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Der Strabokran: German Gantry Crane 1942-45
History of gantry cranes - main tool of maintaining the new Tiger and Panther heavy tanks and Elefant tank hunter near to the front line. Also gantry crane were used from 1944 onward for loading and unloading of delivered A4 (V2) rockets onto the launching trailers.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2011
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February 17, 2022
Got this for Xmas, 2020. I want to scratch-build one or two of these cranes, in 1/72. The few kits of the Strabokran I found in 1/72 seem to be about £30-40+. I managed to get my copy of this book for a little over £20. That seemed, to me, better use of my limited funds; this way I can build my own models, for the cost of a few bits of plastic profile, plus I get this plush reference work, for about the same cost as buying an off the shelf kit.
Of the several similar format books I've bought in the last few years, this isn't the best, or my favourite. The minimal bi-lingual text (English/German) isn't terrific, and the quality of the images is quite patchy. But, nevertheless, overall it's still excellent reference, gathering together plentiful contemporary photographic imagery - albeit of very mixed quality - and supplemented by numerous line diagrams.
The latter include 1/35 scale plans, which will be very useful for me, once the dimensions are halved. Another of my minor gripes, however, relates to the overall clarity of all the info', both textual and graphic. I'm in my third or fourth perusal of the book, and I still find it all very confusing, with all the differing variants, and issues around the quality of the translation from German.
Of the several similar format books I've bought in the last few years, this isn't the best, or my favourite. The minimal bi-lingual text (English/German) isn't terrific, and the quality of the images is quite patchy. But, nevertheless, overall it's still excellent reference, gathering together plentiful contemporary photographic imagery - albeit of very mixed quality - and supplemented by numerous line diagrams.
The latter include 1/35 scale plans, which will be very useful for me, once the dimensions are halved. Another of my minor gripes, however, relates to the overall clarity of all the info', both textual and graphic. I'm in my third or fourth perusal of the book, and I still find it all very confusing, with all the differing variants, and issues around the quality of the translation from German.
Displaying 1 of 1 review