Introduction

When it comes to armour during World War Two, many modellers will instantly think of the various mass battles that took place in the East, or perhaps the Battle of the Bulge springs to mind; however I very rarely hear about the armoured forces during the invasion of Italy and I cannot remember anyone mentioning Cassino as it tends to be thought of as an infantry battle. In this book from Model Centrum and written by Jeffrey Plowman which provides us with an insight into the Allied Armour present during the battles that took place as the Allies pushed through Italy.

Review

This recent publication from Model Centrum was sent to us by Casemate publishers. The title Camouflage and Markings of Allied Armour in the Battle for Cassino Jan – May 1944 is number 12 in a series of publications from Model Centrum. The book is written by Jeffrey Plowman and is a soft backed book of 55 pages.

This book has an unusual style in that the text is white and the pages black, this brings the black and white pictures into stark relief and so allowing the eye to take in more details of the images, I believe. The text is fairly short, but it provides a quick background to the battles leading up to this point and the images are provided with comprehensive descriptions.

The pictures in the book are all black and white and of a good quality for their age. I am sure you will not be surprised that the ever present Sherman tank features in a large number of these images, but there are other vehicles that get a look in, perhaps most notably the Valentine bridge layers.

The images themselves will be greatly appreciated by the modeller as they provide great pictorial reference as regards weathering. The images will also have appeal to those modellers who like to display their builds in unorthodox ways, this is due to a fair number of them depicting armour that has had a hiccup or been destroyed in fighting. These images offer us as modellers the opportunity to accurately depict some of the Allied armour involved in the fighting or to display your models in accurate settings.

At the end of this title there are 7 colour plates covering 12 vehicles, these are printed in colour on the more usual white pages. These colour plates depict the vehicles in a weathered state rather than clean and I rather like this approach as it also provides guidance for modellers.

Conclusion

Due to the limited number of pages in this title it is not really for members who want to know the ins and outs of the fighting that took place in this region; however for the modeller, which we all are, this book is fantastic reference for depicting Allied armour with realistic weathering and settings. The images also allow us to accurately display armour that has been disabled, destroyed or just come a cropper, and it is for the scope of the included images that I highly recommend this book to you.