Introduction

Tankograd Publishing saw a gap in the market for dedicated military vehicle photographic reference titles, the result of this realisation is the Tankograd in Detail Fast Track series of titles. These must be proving popular as the 19th offering in the series has now been released covering the ‘Bushmaster Australia's Protected Mobility Vehicle’.

Review

I will start by saying that I am a big fan of this book series from Tankograd Publishing and I will not apologise for that. This offering as with all previous releases in the series is a soft backed book. Inside this title consists of 40 pages of good quality gloss paper stock. The text in the title is printed completely in English, but it should be pointed out that these titles are deliberately published with limited text as photographs do all of talking in the title.

It is my understanding that gaining access to Australian hardware is very difficult, this being due to the Australians being very protective of their equipment and abilities. This title begins with a couple of pages of text covering the general aspects of the vehicle and its export to other militaries around the world. The rest of the title is turned over to photographic reference, and I believe it is for that reason that this book will attract the most attention.

The titles photographic content starts with some general all round pictures of the Bushmaster in the field before moving onto close up photographs of the hull. The close photographs provide some excellent information on areas and details that may normally be missed, but for me it is details pointed out in the photo captions that make this title so good; an example of this aimed straight at the modeller is pointing out how the paint on the vehicle is worn by travelling across the bushland.

The title continues to then look at specific areas of the vehicle covering the chassis, roof, armament, engine, interior, cab, remote weapons system and spark system. All of the photographs are of a high quality and provide excellent reference; the captions that accompany each photograph do an very good job of explaining what you are looking at or drawing your attention to a specific point of interest. The title finishes with some general shots of export Bushmasters to the Netherlands and Japan.

Conclusion

As I said at the very start this is an excellent reference resource at a reasonable cost. The text is light for those who want to read, but it is not the intention of the book to provide written text, that said the captions that accompany each photograph are very good. With these aimed at the modeller it is hard to see what else we could want from the title.