It was a real delight to find edition #13 of U-boot im Focus in the mails the other day. I look forward to each volume of this great book as it provides coverage of an aspect of WWII that many of us rarely get to see. I'm constantly amazed at the photos the editors manage to find as they frequently show aspects of daily operations that are often overlooked in other books on the subject.

While one probably does not think about this all that much, a goodly amount of the interest in miliatry equipment is in the colors and markings that were applied. This is as true of U-boats as it is of aircraft or anything else. Rarely will one find a 'standard' boat as most of them either carried an interesting camouflage scheme or some sort of conning tower decoration. Event training boats carried some sort of markings. Prior to the war, all U-boats at least had numbers, some of them in some rather fanciful fonts. But I digress as I am wont to do from time to time so back to this edition.

Within these pages you will find a major article on the conning tower modifications made in La Spezia which includes the installation of Italian AA guns. There is also an article on armored personnel boxes that were provided to many boats. Some had these later removed as they made the boat a bit top-heavy. The color cover image shows these in place. One of the camouflage focus sections is on some rather special markings carried by some pre-war Type II boats. Another fascinating article is on the U-35 which rammed the rear of the Graf Spee, causing the ship's propeller to chew up the forward section of the boat. Fortunately, it was not enough to damage the pressure hull, but it was an interesting mess.

All of these articles have some great photographs and UiF likes to make them nice and large so you can see the detail in them for yourself. This is probably the biggest plus of this series as it truly helps those interested in the details to see these without having to resort to magnifying glasses. Of course, there are other articles of interest in this edition, but I don't want to spoil it for you.

If you have an interest in these boats, then you should seriously consider a subscription.