Military Model Scene

Title: M65 Atomic Annie
Author: Michael Franz & Jochen Vollert
Publisher: Tankograd

This is Tankograd's American Special No.3042, a new and extended version of an earlier title, no. 6008. A soft-cover book of 72-pages is is packed with excellent illustrations. There are 17 colour photos, along with another 95 black & white plus 105 extracts from the original Technical Manual. That's not quite all though, as the back section of the book covers the huge Russian super-heavy 406mm 2A3 and 420mm 2B1 self-propelled artillery pieces as well.
The M65 and its' Russian counterparts were designed post-WW2 to deliver atomic artillery shells, but these weapons had a quite short service life as they were quickly replaced by the potential offered by missiles instead. The coverage of the M65 breaks down into 3 main sections, one each for the front tractor unit, the gun carriage itself and then the rear tractor unit. Both the American and the Russian guns are now only museum pieces. The history of the weapons is provided in the text sections, which are provided in both English and German languages, as is also the case for the informative captions that accompany all the images, and which add even more to their stories. For the M65, the extracts from the original technical manuals give some first class detail which I think will be particularly attractive to the modeller.
Unusual looking weapons and excellent photo references. For modellers who may have such as the 1/72 kit from Dragon Models of the M65, this will be a valuable reference, and well priced. For the Cold War historian, some fascinating reading.
Thanks to Bookworld, who are UK distributors for Tankograd books.

Robin