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Was it any good?

Neil

I remember it, but never subscribed to it. The few copies I saw seemed very good but I think our expectations were much lower then.

Back in the 1970's, when you were young (or before you were born!) there were TWO fine references for serious AFV nuts. One was George Bradford's "AFV News" a delightful publication written by enthusiasts for enthusiats. I eagerly awaited my copy every two months. The other major resource was Jim Seuard's "AFV G2" magazine. The first copies were of about "Xerox quality" in their photos etc, but over the years the production standards improved. I think they ran between 8 and 10 years. They also did a couple booklets and a reprint of their first year's stuff in one volume. Yes, expectations were lower then, but it was also all that was available! Back before this internet we kept in touch via AFV News, letter writing and phone calls. The Carter years were hard on the early crop of military magazines. Of Military Modeling, AFV News, AFV G2, Military Modeler/Scale Modeler, Armies and Weapons, Profile Publications, etc. I think only the first two are still in print.

Gary B.

A little more recent, anyone remember "Born in Battle" by Eshel Dramit[sic]? It was published in Israel, but distributed pretty widely in the US - I used to pick it up in my local grocery store!

Neil

AFV-G2 was excellent for its time. Somewhere, I have a near-complete collection stored away, including a few re-printed issues and a "best of Volume one" sort of re-release.

For some reasons I couldn't explain now if I had to, the more conventional physical format suited me better than AFV news.

Another long-lost one that comes to mind was Replica In Scale. I recall some nicely detailed armor conversion articles. I think they dropped non-aircraft coverage and became Aerophile, but I could be confusing stuff up.

And Modelworld, a short-lived magazine from Almark. I have that one complete plus a few extra copies. I keep thinking I should put it up on eBay or something...

My Dad still has all of his and still uses them for reference. I remember using them when I was younger also. They had color chips useful for modelling , organization charts of company size and up units usefull for wargamming. There were stories of armour in action and articles about armour develpment. The pictures wern't alway the best but the art work was great.

Hi Neil! Hi Folks!

- Neil_Baumgardner

A little more recent, anyone remember "Born in Battle" by Eshel Dramit[sic]? It was published in Israel, but distributed pretty widely in the US - I used to pick it up in my local grocery store!

Neil

I remember those. I have a couple I picked up at the old Stars and Strips book stores. At the time, they were one of the few books with lots of IDF AFV pictures.

Sgt, Scouts Out!

They also had pretty good coverage on all kinds of military affairs - I remember articles on the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, the Al Faw battles during the Iran-Iraq war, the proposed Hornet 2000 program, MiG-29, etc...

Neil

I still have my old AFV-G2 mags in a carboard box in a corner and continue to use them for reference, myself. I must admit some issues are so out of date that they're amusing: Posting early speculative diagrams of the Soviet's top-secret T72, first scale drawings of the new M1 Abrams. I even got a letter printed in one of the issues (my first time in print)! I'm all nostalgic now.

Really hard to find in France but pretty good stuff at the time...

I have pdfs of Volume 2 and would welcome scans of any persuasion of the other volumes...

Yes, I remember...

Back in the early days our AFV NEWS / AFV Association had a local chapter in California. They produced a little newsletter called AFV-G2.
At some point, member James Steuart took over the printing of the newsletter and before they knew it he was publishing under the name Baron Publishing Company.
His initial mailing list was gleaned from the back covers of our AFV NEWS where I carelessly listed the names and address of armor fans so they could communicate with each other. That stopped!
Eventually James Steurat was charged with illegal weapons possession and went to jail. AFV-G2 stopped!
Yes, I remember...

George Bradford
AFV NEWS

Looks like Mr Steuard was also involved in role-playing games, specifically Traveller.

Neil

There was also a spin-off magazine about units and uniforms called Fusileer