SdKfz 231/234 8-rad: 8 X 8 Armored Car (Military Vehicles in Detail, Vol. 2)

A very detailed book full of facts and information about this German WW2 Reconnaisance vehicle. It traces the history, development and deployment of German Recon vehicles in the 1930's and 1940's. Early on, the Germans recognized the importance of scouting, reporting ahead of the main attack so they created these versatile and mobile vehicles to win the battle of reconnaisance.

About 600 of these vehicles were made - they were expensive, costing about 1/2 as much as a Panther tank, and complicated to maintain. As enemy tanks grew more powerful, it was harder to conduct recon missions. The Germans, always outnumbered, constantly upgraded the firepower on everything that moved, so many varients were produced to adapt to the changes.

Excellent photos of the chasis, engine, interior as well as narrative that describes the different armamament and ammunition. One downside- only four color photos to show camoflague used. Interesting color plates that show German division insignia. Another interesting fact the authour points out is how similar these vehicles were to modern designs such as the German "Luchs" and other modern 8x8 armored cars.

I recommend this book. A very good, consise read on an important part of armored warfare- reconnaisance. Not as glamorous as tanks, but extremely important, even to this day. This book fills a void of an otherwise neglected part of tank warfare.

This book provides a very good history of the development of this vehicle, in most of its major variants, along with great detail on each variant. The detail comes in the form of many B&W photos of the vehicle from a variety of angles and, more importantly, close up. These include photos of interiors, top views, tools and kit and engine, frames and gearboxes. For the model or diarama builder an excellent source. There are also excellent color illustrations on a very wide variety of vehicle markings (i.e., different divisions and regiments, different functions [i.e., long range reconnaisance, command vehicle, long range communications vehicle, etc.). There are also some color photos of versions currently in museums in color but these, unfortunately, do not provide good color camouflage patterns. This is the one real weakness of the book from a modeler's perspective (and hence four stars instead of five). It is highly recommend, for these camouflage patterns, one reference either one of the Schieffler publications for the vehicle (if one has plenty of money to burn as these are expensive) or one of the Osprey publications on the vehicles (much more cost effective albeith there are fewer color plates - but the ones there are are very detailed and cover the vehicle in profile from every angle, [side, top, front, back]). Another weakness of the book is that it is really not intended for the non-model builder. There is little discussion or photos of the vehicle in combat, operations, performance, operational history (as opposed to developmental history of the vehicle per se) and no comparisons of the vehicle with allied counterparts.

This book and this series for that matter, is wonderful for the scale model builder or wargamer who is interested in German military vehicles of WWII. This book focuses on the 8 wheeled variant armored cars used by the German Military with great success during WWII. It gives an excellent vehicle/design history, info on tactics, lots of specific mechanical details, tons of images including actual photos, period diagrams, even a section on unit markings. It would be an excellent resource for any scale model builder who is building a "Puma" or other sdkfz 231/234 vehicle. This is just an all around good book from a very useful series of books.