Introduction

The modern Finnish Army is among the best equipped users of the German Leopard main battle tank and its variants. In addition to the already (Special 8005 - Vol. 1) portrayed Leopard 2A4 FIN main battle tank, Leopard 2L bridge-laying tank and Leopard 2R armoured engineer vehicle this publication now shows the four most recent additions to Finland's unique Leopard motor-pool: the Itpsv90 Leopard 2 self-propelled anti-aircraft gun, the Leopard 2A6 FIN main battle tank, the Leopard 2A4 FIN mine roller, and the Leopard 1 armoured recovery vehicle.

Review

This book released by Tankograd publishing has a page count of 64 good quality glossy paper pages for the presentation of the contents. These are protected by a card cover that does a pretty good job as long as the books are not abused by liquids and the like. The pages are held in place with staples which is possibly the only weak aspect of the books as a whole. This particular offering is authored by Andreas Kirchoff. This book is one of the duel language releases from Tankograd with German text on the right and English on the left of each page.

The Finnish did a good job of utilising captured equipment from the Soviets and also fielded weapons from a number of countries especially those supplied by Germany. Move forward to the present and the Finnish Armed Forces are again fielding a great mix of German armour that have the Leopard 2 at their soul. This is the second title covering Finnish armour and is a great accompaniment for the first title.

While this title covers a mix of Leopard 2 armour in use with the Finnish such as the Leopard 2A6, Leopard 1ARV and Leopard 2A4 FIN Mine Roller, for me it is the coverage of the Itpsv 90 Leopard 2 SPAAG that gains my interest and fortunately is the vehicle with the greatest cover in this title. The Itpsv 90 Leopard 2 Self Propelled Anti-Aircraft Gun is very reminiscent of the German Gepard, which while not the most effective weapons system today to tackle aircraft it is an impressive weapons system.

The photographs in the title are very pleasing to me being of good quality and in colour, the focus is spot on and enables the viewer to pick out details they may be looking for. The images that clearly show the camouflage used by the Finnish is particularly interesting to me and has a lot in common with the Swedish camouflage. If it is the photographs that sell the book then it is the captions that make them worth the money; the captions are provided in both German and English and at what I think of as the meat to the bones that provides information that you could not get from the image alone.

Conclusion

This offering from Tankograd is a must is a great follow up and addition to the first title released on the Finnish armour. The photographs are first rate and cover the mine roller and Itpsv 90 Leopard 2 SPAAG particularly well as regards my needs as a modeller. The text being duel language is a common feature to Tankograd and increases its appeal to their native speakers as well as the English reader. The captions are the part of the title that deserves mention as they are the unsung stars of the title as regards what information they provide.