Introduction

Kagero has provided a large number of published titles covering aircraft, armour and ships in a range of formats, everything from 3D titles to titles providing decals to produce very specific models. I have been lucky enough to take a look at one of their titles covering the Junkers Ju 87 D/G or known too many simply as a Stuka. This offering falls into the 3D category of titles and is the first title in a series looking at the Stuka.

Review

This offering from Kagero is by Marek J. Murawski and Marek Ryś and is a soft backed book of 112 pages. The title is published in a portrait style of A4 style with a cover of a quite thick stiff card that I feel does provide a good level of protection to the pages within. The paper used inside is a matt stock that feels and looks to be of a good quality. The print quality is of a very high standard that has provided the replicated photographs with a semi gloss look.

The Stuka design was out of date quite early during World War 2, but the Stuka was continually altered and saw service in every theatre of conflict during World War 2. Despite being outdated its ability to dive bomb specific targets was one aspect that kept the aircraft in service and it is my understanding that the design continued to have great success on the Eastern front. This book looking at the D and G versions of the Ju 87 covers the aircraft produced following the results of the aircrafts performance in Poland. This title looks at the changes and provides some very nice photographs, some showing modifications I have never seen previously.

This title begins with a look at the changes incorporated into the D version and supplies some very nice photographs of the Ju 87 D in various stages of production. This area covers the variations made to the D version of the Stuka and what those changes were. This area also touches on the changes to be made to produce a rocket assisted carrier based aircraft, but as the aircraft carrier was never advanced beyond the planning stage the trials and tribulations of the Ju 87E were halted.

The next area looks at the Ju 87 G Gustav variant of the aircraft and this type provides the modeller with a nice mix of looks, of particular interest to me is the tank destroyer version of the aircraft. This section of the book is by far the largest area of the title and I found the most enjoyable section to read due to the broad scope of the topic. The written section ends with some information on aircraft that ended up in Allied hands and what happened to some of those aircraft. The photographs are again of a good quality in most cases, but due to the need to include rare images of very specific aircraft the quality drops in a few cases. The captions that accompany the photographs are quite short, but they do provide suitable information.

The next area of the title is quite short providing four pages of 1/72nd scale drawings of various aircraft types, most of these are side views only. The book then comes to a close with 37 pages of 3D drawings of the Stuka; these drawings do not require the use of 3D glasses to look at or get the most from and they do provide the viewer with a better understanding on some aspects of the aircraft.

Conclusion

This is not a new release onto the market, but it is worthy title to look up and grab a copy of. This offering came from Casemate Publishing with a price tag of only £16.99; a price that I feel is within a realistic affordability range while offering great value for money. I also feel that regardless of where your interests lay, this is a nice title to just sit and read or for that matter flick through.