I was browsing some books today, and got to thinking what items would an armor modeler consider essential to own as reference? This can include web-sites, books, magazines, etc…
Shep Paine’s Modeling Tanks and Military Vehicles and How to Build Dioramas would be a great start. I think they’re both still available from Kalmbach.
If US armor is your thing, the RP Hunnicutt books are great, but expensive. Squadron Signal “Walk Around” and “In Action” armor books are a good, inexpensive source of armor reference.
There are also various “modeling guides” produced by Osprey and Ampersand. Many of these are targeted at a specific vehicle, such as the Sherman or Panzer IV in 1/72 scale, for example.
Well – there’s a lot out there:
If German armor is your thing: then the Panzer Tracts series, Panzers in Saumur, Achtung Panzer. Jentz’ titles by Schiffer Publishing.
For Allied: Robin already eluded to the superb Hunnicutt series (expensive and rare). You might consider
David Doyle’s Standard Catalogue of US Military Vehicles.
Schreier’s Standard Guide to US Tanks and Artillery
Fred Crismon’s “US Tracked Vehicles” and “US Wheeled Vehicles”
For specific tanks, excellent books exist (Firefly, Churchill, Char B1 bis, etc.)
Chamberlain and Ellis did Encyclopedias of German armor and US and Brit armor.
For overall WW2 armor: the Concord photo series, Allied-Axis magazines, the various Squadron Signal books. I find the Osprey books to be hit/miss.
For websites with good photos, look here:
http://www.network54.com/Forum/47208/message/1195653552/Other+great+photo+sites
The main AFV modelling websites are these:
www.missing-lynx.com
For the latest industry news and a huge cache of reviews:
http://www.perthmilitarymodelling.com/whatsnew.htm
Good stuff so far! I love researching the subject as much as building it.
I’d add:
General Modeling
Armour Modelling - John Prigent (Oeprey)
WW2 German
Tigers in Combat Vol. 1 - Wolfgang Schneider
Tigers in Combat Vol. 2 - Wolfgang Schneider
Web-links
http://www.alanhamby.com/paint.html - Tiger paint reference
http://www.worldwar2aces.com/tiger-tank/ - General Tiger reference
If you can find them, any Tech Manual from the Govt. is a great reference. I’ve got some from the W.W.2 era for U.S. vehicles and they’ve got some great info and pics. Even though some of the pics are “re-touched”, I find them very useful.
I was really lucky to find them but I think that if you look hard enough , you’ll find some or someone who has one or some.
If you have a particular U.S. vehicle in mind , contact me and I’ll refer you to the TM info, if I have it of course.
Also GOOGLING works real good too.
For a lot of major US WW2 vehicle types, Mike Powell has scanned the Technical Manuals and offers them on CDs. See his site at
http://www.easy1productions.com/
He is a very nice guy and provides quick service.
Gary
A good source of digitized documents is this too: