Review by Terry Ashley

The book is aimed directly at modellers with 224 colour taken from two surviving K5 (E)s and 31 b&w wartime action photos of various K5s to give further insight into their use and fittings. Also included is a large fold out sheet with full 1:35 and 1:72 plans of the K5 (E) plus 1:10 drawings of the different ammunition types used with the guns. There are also scrap view scale drawings of some individual sections of the guns to give more detail than is shown in the overall plans.

There is a brief historical rundown of the two featured guns with the majority of text being with the photo captions to devote most space to the excellent close-up walkaround type photos. Of interest is the identification of Ausf.C and Ausf.D types differing in the position of aiming platform.

The first gun featured is the Ausf.C “Leopold”, currently housed at the US Army Ordnance Museum, Aberdeen, MD which along with “Robert” was deployed during the Anzio landings in Italy and collectively referred to as “Anzio Annie” until captured by the US Army 168th Infantry Regiment and sent to Aberdeen for evaluation.
This gun is in remarkably good condition considering it has been sitting in the open for the last 60 years and this helps provide some excellent details shots.

The 30 pages devoted to “Leopold” have superb close-up photos of every aspect of the gun, the gondola and rail trucks with the text clearly pointing out details added over the years which are not original including the current two tone cam scheme which should help modellers when building the kits.

Some of the details shown are the shell loading tray and support, the gun and mounting with excellent shots of the cable ducting on the sides of the gun. There are views of the gun mounting, elevation mechanism, recoil and equilibrator cylinders taken from inside and under the gondola to show details not normally seen as well as photos inside the gondola showing the bulkheads and wiring.

Close-up shots are provided of virtually every external detail on the gondola and upper platforms with all those small details most wanted by modellers before the attention is turned to the rail trucks.

These are again covered in a series of superb close-up shots taken around the trucks with wheels, brakes and end chocks covered as well as some insect views of the undersides offering enough details to really do those trucks in the Trumpeter kit justice.

The second gun is an Ausf.D from Musée du Mur de I’Atlantique – Audinghen, Per de Calais, France which was discovered in an old state artillery workshop in 1980 and is not in as good a condition as “Leopold” due to the lack of care over the years.

Eight pages are devoted to this gun with more excellent close-up shots of the gun, gondola and rail truck details to supplement those of “Leopold” with the captions again detailing the images.

The final section has 15 pages of b&w wartime photos showing various K5’s in operational use as well as several of “Leopold” and “Robert” showing the distinctive frames over the gun for the camouflage canvas which gave the guns a look of normal rail wagons during transit. The different smaller detail differences between the guns is also highlighted in the more extensive text that go along with these photos for a good operational description as well as detailing the photos.

Conclusion:
This is another excellent photo essay from Armor PhotoGalley providing invaluable close-up details of the K5 that is bound to be welcomed by modellers building either of the available kits.

The inclusion of the scale plans is a nice bonus with this book being another one of those must have references.

Highly recommended.

Sample pages from the book

Thanks to Wojciech from Model Centrum for the review copy.

Page created October 30, 2005