Military Model Scene
Robin Buckland's
Allied Coastal Forces of World War II, vol I1...
...Vosper MTBs & US Elcos, from Seaforth Publishing
Title: Allied Coastal Forces of WWII vol 2
Author: John Lambert & Al Ross
Publisher: Seaforth Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-5267-4755-6
The second volume from authors John Lambert and Al Ross, this time dealing with the Vosper MTBs and the US Elco PT boats. First published back in 1993, and since then, sadly author John Lambert passed away back in 2015, and he was the man behind the simply amazing series of scale plans which feature in these books. Sometimes you might think that older books don't have the level of detail to be found in more modern publications. Not so in this case, despite having been written well over 25 years ago, this remains such a simple gold mine of information and remains a primary source on the subject. Thank goodness Seaforth have been able to publish this new large format hardback edition.
Packed with John Lambert's amazing scale drawings along with detailed text that detail the designs, archive photos, tables of production details and what happened to individual boats. Following some background to both Vosper and Elco, we have detailed accounts covering the various designs from both companies, including licence built Vospers. Added to this are details such as camouflage patterns, which make use of some fine colour artwork profiles. That then moves on to an assortment of weapons systems which were fitted to the boats, along with Free French operated Vospers plus details of a few surviving examples, though this is only up to the late 1980s, as per the original publication date of the book.
Over 250 pages packed with an amazing level of detail and a degree of research effort from both authors, that can only be admired. Anyone with an interest in Coastal Forces, veterans, historians and modellers, and I suspect even some boatbuilders and those restoring any of these old boats will find this of interest. This is a book I think should really be on your reference bookshelf. I can't recommend this one highly enough.
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Thanks to Pen and Sword for this review copy.
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Robin