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This is a pictorial history of the M8 armoured car and M20 utility vehicles, two closely related wheeled vehicles that saw combat with American forces in Italy, Normand and north-western Europe and to a lesser extent in the Pacific, as well as with many of America’s allies. This book focuses on the development of the vehicle and its main variants, and on its physical details and how they changed from the first prototypes to the production vehicles, and with the production model.
I would say that this book is aimed more at the modeller than the historian. The level of detail provided in the pictures will be of great use to someone looking to produce an accurate model of these vehicles, and I especially appreciated the good selection of pictures of the interiors of the various models. The first three chapters focus on provided a series of photographs of the prototypes of each version as well as well documented production vehicles as they underwent tests in the US, along with photographs of surviving vehicles.
The final chapter looks at the Mu7 and M20 in service, so we get some idea of what they looked like in service, although not much discussion of how they actually performed (well on roads, poorly off-road, and dangerously thinly armoured and vulnerable to 20mm fire and above).
This is an excellent pictorial guide to these vehicles, with a good selection of detailed pictures that give a good all-round view of each of these types.
Chapters
1 - The M8
2 - M20 Armoured Utility Car
3 - Multiple Gun Motor Carriage T69 and Armored Chemical Car T30
4 - Field Use
Author:
Edition: Hardcover
Pages: 128
Publisher: Schiffer
Year: 2021