Land-Wasser-Schlepper Type I and II

Ruben Lopez Fri Jun 12, 2009 5:55 am

I received this week my copy of “Land-Wasser-Schlepper Type I and II”, by Waldemar Trojka and Markus Jaugitz and let me tell you; if you have one LWS in your stash, be it from Bronco or Hobby Boss, this is the book to have as your reference. It contains 192 pages printed in glossy paper of which about 30 are of 1/35 scale drawings, about 50 pages of photos, 32 pages of color plates and 20 pages of maps and written information of when and where they were deployed and also which unit employed them. (At least the known ones as information seem to be sketchy on this regard.) And that's for the type I only, the rest of the book deals with the type II in the same manner. By the way, an interesting fact is that none of these vehicles was painted in yellow nor panzer gray since all of them belonged to the Kriegsmarine.

Of great interest for those who have the Bronco kit will be the photos of the interior including photos of the engine, transmission and the propellers' transmission which seems to be taken aboard the LWS captured by the British. Now you can leave those floor panels open and show what was under them.

There are detailed photos of the tracks, suspension and such but they are the latter type not the initial one.

Now having said the pros of the book let me point the cons of it.

Be careful with the captions of the interior photos; they are misleading due to some misinterpretation from the authors. They place the engine, track transmission and the propellers' transmission in the wrong place. They also make erroneous assumptions about the winch on the rear deck.

Another thing is that the information in page 8 is missing from the page. Check inside the book for a little piece of paper with the errata. This also contains the errata for the caption of the photo in page 93 which have the wrong caption. I hope they correct this in future editions but to correct mine I wrote the text with my word processor, printed it on glossy paper, cut it, glued it on the right places and presto! The book is as good as new.

Overall it is a great book and an outstanding effort by the authors to shed a little more light in such an obscure subject. Even with the mistakes I'll recommend it anytime.

Ruben

sharkmouth Fri Jun 12, 2009 6:16 am

Thanks Ruben,

What was the price? Also, was a photo of the 'sharkmouth' LWS included to prove the basis for the color profile?

Regards,
Saúl

Ruben Lopez Fri Jun 12, 2009 5:33 pm

Hi Saul.

The price was US$60.00 plus $4.00 of S&H at myhobbybox.com.

I looked at all the photos but couldn't find a single one with the “sharkmouth” on it. There are two pages with the color profile and a painting of it. It is the same painting of the cover but modified to represent the “sharkmouthed” one.

The profiles has the following caption:
Lws, K-Fl. 412 (Lshrkdo 400,Kleinkampfverband), Surendorf, Kieler Bey, Baltic Sea, Germany, 10. 1944.

Hope this helps,
Ruben