The Weathering Magazine Presents World War One Book Review

Weathering Magazine Special “World War I”

The folks at AMMO have been at it again. This latest edition of Weathering magazine covers World War I. But wait, as they say, there’s more! Stapled to the spine of the magazine is a full color camouflage profile guide titled “The Great War, the first tanks 1914-1918”. This guide contains a short note on technical color information, with a brief discussion on interpreting color from black and white photos and a color table. The following pages contain two color side profiles on every page covering British, French and German tanks, to include captured British tanks in German service. While you may disagree with the assertion that the British Mark IV, V and Tadpole tanks were painted “green moss” rather than “tank brown”, the profiles are still good sources of marking info. The production values are very good and this is a nice addition to the magazine.

The magazine itself is outstanding. It opens with several color photos of surviving vehicles in museums around the world. The historical content was written by well-known author Daniele Guglielmi and is illustrated with black and white photos, many of which have either never, or rarely, appeared in print before. Although the pictures are somewhat small, the quality is very good and there is often much more going on in the photos than are described in the captions. Of note is the picture of the Whippet at a tank workshop on page 10, which has a number of tank sponsons stacked on the ground behind it. Did you ever wonder how a brown tank could have a grey or camouflaged sponson? This photo shows that sponsons were removed for parts or re-use on other vehicles and helps explain those photos of tanks with mismatched paint schemes between the hulls and sponsons. Besides a short history of the various armored vehicles used in WWI by the main combatants, there is also a short section on colors and markings for British, French and German vehicles, along with some additional color museum photos. One note of caution on the issue of colors and markings, although the information in the magazine itself is fairly good, it is by no means the definitive source. This is a great primer, but for those looking for additional or more detailed information, I would recommend Fletcher’s book on the Great War Tank (the Haynes Manual), Strassheim and Hundleby’s book on the A7V and captured British tanks, the Mushroom Model Publications Green series on British colors and markings, and Francois Vauvillier’s book on French tanks and armored vehicles from 1914 – 1940. Tankograd also has a number of references on World War vehicles that can be ordered from Last Cavalry.

The next section of the magazine contains full build, paint and weathering articles on the FT-17, an early ST. Chamond, and a Freikorps Mark IV female from 1919. These articles are all up to the magazines usual high standard and the in-progress photos and narratives are very clear and useful. There are some great techniques that I am looking forward to trying out on my next projects.

The magazine has a list of main sources at the end, which is useful as it gives you sources for additional research and the ability to evaluate the author’s sources against your own research on the fascinating subject of World War I camouflage and markings. I really enjoyed this issue of Weathering magazine and I highly recommend it both for those who already have interests in vehicles from the First World War as well as those interested in giving the genre a try. I ordered my copy from Dave Youngquist at www.lastcavalry.com.   Weathering Magazine World War 1.