Title: German Panzer II – A Visual History of the German Army’s World War II Light Tank
Author: David Doyle
Reviewed by: Eric Christianson, IPMS # 42218
ISBN: 978-1-944367-06-0
Company: Ampersand Publishing
Price: $28.95
Website: Ampersand Publishing
Product Web Page: View
Product provided by: David Doyle Books

DavidDoyleBooks.com (Ampersand Publishing) out of Memphis TN, is back again with another Military Vehicle book entitled German Panzer II – A Visual History of the German Army’s World War II Light Tank, by popular author David Doyle. Anyone familiar with armor modeling literature and research will recognize this authoritative combination, and this latest release won’t disappoint.

Looking across my personal bookshelf of maybe 200 titles, I can spot several of Mr. Doyle’s books, including 251 Halftrack Visual History and Tiger I In Action, and, of course, my beaten-to-death copy of German Military Vehicles, among others. If you’ve been building armor models for any length of time, you’re probably familiar with his work as well.

German Panzer II comes as a hardcover, landscape-orientated book and follows the format of Mr. Doyle’s previous Visual History volumes, containing high-resolution images printed on heavy, high quality stock paper. The book starts with a table of contents and a brief introduction to the primary variants of the PzKpfw II. Then you’re on to the meat of the book, somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 large-format, black and white wartime images, each with a detailed caption that covers unusual equipment and/or markings found.

I’ve been reading books and perusing the internet for some twenty years and have yet to encounter the majority of the photographs contained in this book. Mr. Doyle has been able to gain access to, and work with, resources that together have produced quite a startling collection of photographs for this venerable workhorse of the German Wehrmacht.

Sections include:

• Pz.Kpfw. II Ausf. a
• Pz.Kpfw. II Ausf. b
• Pz.Kpfw. II Ausf. c and A-C early
• Pz.Kpfw. II Ausf. c, A, B, C modified
• Pz.Kpfw. II Ausf. D
• Pz.Kpfw. II (F) Ausf. A & B
• Pz.Kpfw. II Ausf. F
• Pz.Kpfw. II Ausf. G
• Pz.Kpfw. II Ausf. J
• Pz.Kpfw. II “Lynx”

Personally, I especially enjoyed the many (new) images of heavy prime movers towing artillery and interesting photos of vehicles receiving maintenance in the field.

I highly recommend this latest offering from David Doyle by Ampersand Publishing. The images contained in this book are of the highest quality - crisp, in focus, and carefully selected to be useful for modelers and historians alike, and Mr. Doyle’s research is top-notch throughout. Along with his previous releases, German Panzer II belongs on any armor modeler’s book shelf.

I would like to thank DavidDoyleBooks.com for this review copy, and IPMS/USA for the opportunity to review this book.