From their introduction in 1940, the Wehrmacht’s Sturmgeschutz assault guns played an essential role in the campaigns of the Blitzkrieg era, the titanic struggles in Russia and the final defensive battles of the war. Evolving from a mobile bunker-buster, armed with a short-barrelled howitzer, the Sturmgeschutz was up-armoured and up-gunned and by 1943 it was increasingly employed as a tank killer. In 1944, largely as an emergency quick-fix, the Sturmgeschutz IV entered service and over 1,000 examples had been built by the end of the war. As the Wehrmacht’s resources continued to decline the assault guns were thrown into every operation and increasingly substituted for gun tanks in official unit establishments. In the third volume in the TankCraft series to examine the Sturmgeschutz, Dennis Oliver employs official documentation and unit histories to investigate the formations that operated the Sturmgeschutz IV and uses archive photos and extensively researched colour illustrations to examine the markings, camouflage and technical aspects of the vehicles that served on the Eastern Front during the last months of the campaign. A key section of his book displays available model kits and aftermarket products, complemented by a gallery of beautifully constructed and painted models in various scales. Technical details as well as modifications introduced during production and in the field are also examined, providing everything the modeller needs to recreate an accurate representation of these historic vehicles.
