Camouflage and Markings of Allied Armor in the Battle for Cassino Book Review

By Michael Benolkin

Review

Here is number 12 in a series from Model Centrum Progres that looks at Camouflage and Markings of combat vehicles at various points during World War 2. In this installment, the author has gathered a nice selection of period photographs out of the National Archives and private collections, most of which have never been published before. These photographs look at allied armor during the Battle for Monte Cassino between January through May 1944. This monograph looks at the state of the allied combatants during each of the four major battles with an emphasis on the final battle.

As this final push, named Operation Diadem, aimed to break the stalemate and push the German 10th Army out of their defensive cover and north out of Italy. The author focuses on the colors and markings of the combat vehicles in these operations with focuses in the American, British, French, and Polish sectors of operations. Each of the selected 78 period photographs illustrate the colors and tactical markings applied to these combat vehicles and these are followed up with 20 color profiles to provide color context.

This is the first of this series I've had the pleasure of reading and there is some great material here for the armor modeler and historian alike. With the emphasis on colors used on these vehicles, it might be helpful to some readers to know which 'olive drab' was typically found on the US vehicles at that time as well as the corresponding British Army colors applied to the Commonwealth vehicles. Even a table with hobby paint equivalents would be useful. While there are other titles out there with that information, such information would make color reference titles such as this more helpful to the modeler all under one cover.

My sincere thanks to Model Centrum Progres for this review sample!