Introduction

Tankograd’s new book covers a great variety of the vehicles used by the Danish Army in the previous decade up till present time. With Accurate Armours conversions for the Leopard 1A5DK, M41 DK-1 and M113A2 PNMK M/92, as well as the newly released Leopard 2A5DK from HobbyBoss, this book is a must for any modeller, in need of information’s about the Danish Army structure and photo references of the actual vehicles used.

Overview

“Danske Haeren" - The Vehicles of the Modern Danish Land Forces” by Clemens Niesmer is a bilingual German/English publication, printed on high quality semi-gloss paper in a format close to A4.
The book contains 64 pages with 132 colour photographs and two ORBAT diagrams. The colour photos in the book are of very good quality. The photos show approximately 80 different vehicles in the most common black and green, the desert tan and a few quite interesting painting schemes used in Iraq.
The photos are primarily concentrated on a truck section, the Piranha variants, M113 variants, M41 DK-1, Leopard 1 variants and Leopard 2 variant – most of them are “in action” photos from exercises and missions abroard.
All text in the book, including photo captions is printed in two languages.
The first part of the book is dedicated to a short introduction to the Danish Army, from the Vikings up till this day - as well as a quite detailed section describing the army structure as seen in 1993, 2001 and today.
The photo captions give the reader a short, but useful story, unit and technical information about pictured vehicle.

In depth

The book contains the following:
- Introduction – covers the historical background of the Danish Army
- Denmark’s strategic role – describes the situation during the Cold War as a part of NATO
- DAP – Mutual Defense Aid Program
- ORBAT of the Danish Army – describes the chain of command
- ORBAT of the Danish Army as of 1993
- The Danish Army in Transition – covers the major reorganisation in the late 1990’ies and the beginning of this century
- The Danish Army Today
- Military Missions Abroad – includes a list of the Danish Army involvement in missions across the world
- Danish Forces in Iraq – provides informations on the mission and structure of the Danish contingent in Iraq
- The Danish Home Guard

The vehicles covered in the book:

Land Rover Series III Model 88 - Land Rover Half-Ton with TOW ATGW - Land Rover Series III 109 LWB
Mercedes 240 GD/24 – Mercedes 240 GD/28 DEOS – Mercedes GD270 CDI/28
Volkswagen T4 M70TDI – Volkswagen T4 M70M
Dodge W300M Power Wagon
Mercedes 2-ton Unimog 416
MAN 8.136 FAE – MAN 8.136 FAE Fitters Vehicle - MAN 8.136 FAE SRS - MAN 8.136 FAE Electronic Jammer
Mercedes Unimog L1550/37
Mercedes LA911/42
MAN 18.225 LAEC – MAN 18.25 LAEC ADBCC
Mowag Eagle I with and without the MBK 2 observation cupola.
HMMWV M1045A2 with TOW – Converted HMMWV M1045A2 Fast Attack Vehicles
LKW 4,5 t Bedford MJP2 with M/77 shelter
Iveco Magirus 110-17 AW with Feltbro (bridge) - Iveco Magirus 110-17 AW Trackway-layer - Iveco Magirus 110-16 AWM
LKW 5 t Mercedes 1213/36 - LKW 5 t Mercedes 1017A/36
LKW 6 t MAN 13.192F/42 – MAN 19.314 FAEC
Mercedes 2626K Fuel Tanker - Mercedes 2628K38 Fuel Tanker - Mercedes 2628A/45 Recovery
Iveco Magirus MP260E37H Dump Truck - Iveco Magirus MP260E37H with 40ft flatbed - Iveco Magirus MP260E37W - Iveco Magirus MP380E42W – MAN 27.314 DFAEC (UAV and ARTHUR)
MAN 40.400 DFT – MAN 33.464 DFLT – MAN 35.460
Iveco Magirus MP410E42W (With and without the 6,8 t HMF 3452 K3 crane)
Leibherr L544 Wheeled Loader
Sisu Patria XA-185 (6x6)
Mowag Piranha IIIH APC- Mowag Piranha IIIC Ambulance
Hydrema 910 MCV (Mine clearing)
Hughes 500 M Helicopter – AS 550C3 Fennec Anti-tank helicopter
M113A1 – M113A1 Command and Control - M113A1 with Barmine Layer Trailer – M113A1 Engineer Vehicle – M113A1 Ambulance – M113A1 “Dummy Tank” – M579A1 Fitters vehicle – M113A1 with TOW – M113A1 Green Archer – M113A2 Mk I DK (PNMK M/92) – M113A1 ACAV - M113 G3 DK – M113 G3 DK with TOW – M113 G3 DK Command and Control – M113 G3 DK Ambulance – M113 G3 DK EXT – M113 G3 DK EXT Ambulance
CV9040A – CV9035MkIII
M41 DK-1
Centurion Mk V/2
Leopard 1A3 – Leopard 1A5 DK – Leopard 1A5 DK withTWMP track-width mine plough – Leoprd 1A5 DK with Dozer
AVBL Biber Bridgelayer
Centurion AVLB Bridgelayer – Centurion ARV Mk II
Bergepanzer 1 & 2 ARV
M578D ARV
Leopard 2A4 – Leopard 2A5 DK
M109A
M270A1 MLRS

Conclusion

Except for a translation mistake, only noticed by Danes like myself (The book should have been named “Danske Haer” or “Den Danske Haer”, not “Danske Haeren”) – the first impression of Tankograds new book on the Danish Army is quite good!
It’s an excellent book for everyone interested in the Danish Army. It’s loaded with vehicle photos, giving a lot of inspiration and ideas to dioramas, vehicle painting schemes and camouflage types.
Even though I would have preferred a book concentrating on the major AFV’s in the Danish Army inventory – I think most readers will find the variety of vehicles shown in the book quite interesting.
Looking for detail shots, the reader would most probably be a little disappointed – It’s not the intention of the book to go into details, but to give a general view of the Danish Army vehicles.
I would highly recommend this book as a general reference for Danish Army vehicles. As said before, it’s a must for anyone interested in the Danish Army.