Squadron Signal Publications

A-20 HAVOC in Action by Squadron Signal Publications item number: SS10238David Doyle. The Douglas A-20 Havoc was a light bomber, attack, and intruder aircraft of World War II. Used by the American Army Air Forces, nearly one-third of the aircraft served with the Soviet military, while many other A-20s fought with the RAF. Taking its first operational shape on the eve of the outbreak of the war in Europe, the 7B prototype actually crashed with a French observer aboard, kicking off a scandal in...

Drendel. All new book covering Allied airpower in the war to topple Saddam Hussein. Full color and b/w photos of fighters, bombers, transports, helicopters, and the people who fly and maintain them. Also includes US CENTCOM - Air Forces and Navies Air Order of Battles. Illustrated with 100 b/w and 117 color photos; 64 pages.

B-29 Superfortress Combat Chronicles. Book by Robert Hilton. Squadron Signal Books. With its pressurized cabins for high-altitude operation, its long range, large bomb capacity, and turbo-supercharged engines, the B-29 Superfortress was the epitome of cutting edge American air power during WWII. The author, a photographer with the 40th Bomb Group and a veteran of 83 Superfortress missions, offers a first-hand, eye-witness account and shares his experiences on reconnaissance and bombing...

Boeing 737 At the Gate. Book by Robert W. Tidwell. Squadron Signal Books. Few commercial aircraft have enjoyed a production run that spans more than four decades and service in nearly every nation on Earth. The Boeing 737 has such a track record. Takes the reader on a journey through the continuing story of the 737 from the first aircraft to roll of the production line in the 1960s, to the very latest airframes being delivered to major airlines today. ?The book also offers the reader a look at...

Cadillac Gage V-100 Commando by Squadron Signal PublicationsItem Number: SS5708Cadillac Gage V-100 Commando Color Walk Around. The best-known American armored car of the post-WWII era, the Cadillac Gage Commando - a versatile, amphibious, 4x4 vehicle - still looks modern even though it made its debut in 1962. The V-100 Commando went through numerous changes in light of its extensive and varied experience in reconnaissance, convoy escort, riot control, security, and as a personnel carrier. As...

David Doyle. The Final Countdown, and later with the hit movie Top Gun. While Hollywood may have cemented the F-14 in the public eye, it was Grumman engineers on Long Island that cemented the aircraft into the mind of naval aviators.

F6F Hellcat in Action. Book by Jim Sullivan and Charles Scrivner. Squadron Signal Books. Expanded Edition with more photos, updated content and 20 extra pages'. During World War II, the United States Navy needed a powerful fighter to counter the Japanese Zero. After their debut in combat in early 1943, Hellcats scored more than 5,000 confirmed kills with a 19-to-1 kill ratio. The folding-wing aircraft were capable of operating from carriers or land. Some were equipped with radar for night...

(Softcover) The US Navy's first all-weather jet fighter, the Douglas F3D Skyknight, traces its origins to 1945, when the Navy began studies for a jet-powered, carrier-based night fighter. Ready for service when war broke out in Korea in 1950, the Skyknight, also known as 'Willy the Whale', proved its worth in the capable hands of pilots and radar operators with Marine Night Fighter Squadron VMF(N)-513. The F3D scored the highest number of aerial victories for an all-weather jet fighter in that...

F9F Cougar Walk Around. Book by Ken Neubeck. Squadron Signal Books. The first swept-wing carrier-based fighter aircraft built for the US Navy, the F9F Cougar marked a major leap forward in the area of naval aircraft design from its predecessor, the straight-wing Grumman F9F Panther. The prototype of the first version of the Cougar, the F9F-6, first took to the air in September of 1951, just six months after contract award. There were several different models of the Cougar, reflecting its...

F-17 / ?M1917 WWI Tanks Walk Around. Book by David Doyle. Squadron Signal Books. Introduced in 1917, the Renault FT-17 and its American-built copy, the M1917, revolutionized tank design. The vehicle's rotating turret, rear-engine, driver-forward design are characteristics of the most advanced tanks even today. This volume presents a careful study of the details and variations of this innovative vehicle, inside and out. Two-hundred thirty-seven photographs reveal the intimacies of no fewer than...

Conceived at a time when the US Army was seeking to revolutionize its tactical vehicle fleet, the Gama Goat showed considerable promise. Deriving its name from its designer, Roger Gamaunt, the Gama Goat was initially a project of aerospace giant Chance-Vought. The all-wheel drive vehicle with steerable axles at each end and a flexible connection between the halves of its two-part body provide agile in testing. The flexibility gave the vehicle sure footing, and the body was designed to be...

Robinson. The Hawker Hunter was designed in 1948 as a RAF replacement for the Gloster Meteor. The Hunter served with the RAF in the 1950s and 1960s, and has served with nearly twenty foreign air forces. This title covers every RAF Squadron to fly the Hawker Hunter. Illustrated with 54 b/w and 6 color photos, 200 color drawings; 32 pages.

Jagdpanzer 38 Hetzer Walk Around. Book by Hans-Heiri Stapfer. Squadron Signal Books. By the end of World War II, the Jagdpanzer 38 Hetzer was the Wehrmacht's most widely used tank destroyer. Armed with the formidable Rheinmetall-Borsig Pak 39 L/48 7.5cm anti-tank gun the Hetzer served on both the Western and Eastern fronts. More than 2,800 Jagdpanzer 38s were build in just over one year - from April 1944 through May 1945 - far more than any other WWII German tank destroyer. This groundbreaking...

KC-135 Stratotanker Walk Around. Book by Kenneth P. Katz. Squadron Signal Books. Many air forces can conduct missions such as air superiority and ground attack, but only the US Air Force has truly global reach. For more than five decades, the essential enabler of this global reach has been the KC-135 Stratotanker. Unarmed and unglamorous, the KC-135 has been one of the most successful and enduring aircraft in US Air Force history. Primarily based on the author's extensive access to operational...

Landing Craft Air Cushioned In Action. Book by John Gourley. Squadron Signal Books. In 1966 a Landing Craft Coordinating Group was assembled to discuss and draft specifications for a new landing craft. The work resulted in the Patrol Air Cushion Vehicle (PACV) that saw service in the Vietnam War. By 1970 designs for an Amphibious Assault Landing Craft (AALC) were on the drawing board. The U.S. Navy ordered the first three LCACs February 1982. LCACs move over rocks and other beach obstacles and...

(Softcover) First deployed in combat in Vietnam, the M551 Sheridan is the first US tank to be fully amphibious and also airborne capable. Though maintenance problems and issues with the gun-launcher system caused the M551 to be withdrawn from most active Army units in the late 1970s, it continued to serve the 82nd Airborne Division as the only armored vehicle in the Army_s inventory that could be air dropped. With the 82nd, the Sheridan took part in the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989 and in...

M551 Sheridan Walk Around. Book by Chris Hughes. Squadron Signal Books. First deployed in combat in Vietnam, the M551 Sheridan is the first US tank to be fully amphibious and also airborne capable. Though maintenance problems and issues with the gun-launcher system caused the M551 to be withdrawn from most active Army units in the late 1970s, it continued to serve the 82nd Airborne Division as the only armored vehicle in the Army?s inventory that could be air dropped. With the 82nd, the...

Drendel. America and its allies respond to the deadly terror attacks of 9-11. Noted military author Lou Drendel outlines the initial Allied military response against the al-Queda terrorist network and the Taliban government in Afghanistan that provided them safe haven and training facilities. Extensively illustrated with over 200 photos - half in full-color, 1 map; 64 pages.

David Doyle. Its contrails twisting through the clouds, one fighter aircraft was able to escort America?s heavy bombers from England to Berlin, and from Iwo Jima to Tokyo, the North American P-51 Mustang. Beyond bomber escort, this iconic Pursuit (later F- for fighter) aircraft was employed against ground targets using machine guns, rockets, and bombs, in fact one variant was specifically produced as a dive bomber, an Allied counterpart to Germany?s famed Stuka. Including derivatives, the...

Saab 37 Viggen Walk Around. Book by Mikhail Putnikov. Squadron Signal Books. For the 30 years the Saab 37 Viggen thundered over Sweden, a resolute deterrent against any potential aggression. Named for the thunderclap that resounded when the god Thor banged his hammer, and developed to replace the Saab 32 Lansen as an attacker and Saab 35 Draken as a fighter, Viggen was designed as a multirole combat aircraft capable of performing fighter, strik, and reconnaissance duties. Saab adopted a novel...

(Softcover) The Avenger was the foremost Torpedo Bomber in the US Navy's arsenal during WWII. Designed by Grumman as a replacement for the Douglas TBD Devastator, Avenger production began prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and it remained in US Navy service until October 1954. Demand for the large torpedo bomber was so strong that General Motor's newly-formed Eastern Aircraft Division was contracted as a second source for the Avenger, ultimately accounting for more than half of the...

John Gourley. Ticonderoga-Class Cruisers were originally conceived in the late 1970s as a new guided-missile destroyer ship class of nuclear-powered escorts. Instead, cost forced planners to build the new cruisers with modified destroyer hulls and gas-turbine propulsion. The end result was a longer, sleeker cruiser with a formidable variety of offensive and defensive weapons as well as cutting edge radars, sonars and a full electronic warfare suite. Ticonderoga-class vessels eventually totaled...

US MRAPs in Action. Book by John Adams-Graf. Squadron Signal Books. In 2006, President George Bush declared it 'priority number one,' to defeat the threat of improvised explosive devices. This volume describes the military's rapid response in developing and deploying mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles that ultimately overcame the threat of roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Presents in detail all the major MRAPs: RG-31s, RG-33s, Cougars, Caimans, MaxxPros and MATVs. Also included...

(Softcover) Fletcher-class destroyers were the mainstay of the US Navy's destroyer force during WWII. With 175 of the class commissioned, the Fletchers were the most numerous of the American 'Tin Cans' - as destroyers are affectionately known. Today, only one of the type has been preserved in WWII-configuration, the USS Kidd. Named after Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, who gave his life on the bridge of his flagship USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor, the destroyer USS Kidd (DD-661) conducted two years...

USS Saratoga Squadron at Sea Series. Book by David Doyle. Squadron Signal Books. Faced with the restrictions of the Washington Navy Treaty, the US Navy had a choice: either scrap their partially complete, battlecruiser Saratoga, which along with her sister ship Lexington were intended to be the most powerful in the world; or convert them into an aircraft carriers. Wisely, the Navy chose the latter option and created what for many years would be the largest aircraft carriers built. ?When...