Introduction

Tankograd publishing has a series of magazines covering the East German Military. There are currently five magazines in this series taking a look at the equipment that was in service during the Cold War. This magazine covers three vehicles, an artillery gun and flare pistols in use before the re-unification of Germany.

Content

This magazine which is the 5th issue under the title Fahrzeuge und Waffen der Nationalen Volksarmee und der Bewaffneten Organe der DDR is a quite short magazine with a glossy card cover and 32 A4 good quality glossy pages. The magazine looks at;
SPW 50PK (BTR-50) Amphibious Armoured Infantry Fighting Vehicle
152 mm Haubitze M 43 (D-1) Howitzer
Kettentraktoren S 80, S 100, T 100, T 130 Bulldozers
Multicar Multipurpose Carrier Vehicle
Flare Guns

Review

This magazine is printed in German and has German and English text for each of the pictures provided. Tankograd publishing stat there are 8 colour and 96 black and white photographs included between the covers.

SPW 50PK (BTR-50) Amphibious Armoured Infantry Fighting Vehicle
This vehicle is covered in 17 pictures and 1 graphic, the images are quite good all things considered and have the benefit of showing the vehicle in service as opposed to a clean show room vehicle. I particularly like the images showing the SPW 50PK (BTR-50) entering and in the water as they show the major asset of this vehicle.

152 mm Haubitze M 43 (D-1) Howitzer
This artillery gun segment has 7 pictures and Tankograd publishing has thoughtfully supplied a considerable amount of information in English in the text that accompanies every picture throughout the magazine.

Kettentraktoren S 80, S 100, T 100, T 130 Bulldozers
This section is easily the largest segment in the magazine with 1 graphic and 42 pictures of the various diggers/gun tractors in operation. If you have an interest in this specific equipment type then this magazine is worth hunting down for this section alone.

Multicar Multipurpose Carrier Vehicle
This section of the magazine has 18 pictures of what must be one of the oddest looking vehicles I have seen in a while. Despite what looks like a very small vehicle with all the aerodynamics of a house brick, this vehicle looks to have been put into use for a huge number of tasks not least of which is as a snow plough.

Flare Guns
An area not often covered but looked at here is the flare guns in use by East German forces. The duel barrels on these flare pistols would likely have you ducking for cover as they look like shotguns with pistol grips. One aspect I like about this section is that Tankograd publishing has taken the time to supply images of the holster and a piece of equipment which was used by meteorological units in order that the pistol was fired perfectly straight into the air.

Conclusion

This is a new series to me which while having only 32 pages is crammed with pictures. It shows I believe the lengths that Tankograd publishing go too picture wise, as I suspect that pictures of equipment being used in East Germany during the Cold War are hard to come by in a suitable quality. If you have an interest in this period of the Cold War and East German forces this magazine should be a must for you.