The book begins with a one-page overview of the history of US half-tracks, then includes a few vintage photos illustrating the main variants.  There are no in-action photos at all, so be prepared to go elsewhere for those.  The meat of the book, however, consists of close-up photos of the above-mentioned vehicles, both inside and out.  Short of having a half-track in your back yard, this is as good a photo coverage of the minutae of these vehicles as you are likely to get.

By and large, the photo selection and quality are good, although some of the photos taken of the vehicles at the World War II Vehicle Museum are rather dark - no surprise there, as I certainly did not find this a very camera-friendly museum either.  Nonetheless, there is excellent photo coverage of all of the major areas of these vehicles, including the .30 calibre and .50 calibre machine gun mounts, the tracks and suspension, and the crew compartments.  Noteworthy is the very good documentation of the Maxson M45 quadruple .50 calibre turret.

Rounding out the book are three pages of nice colour profiles, plus great Don Greer paintings on the covers.  I personally like to see photos of the vehicles show in colour plates included in the books, but this is a minor nit-pick.

Overall, this is an excellent and quite reasonably priced reference on these important vehicles.  Highly recommended for US armour enthusiasts or anybody working on a US half-track model.  Now all we need are some new-tool kits to go along with this great book!

February 8, 2005