Military Model Scene

Title: US Army Tractor Trucks and Semitrailers
Author: Didier Andres
Publisher: Casemate
ISBN: 9780-1-63624-590-4

A 'Special' in the Casemate Illustrated series, distributed in the UK by Script Books. A 160-page hard-cover book.
First published in French by Histoire et Collections but this is a new English translation from Casemate Illustrated. It is devoted to one of my favourite subjects, soft-skin trucks. In this case the articulated trailers and tractor units operated by the USA during WW2. It is spread across 12 chapters, tackling trucks in the various weight classes, from 1 1/2 tons through to 20 tons, plus their assortment of trailers. They include well known ones, such as the M26 tank transporter, with both the armoured and unarmoured cabs included. Then add various size fuel trailers, low loaders/flatbeds, General Service (GS) trailers and a host of specialist trailers, such as a 50-seater bus, pontoon carriers, radars and many others. As for the tractor units, there are again multiple manufacturers involved, including Autocar, Ford, Federal, White and more. A useful appendix at the end has a table which lists all the different manufacturers of the tractor units and trailers, along with the huge numbers of them which were produced during WW2. There are individual chapters covering Special series of tractors and trailers, even one on the dollies that were made so trucks without a fifth-wheel coupling could tow them plus their continued use post-war. Packed with well captioned archive images throughout the book.
Trucks may not have the glamour associated with tanks and combat vehicles, but they are essential. I spent most of my working life closely associated with distribution operations, and with hundreds of articulated trucks in daily operations. I loved this book, and with some of them being available in model form, in both 1/35 and 1/72 scales, this one has jumped straight in near the top of my list of favourite references. Super book for modellers and truck fans.
Thanks to Script Books for the review copy.

Robin