Military Model Scene

Title: Italian Soft-Skinned Vehicles of the Second World War Vol 2
Authors: Ralph Riccio, Mario Pieri and Daniele Guglielmi
Publisher: Helion & Co
ISBN: 978-1-804514-91-7

Covering the Motorcycles, Cars, Trucks and Artillery Tractors 1935-1945, this second volume comes hot on the heels of volume 1, which I reviewed only recently. This is a 225-page soft-cover book from Helion & Co.
This second volume takes on the story to both medium and heavy trucks, along with trailers, artillery tractors and other specialist vehicles. It starts with some helpful references, including a list of colour plates, a list of common abbreviations and another of prefixes and suffixes used in Italian vehicle designations. Then we get into the meat of this second volume, with the detail on medium and heavy trucks, not only from a variety of the different Italian manufacturers but also the different body variations. So we see GS trucks, buses, tankers, ambulances, even horse/mule transporters and more. Manufacturers such as Alfa Romeo, Fiat and Lancia are well known, but other lesser known makes are also here, such as Bianchi Miles, Ceirano, Isotta Fraschini and OM (Officine Meccaniche. Together they made some good looking trucks, but simply didn't have the production facilities to be able to make enough to really satisfy the needs of the Italian army over the course of the war. Then it gets to the various artillery tractors, some wheeled, some tracked. The very first one is among the most interesting to look at, the Pavesi P4, a 1901 design still in service in WW2. Plenty more of course, and many featured large wheels, with solid, semi-pneumatic or pneumatic tyres. Both Breda and SPA tractors feature well in this section. Even a couple of Italian copies of the German Sdkfz 7 stle half-tracks. Then Special Purpose vehicles, such as the Sahariana and Camionetta patrol vehicles, before getting to a short section on trailers, which I found particularly interesting. The book is rounded off with 3 appendices, covering Camouflage and Markings, a summary of Italian truck manufacturers and fially a table of soft-skinned vehicles produced under German control between 1943 and 1945.
This is a marvellous reference on Italian soft-skinned transport, spread across both volumes, with a wide variety of modern equipment, including background and service plus basic statistics on each one. In addition to many archive photos throughout the book many subjects include multi-view line drawings which are very useful for modellers. My only regret over the line drawings are they they are not all to a common scale, which in my mind would have made them even more useful. However, with a bit of extra work by the reader, they can be used when knowing the basic dimensions of each type. Considering there is so much reference available on US, British, German and Russian trucks already available, this is certainly the best single reference I've seen covering the Italian army in WW2. Definitely recommended in my view.
Thanks to Helion & Co for this review copy.

Robin