US World War II Amphibious Tactics, Mediterranean & European Theaters

Reviewed by John Prigent

Summary

FirstRead

This second part to the mini-series covers the organisations and tactics used from Operation Torch onward.

It covers the Landing Ships and Landing Craft, as well as the Army organisational arrangements. One section briefly describes the actual landings in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and Southern France, with lists of units involved and other useful information, but the Normandy Landings are deliberately left out of these descriptions since they have Osprey books of their own.

There’s a good selection of photographs and the colour plates show the LSTs and LCMs, etc, as well as the men, though the tanks shown in them are somehow not quite right.

It’s disappointing that an M4A1 Duplex Drive is shown with only its serial number although there’s a photograph of the actual tank in the book which shows full tactical markings and even a name on the hull side.

There does seem to be a tendency lately for the plates in Osprey titles to omit the markings that are so important to modellers.

Recommended with reservations.
 

Thanks to Osprey Publishing for the review sample