Zealand, and I suspect not well known in New Zealand! It is well researched and well presented, with a good mix of photos, text and colour plates giving a full picture of a neglected subject.

I can only praise both the author for all his work and the publishers for producing a book on a specialist subject. While I heartily recommend it to anyone interested in WW2 AFVs generally and New Zealand units in particular, my one concern is that it will be too specialist for many people which will limit its sales. For that, over to you to buy copies.

Highly recommended

Sample pages from the book

Thanks to Wojciech from Model Centrum for the review copy.

Page created July 6, 2006