Matériel de génie - Allemagne : beaux livres - histoire, types et technique

The fruit of the seven years' research, this book is devoted to the vehicles and crossing equipment used by the German pioneers during World War Two, a theme neglected by military specialists until now.
It now fills the gap, tracing the development of amphibious vehicles from the initial hesitations in the thirties to the secret projects at the end of the war which remained on the drawing board.

Illustrated with thirty or so colour profiles and more than 200 black and white period photographs, of which a hundred or so are as yet unpublished, this book is the new reference for as yet relatively unstudied subjects such as:
- The Trippelwagen amphibious cars and how they evolved.
- The Land-Wasser-Schleppers in all its forms
- The L.W.S. II Panzerfähre
- The Skoda LWS III Project
- Amphibious trailers.

The German engineer troops developed out of a branch that only developed into a fighting service arm by World War II. Thus, along with the special engineers, there were also names like Assault Engineers, Armored Engineers.
Out of this wide field, this new volume of photo documentation shows some 300 photos, mostly never before published, including rare pictures of bridgelaying tanks in action, mine operations, and the construction of makeshift bridges.

The road gantry cranes were an indispensable tool for maintaining the new Tiger and Panther heavy tanks and Elefant tank hunter near to the front line. An exceptional use for the gantry crane was from 1944 onward with the Division z.V. for loading and unloading of delivered A4 (V2) rockets onto the 'Vidalwagen' or 'Meillerwagen' launching trailers.

For the first time this fascinating gantry crane's development history is documented, with patent applications, as well as its use in action with the Panzer-Werkstattkompanien, engineering units and Division z.V., based on original documents and a lot of pictures.
Seen for the first time is a complete series showing the removal and replacement of a Panzer turret and other usage.

By drawings and close-up pictures a comparison of 15t and 16t Strabokran shows the differences of both gantry crane types. Also included for modellers a detailed set of drawings of all Strabokran variants in 1/35 scale. 256 pages, more than 240 images, contemporary and close-up pictures of survivors, mostly printed in large format, tables, patents, K.St.N., and scale drawings.

Heeresfeldbahnen dienten besonders dem Nachschub, aber auch dem Truppen- und Verwundetentransport. Gerade im Zweiten Weltkrieg kam ihnen vor allem im Osten eine erhebliche Bedeutung zu.
Doch ihre Geschichte kennt auch friedliche Zeiten. Bis in unsere Tage haben zahlreiche Fahrzeuge überlebt und erfreuen Schmalspurfans in ganz Europa.

An Hand einer Fülle amtlicher Dokumente, authentischer Fotos und persönlicher Schilderungen beleuchtet Alfred B. Gottwaldt in diesem Buch alle bedeutsamen Einzelheiten in der Geschichte dieser kleinen Bahnen.