Men-at-Arms 424: The Chinese Army 1937-49

by Philip Jowett, illustrated by Stephen Walsh

Published by Osprey Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-84176-904-5, 48 pages.

This book deals with the Chinese Nationalist Army from the Japanese invasion of 1937 through to its evacuation to Taiwan in 1949. After an brief background introduction there’s a detailed chronology of events in the Sino-Japanese war, the Chinese involvement in World War II, and the Civil War. Next are descriptions of the organisation and weapons of the armies (plural - there were several formations with differing levels of equipment and fighting capacity) and Nationalist guerrillas, and then detailed descriptions of the uniforms for all of them, both summer and winter types as also the tankers from 1944 onward. Nothing on specific tanker uniforms before then, alas, but an intelligent guess about them can be made from the descriptions of other uniforms. Most if not all uniforms were locally-made, but the weapons and helmets used included a wide variety of imported types and local copies of them: Czech LMGs, German and French helmets, and FT-17 tanks for a start without even looking at the list of post-1941 possibilities. All this gives a lot of scope for armour modellers wanting Chinese figures to put on bases with the British, German, Italian and Soviet tanks imported before 1941 or the Stuarts and Shermans used in 1944 and later, or even with a captured or knocked-out Japanese tank.

Highly recommended!

John Prigent

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