PMMS

bookDas Heer der Bundeswehr im Kalten Krieg 1967-1990/ The Modern German Army in the Cold War 1967-1990

by Peter Blume

Tankograd Militarfahrzeug Special No 5010.
Soft cover, A4 size, 64 pages

Review by Peter Brown


This book follows the story of the West German Army started in "Die Anfangsjahr des Heeres 1956-1966 / The Early Years of the Modern German Army 1956-1966 by the same author" (see for review) as it changed and developed in response to the Cold War threat from the Warsaw Pact. During this time it expanded to a force of 340,000 men with over 5,000 Main Battle Tanks.

Two major reorganisations took place as the Army conformed first to Heeresstruktur 3 (Army Organisation 3) and later to Heeresstruktur 4. The composition of Armoured, Armoured Infantry and various types of Infantry Divisions is given including their home stations and Divisional badges in colour.

This is followed by a photographic study of the army on exercise showing a wide range of softskin and armoured vehicles, then separate sections on the development of the separate combat arms during this period with photos of the equipment. These cover the Armoured Corps, Tank Destroyer Units, Armoured Infantry, Armoured Cavalry, Artillery, Army Air Defence, Combat Engineers and Army Aviation.

Several types of vehicles are covered, M48-series, Leopard 1 and early Leopard 2 tanks, M107, M109 and M110 self-propelled guns plus LARS, MARS/MLRS, Honest John and Lance rockets and missiles, HS30. M113 and Marder I infantry carriers, several Jadgpanzers, Luchs, Fuchs, Gepard, Roland, M48 and Biber bridgelayers as well as softskin vehicles in various shapes and sizes.

If there is any drawback to this wide coverage it is that each vehicle cannot be covered in detail though some have already appeared in print and others no doubt will. Main value to the book is that it shows it all as well as covering the organisation of the Heer at this period.

All is well produced as usual, with dual German and English text and photo captions.

Available from Tankograd distributors, for more details contact the publishers Verlag Jochen Vollert on jochenvollert@tankograd.com My thanks go to Justin Gainham at Bookworld for the review copy.



Page created October 9, 2005

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