Author | steentottrup |
Timestamp | 16/11/2009 |
Kit(s) | HEMTT - U.S. Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck |
This is the first book I've bought from Tankograd. The book has 64 pages, with 124 color photos and 8 black and white scale drawings (in 1/72 scale). The materials used for this book are good, all pages are printed on quality semi-gloss paper. All text in the book is written in both English and German.
Overview
The book starts out with 9 pages of text and a page with technical data for most of the mentioned variants. The text section is divided into 16 sub-chapters:
The rest of the book is divided into 10 chapters:
Content
As already mentioned the text is in both English and German. I haven't read the book from start to finish in both languages, but did run into a few headlines that did not completely match. In the title of most of the main chapters of the book, the crane was translated into a winch, so the title of the M977 chapter in English is: M977 Truck, Cargo, w/winch, w/o winch. This might be the right title, but is does seem a bit odd.
I'm guessing that the book was originally done in German as the author, Carl Schulze, is German, but the English translation is really good.
One of the scale drawings is a five-view drawing (front, back, left, right, top) and the others are all drawings of the left side of the vehicle (different variants), with all major dimensions.
Most photos more or less shows the complete vehicle, but the book does contain a few photos showing more of the details of the vehicles. Most of the vehicles are in three color NATO camouflage with only a few in desert tan. Most photos show vehicles in the field, and as such, lots of details are lost in the shadows.
Conclusion
Judging the book by its cover, or more its title, I was expecting more details on the differences between the various models.
Of course I have no problem spotting the differences between the M977 and the M978, but how about the M977 and M985, and the M1977 and the M1120?
This book will certainly help you super detail your HEMTT model, but it's not obvious what things you have to remember if you're building your M977 kit into a M985. And if you're planning on converting your M977 kit into a M1977, M1120, M978 or some other variant, you're going to need more than this book.
With the amazing amount of information it is possible to dig out here almost 65 years after WWII, it should be possible to get more details on a vehicle still in use today. Or so I would think. Maybe this has never been the idea behind this book?
I must say I was a bit disappointed by this book. Too many photos showing the complete vehicle and too few showing details and variations. The thing that still does speak for this book, is that the prices is right. Just don't think you've found a cheap book that will have answer all your questions on the HEMTT family of vehicles.