Introduction

Following on from World War Two Britain had a fantastic tank in the form of the Centurion, a tank that proved itself a match for just about anything in the Korean War and even caught the eye of the Americans. So good was the Centurion Tank it was exported to a huge number of countries and served well into the 1990’s with a few countries, the UK even had them serving in the first Gulf War. The British then produced the Chieftain, its first main battle tank and another great tank with an issue that hurt its export potential.

Review

The book offering is part of the photo sniper series of titles from Kagero. This is a soft backed book of 72 pages, a good quality glossy paper protected by a car cover. This title can be considered a publication of three parts, a section on text, one of photographs and finally artwork.

The text section covers the Chieftain tank reasonably well from inception, but the text is a little weak when it comes to in service information. The text section consists of 25 pages that are well laid out, but it needs to be remembered that the text is well supported with photographs and schematics. These additions to support the text do a good job and I am very pleased to see them in here.

The dedicated photographic section consists of 37 pages and these are of great benefit to anyone of you tackling the Takom range of Chieftain Tanks that numbers four at the moment. Of course you also need to remember the Chieftain Marksman self propelled anti aircraft gun that while not covered here the reference on the hull is still valid. The photographs can be considered as split into two parts with some 1/72nd scale tank plans thrown into the mix for good measure. The first section is a number of what I refer to as general shots; these provide some nice reference on general look and may give you some ideas on how you wish to display a model. The final set of photographs is the bit that the photo sniper books do so well, the walk around of the Chieftain. This section cover the Chieftain tank inside and out to quite a high degree considering the amount of available space. The last things to say here are that the pictures here and indeed throughout the book are well supported by the text captions.

The last section of the book provides 20 side view graphics of various Chieftain tanks that may give you some ideas about how you wish to finish your model assuming that is why you are reading this.

Conclusion

This book offering from Kagero is a good mix of text and imagery; the text provides a reasonable level of detail for those interested in the Chieftain tank while not being so heavy going that the modeller will not read it. The photographs are well covered by the captions and provide not only visual reference, but also a good mix of display and finishing options. All told a good reference book all round.