intelligence, and the battalion-sized motorized units provided this. These units were equippedwith a mixture of armored cars and motorcycles. Usually, they operated far ahead of thebattlefront to survey the terrain, observe enemy positions, and identify enemy forces – keyinformation was always required ahead of any armored assault.After 1942, with Germany reeling from defeat after defeat, and continually on the strategicdefensive, Wehrmacht armored reconnaissance troops found themselves fighting undercombat conditions, and, for the first time in their history, filling gaps in the front lines. At thesame time, more contemporary German equipment rolling out of the bombed but fullyfunctioning factories in the Ruhr Valley was rushed in, motorcycles reduced to replacementparts, and purpose-built armored personnel carriers, i.e., Schutzenpanzerwagen, introduced. Ofcourse, Osprey and Anderson used carefully researched original German after-action reports,and unpublished archival photos and other material to commingle for narration of the the fullstory of the reconnaissance forces of the Panzer divisions.A German national, Thomas Anderson is a renowned specialist in the fighting units of WorldWar II. Years of trawling through countless photo collections in the United States and across
Europe have paid off in this fine book. He and family live in a village south of Hanover.
