Introduction

The latest issue of Fahrzeug Profile is with us from the publisher Unitec. This release of Fahrzeug Profile concentrates on the Reforger 88 exercise, and in the case of this title concentrates mostly on the US Forces that took part, but the Canadians and the Germans are not completely overlooked in this title.

Review

The Reforger exercises took place every year from 1969 through to 1993, with the exception of 1989. These exercises were some of the largest to have taken place in peace time and involved a lot of men, vehicles and aircraft operating in civilian areas as well as military training grounds. This title looking at Reforger 88 is a duel language publication; the text is in German and English; German on the left side and English on the right. This is a soft backed book with a card cover and good quality gloss paper inside. The book consists of 48 pages, but you can add the cover inside and out to that tally.

The text is spread through the first half of the book, and this has been done in such a way that you find yourself reading it even if the pictures had been your only initial interest. Due to the size of the book the text has had to be limited, but I did find quite a bit of the information presented of interest to me in relation to the pictures in general.

The photographs in the book all appear to be of a reasonable quality as regards colour photographs of that period. Each of the photographs is accompanied by a very good caption in both German and English; I describe the captions as good as they go beyond this is a Canadian Leopard and provide further information in most cases. The American Forces who took part in this exercise are the predominant focus of this title, but the Canadian Leopards and German Forces also get some attention, in the case of the Germans mostly towards the end of the title.

The photographs cover the exercise from deployment, through the training and even the units returning to bases at the end of it. The air support units are not forgotten, and while this primarily means rotary wing aircraft the A10 Warthog also makes a showing. My one complaint about the photographs is their small size; by this I mean that for the most part there are three photographs on each A4 sized page. One photograph that did catch my eye was an M110A2 with a wet weather cover in place driving along a road, this is something I personally have never seen before and was of interest to me as a display option.

Conclusion

This latest edition of Fahrzeug Profile is a good reference type book for the modeller, but its constraint as regards pages does mean that the photographs are smaller than I would have liked to see. On the plus side it does mean they have been able to provide more photographs than would have otherwise been possible. I suppose that due to the number of members we have on the network that are ex forces, it is possible you may even be inside this title.