Book review

[Mike Cecil]

Thanks, Mike, a great appraisal and sounds like a very worthy book to add to the reference library ..... and here was me thinking I was in the process of downsizing the volume of books!!

Mike

[Mike Cecil]

My copy arrived earlier this morning. As Mike K said, a nice overall appraisal and well worth the few $$.

Like Mike, I've detected a few deficiencies in his listings (he has a tabulated listing of radio/wireless sets in the back, with their approx period of use by AMF), and there is a general absence of fine detail, which I suppose is to be expected given he's tried to cover the period 1895 to 2012 in just 352 B5 sized pages.

A few examples: He mentions the WS No.19 Mks 1 and 2, but no mention of the WS No.19 Mk 3. Likewise, the No.88 set gets a mention as a man-pack set, but not the No.88(AFV) set. Only the AN/VRC-12 is listed out of the series which included the much more common AN/VRC-46 and AN/VRC-49 sets. He mentions both the AN/PRC-25 and the later AN/PRC-77, but only the AN/GRC-125 and not the AN/GRC-160. The Larkspur series, as Mike noted, gets little attention which is surprising given their extensive use across several Arms of Service in the 1950s to 1970s period (the last users were the RAAC as late as 1977!).

So, a worthwhile reference book, but on the understanding that it has some limitations.

Mike