Introduction
The following introduction is as provided by Tankograd:
Exercise REFORGER 75 was the seventh in the series since the USA started in 1969 the practice of reinforcing NATO with US Army forces stationed at home in peacetime, but which had their equipment kept in storage in Europe. Exercise Certain Trek was the FTX part of REFORGER 75 and involved nine combined-arms brigades (including one each from Canada and Germany) and three field artillery groups for a total of 57,000 troops belonging to the USA, Germany, Canada, France and the UK; equipped with 500 M60A1, M 48 A2 C and Centurion main battle tanks, 900 armoured personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles, another 200 armoured vehicles and 250 helicopters.
In this publication the vehicles of the units participating in Certain Trek are shown in many hitherto unpublished photos and the tactical aspects of the FTX are described in detail.
Review
This offering from Tankograd is a soft backed publication, with a card cover protecting 64 pages. This release is authored by Walter Bohm and Diego Ruiz Palmer. This is one of the duel language publications with German on the left and English on the right of each page. Tankograds coverage of NATO exercises have proved to be very popular with both modellers and other for general interest.
This title begins with the duel language text covering the purpose of the exercise and the various phases of it. You also get a look at the various countries forces and units that took part in the exercise. The text is well written, although it has been kept brief for the purposes of this title due to the limitations on the page count. However, the logical layout and progression means that you easily understand the information presented.
The photographs in the book, are a mix of black and white plus some colour offerings. The units covered within the book are for the most part the American troops that took part. There is a Canadian Centurian that made it into the title, there are also some unusual American vehicles covered as regards bridge laying exercises. The images of the bridging equipment I found of particular interest, but for those who are interested in the armour the Sheridan, the M60 MBT and the M113 in its various guises should please. For the fans of the soft skinned vehicles, the various trucks and transports of the day being reasonably well covered, with even the Gama Goat making it into the photographs. Not forgetting the fans of the artillery, and air power the Galaxy with its huge payload along with the Cobra, and Kiowa assault helicopters also getting a look in. The artillery tends to concentrate on the M110, due to its mobility, with no towed artillery covered. The beauty of the photographs, regardless of weather they are colour or black and white do a good job of showing the weathering and the way the dirt collects on the wheels in use. All of the images are accompanied with duel language captions to help those in doubt.
Conclusion
Tankograd are the only company that I am aware of that covers exercises specifically. They do a good job of covering the purpose of the exercise, and this title is no exception. The photographs are all of a good quality despite colour photographs of this period usually being fuzzy, none of the ones in this title have this issue.