Review

Keystone 87

The 2nd (BR) Infantry Division Defends the North German Plain

The following introduction is supplied via Tankograd:

The 2nd (BR) Infantry Division, with its headquarters in York was the largest British division during the final stage of the Cold War. It had a critical task, reinforcement of the British Army of the Rhine in the event of war. The division’s first regular units could be deployed to the European continent within 24 hours in the event of serious tension with a possible imminent attack. Territorial Army units would then follow. The division could be fully deployed to West Germany within ten days at the latest, to secure the BAOR’s corps rear area. This situation was trained for during Keystone 87.

This publication shows the British and German military vehicles participating in Keystone 87 in impressive exercise photographs.

Review

Tankograd Publishing releases titles every year it has however come to my attention it is the titles covering military exercises that prove particularly popular with modellers on Armorama. This offering is a soft backed offering with a robust full gloss cover and 64 full gloss pages. The title is provided in a portrait style of A4 size and is typically well laid out.

The title begins with a 10 page written introduction covering the exercise. This covers what and when while also remembering the goals of the exercise. The text is provided in duel languages of German and English. This is presented to the reader with German on the left and English on the right of each page. The text is written using a reasonably sized font that enables you to have an easy and enjoyable read while taking in the provided data. The information is presented under the following titles:

Overview of the manoeuvre exercises of NATO’s Central Armour Group

Keystone 87

Exercise Area

The six phases of Keystone 87

Historical overview of the major formations involved in the exercise

After the text we move onto the glorious pictures where Tankograd has provided us with  121 colour photos plus graphics covering both British and German military hard wear. The photographs cover everything from soft skinned vehicles through to the heavy armour and it is good to see that the rotary aircraft have not been left out. The photographs are all of a good quality and heavy armour gets very well covered in the title. The title having lots of images of the Chieftain in the field must be near the end of its frontline service. The chieftain received a lot of flak when it went into service due to the military wanting a multi fuel engine; Leyland never ever got it right and resulted in a lot of lost export chances and a reputation for poor reliability that it never really shrugged off despite being a much better vehicle is it progressed. It is good to see military hard wear now long retired doing the job intended both German and British. Tankograd does do a good job of managing to cover military field exercises and manages to get the balance pretty good as regards what is covered. Each of the photographs is also provided with dual language captions.