Model Armour

I have been looking around at books of late and see the spielberger books cited as the mutts so to speak, just wondered if anybody has them/ any, and if they are as good as they are told to be?

My reference library is shockingly bad, (reliant on tinterweb and what can be found ) but I would like at some point to do something about this issue, the afore mentioned appear to be 'sharp breath' expensive but fundamentally could be a one stop reference yadda yadda you know what I am trying to say

So any views?

I own the books on the Stug, Tiger and Leopard, and I've looked through several others. It's impossible to make a general judgement, as they vary in quality very much. also, most of them are already quite old and therefore might not reflect newer research. The general focus is on the development history, where they usually give a good overview including the direct predecessors of the subject in question. In the Tiger book these are the various Henschel and Porsche prototypes, in the Stug book the various attempts to develop a suitable self-propelled artillery platform.

The Tiger book feels a bit chaotic as text and pictures often don't match up. The Stug book however is very good and gives a good coverage of the different versions, including the sIG 33, the Flamm-Stug and even the various support vehicles like the Sdkfz 252/253 and even the Bergepanzer III and Flakpanzer III, which were, in theory, designed to support Stug units. There are organisational diagrams of Stug units and a separate chapter dedicated to Stug production, with pictures and plans of the factories. If you have any interest in Stugs and don't want to afford the two History Facts books, you should definitely get this one.

The Leopard book is a massive volume that deals with the entire development of German tanks since 1945. It covers various proposed designs from the 1950's as well as the entire Leopard 1, MBT 70 and Leopard 2 development history. It ends with an outlook on the Leopard 2A5, which was the next step in development when the book was written. As with the Stug book, it is very well made and offers good value for money.

Philipp

Have both spielbergers and jentz/Doyle books. The latter I prefer although spielbergers covers many more vehicles. The panzer tract books are also the DBs.

Incidentally, forget Trojca full of errors, although in fairness this may just be translation errors


Stewart.

Thanks for the info fellas, I have a couple of panzer tracts and also the jentz panther book, must admit to liking the the jentz books very much and must obtain some more as soon as possible.

Shame about the spielbergers, I was eye balling the tiger volume as I have a project with full insides to do.

Any other recommendations with that in mind?

Vlad,

the Tiger book has several interior photos and drawings as well as detail photos from internal components like the engine and the gearbox (from technical manuals, most likely). If you can get it for a good price, you should take it.

Philipp

try Tiger I and Sturmtiger in detail by Culver and Feist, Ryton publications in conjunction with Jentz, you should have everything you need from those two books.

Jean Restayn has two books out, Tigers on the Eastern front and Tigers on the Western front, great dio material. there was a third book in the pipeline detailing the interior but I do not know what has happened, was scheduled for release Jan 2010

Stewart