Introduction

Tankograd Publishing has added a new book in their growing line of Technical Manual Series of pictorials. The new book deals with the U.S. WWII Tank Recovery series of M32 vehicles as well as a section on the T1E1 Mine Exploder vehicle. This publication is particularly welcome with the recent release of the Tasca M32B1 in 1/35 scale. As far as I know the only kit/conversion available for the T1E1 is actually a T1E3 mine exploder conversion done years ago by Verlinden which is meant to be attached to a M4 Sherman. The E1 version is particular to the M32 and I’m not sure if the Verlinden kit can be adapted to the M32, if it can than this reference becomes even better, if not, perhaps a T1E1 is on the way from Tasca or one of the other active manufacturers?

Contents

The book follows the formula of the others in the Technical Manual Series; 48 glossy pages, complete English text, 130 or so clear photos, all in black and white except for the inside front and back cover which are nice period color photos. Each photo is nicely captioned as well with some of them providing a full paragraph of information regarding the image. The photos are a nice mix of period shots from WWII, Korea, as well as US Army technical manual photos that are more detail oriented. The book also contains a short three page history of the development of the M32 family as well as a one page narrative on the T1E1 as part of those respective sections. In addition to these larger sections you also will find short sections on the armament, .50 cal and M1 mortar, radio suite, M34 Prime Mover, the TRV Bridge Layer Conversion, and the deep water fording equipment of the M32. I was particularly impressed with the number of photos that provided a clear guide to the nomenclature of these equipment laden vehicles.

Conclusion

I would imagine that what most modelers are interested in is whether or not the book provides a good number of nice clear detail shots that will be helpful when cutting and gluing plastic and PE. The answer to that question is an unequivocal yes. If your reference library on the M32 consisted of one or two photos in an encyclopedia of armored vehicles this would be a nice addition, however, if you are planning on building the Tasca M32 this book would be great reference to have close at hand.