INTRODUCTION

The history of the Panther and Jagdpanther is well known and has been written about in many volumes, but now for both the modeller and military enthusiast we have a full colour walk around brought to us by Ralph Zwilling, Henry Hoppe and Jochen Vollert.

This new book from Tankograd Publishing provides an exceptional photo walk around of these two restored versions of the Panther that are kept in the Wehrtechnische Studiensammlung (Museum of Military Technology) collection at Koblenz, Germany .The book adds two photos at the end of the Bergpanther that is being restored.

Review

The book is soft cover with 96 pages, and begins with a very good explanation of the history and development of the Panther, Jagdpanther and Bergpanther. The images are of a very high quality, and profile the vehicles during an open house held at the Museum, which featured many other running vehicles from their collection. This is a detailed walk around-type book, with multiple shots of these vehicles to show the interior and exterior which provides the reader with good information that will assist in modelling projects with excellent close up photos. But, the modeller must be aware that the Panther has extra metal cleats welded to the tracks to prevent extra wear and tear, plus a few modern components that have been added, like the fire suppression system. Text is in both German and English (as per other Tankograd titles).

There are a total of 223 colour and 9 black and white photographs including detailed close ups of the Panther and Jagdpanther. Each page consists, on average, of three to four coloured photos with German and English text.

CONCLUSION

This book has exceptional coverage of these restored vehicles from the Koblenz collection. The book is well laid-out in an organized manner starting with the Panther walk around followed by the Jagdpanther section, followed by two photos of the Bergpanther that is undergoing restoration. The captions provide both generic vehicle information, as well as technical information. The only draw back is that there are not more photos of the Bergpanther which would have gave the book that little extra showing three main types of the Panther family.