Introduction

Tankograd has released two new titles this month looking at the Hemtt heavy truck. This vehicle serves in many variants and these two new books from Tankograd Publishing provide a great insight for the modeller.

The following portion of the introduction is as supplied by Tankograd:
HEMTT - Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck
Development, Technology and Variants - Part 1
The HEMTT family of vehicles is a series of heavy off-road-capable 8x8 trucks in the 10-ton class. Introduced into service in 1982, these vehicles have formed the backbone as transport and logistic assets of combat and combat support units of brigade combat teams and divisions of the US Army until today. This publication is the much enhanced standard work on the HEMTT. It covers the basic types M977, M978, M983, M984, M985, M1120 and M1977 plus their variants now up to the A4 versions. Extending over two volumes in 128 pages and with no less than 265 colour photographs, many of which hitherto unpublished, it replaces the original long sold-out original edition Tankograd American Special 3003.

Review

These two offerings from Tankograd Publishing covering the Hemtt have been authored by Carl Schulze. They are soft backed books having a card cover and a total of 128 pages, the books running seamlessly from one book to the next. The text is written in German and English, German on the left and English on the right of each page.

The text is very well written and covers the base vehicle and its variants to a good standard. I will admit that those interested in the vehicle from a study point of view will want more from the written portion, but there is a lot of data provided that will prove of interest to those looking for such. The modeller will find the text of interest primarily where it covers the variants of the vehicle I suspect, but the areas that will really appeal the modeller are the sections offering scale drawings in 1/35th scale and the schematic drawings that help the viewer determine what they wish to do with a model of the Hemtt should they wish to modify the base kit.

One thing that Tankograd Publishing does to an especially high standard is the photographs they use. It is true that some photographs are of questionable quality in some of their publications, but that only happens where they have no other choice in order to cover specific aspects of vehicles that were in use or in combat from times past. The photographs chosen for these two titles are of a very high standard and cover a wide range of vehicles and locations that the vehicles have served in. The photographs are only half the story though as Tankograd Publishing rank in my eyes as one of the very best when it comes to the captions that accompany each photograph; The detail the captions provide answer the questions you may have and to some extent bring them to life.

Conclusion

These two books on the Hemtt are I suspect only the beginning as Tankograd have a habit of releasing what would be an expensive book in bite sized and affordable portions. The text is well written and easily understood. The photographs make this title a great visual reference for the modeller with the captions making these especially helpful. As a modeller it has to be the scale drawings that really loosen the purse strings and make this a complete package.