Wednesday, February 14, 2007

New Mosquito Book Captures Essence of Elegant Multi-Mission Aircraft

de Havilland Mosquito - an Illustrated History
Crecy Publishing (dist. in USA by MBI, and available on Amazon)
Review by Ned Barnett
Review copy courtesy Crecy and MBI


The new Mosquito book (de Havilland Mosquito - an Illustrated History) by Crecy arrived today, and though I'm on deadline with a client, I just spent two enraptured hours browsing through it - reading some of the chapter introductions and not less than a hundred or so captions. The book is mostly previously unseen photos and remarkably detailed (I mean REMARKABLY detailed) captions. Never seen anything quite like it.

I cannot believe that any modeler wanting to build a Mosquito could do so without this book - it has details beyond galore, markings I'm not used to seeing on RAF aircraft (American-style nicknames, mission-marks, etc.), battle damage, weird offshoot uses ... everything - including a special section on the anti-sub version with a 57mm (aka 6-pounder) cannon.

As for historians, no one can really understand the operation of this magnificent flying machine without wading deep into the operational specifics of individual aircraft, and this book does it in spades. A final "thank you" to the author - those war-time de Havilland ads are eye-poppers - one of them showed the aircraft at an angle that made me immediately realize how much later DH aircraft (the NF Sea Venom is what I'm thinking of) were based on the design work of the Mosquito - but all show a real taste for the wartime nature of Britain, one I found enchanting (as I did all those photos of the UK's own "Rosie the Riveters" building the Mosquitos).

Cap that off with the clear superiority of Crecy book manufacturing standards (remember, I've worked with a half-dozen publishers and had nine of my own books published - and I wish any of my publishers or publisher-clients did half so good a job at producing a fine-quality product), and this is a remarkable, fantastic book.

Bottom line - if you have any interest in the Mosquito - you NEED this book. Distributed by MBI in the States, Crecy in the UK and who knows in Oz and elsewhere - but on Amazon and certainly well worth picking up.

I'll publish a more detailed review later - but this is too good to wait.

Sunday, February 04, 2007

A Reign of Bombs – Ju 87 Stuka: King of the Dive-bombers







Reviews of Two Books:

Hitler’s Stuka Squadrons – The Ju 87 at War 1936-1945
John Ward – Motorbooks International (MBI)

Stuka Volume 1
Luftwaffe Ju 87 Dive-Bomber Units 1939-1941
Peter Smith – Luftwaffe Colours/Classic Colours (an Ian Allen Imprint) – Specialty Press


Review by Ned Barnett
Review copy of Hitler's Stuka Squadrons from Reviewer
Review Copy of Luftwaffe Ju 87 Dive-Bomber Units 1939-1941 courtesy Specialty Press


The Ju 87 Stuka is the ultimate “transitional-era” aircraft – though it replaced a single-seat biplane ground attack aircraft (the Hs 123, which itself was called back into combat service in 1941 by a desperate Luftwaffe and used until 1944), it was barely “modern” in and of itself. Yet it kept soldiering on because there was nothing better to replace it. Like the American DC-3 airliner/transport (which served the military as the C-47 from World War II through Vietnam – where it fought as an armed gunship more than 30 years after it first went into production), the only replacement for a Ju 87 was another Ju 87.

Ground attack versions of the exceptional Focke Wulf Fw 190 “Butcher Bird” were remarkable aircraft in their own right – and might have replaced the Ju 87 in the ground attack role (but never the dive-bomber role – they had no dive brakes and couldn’t fairly be considered dive bombers – except that the Ju 87 was re-armed with a pair of 37 mm anti-tank flak cannons that were too large for the sleek, diminutive Focke Wulf fighter.

The dive bomber itself is a largely American Naval invention, refined and tested by the US Marines during “gunboat” wars against Central American “banana republics” such as Nicaragua. The type was quickly adopted by the equally naval-minded Japanese and became a “hit” at an early-30s depression-era air shows, where Germany’s top-scoring surviving WW-I Ace Ernst Udet saw it demonstrated at the Cleveland National Air Races airshow. Using his political muscle, he arranged for the German government two buy two Helldivers from Curtiss – these were shipped to Germany and Udet demonstrated them himself. One he crashed (not uncommon for the headstrong but hardly meticulous 62-kill ace); the other he kept as his personal plane until the war broke out, when it was donated to a museum – but the impression he made ensured that Germany added “Stuka” to it’s growing list of must-have aircraft types for it’s still-clandestine air force.

The Ju 87 Stuka (the name “Stuka” is a slang abbreviation for a long run-on German word meaning diving bombing aircraft – and generic to all dive bombers, but always associated with the Junkers Ju 87) was born in the mid-30s, in a Germany starved of good aircraft engines. It was therefore initially developed a clumsy-looking single-engined dive-bomber with enormous “trouser” landing-gear fairings and a 600-class horsepower engine that made a lightly loaded Ju 87 barely capable of taking off – at full weight, the air gunner had to be left on the ground if the Stuka was to take off at all.

Three copies of this very much “interim” type – the A (Anton) model – was tested in Spain during the Spanish Civil War – and despite the aircraft’s limited bomb capacity (about 500 lbs) and biplane-level cruise speed, the Stuka proved its worth as a pinpoint bomber of discrete targets. In combat tests, these early Stukas routinely put their bombs within a half-dozen yards of their target – acceptable accuracy for today’s laser-guided bombs, and unheard-of in the 1930s.

Like all visionary designs, the Ju 87 had inherent growth potential – it was quickly upgraded in the B (Bertha) model to feature a 1,000-plus horsepower Junkers inline engine – later further upgraded to 1500 horsepower in late D (Dora) and G (Gustav) models of the dive bomber. Unlike the Messerschmitt Bf 109, which experienced similar power upgrades, the Ju 87 did not become faster – it never cruised at much over 200 miles per hour when loaded, even in it’s most advanced version – but instead the bomb load rose from 500 pounds to upward of 2,000 pounds – and in a few rare cases (seldom used) to 4,000 pounds.

Alternatively, the three puny rifle-caliber machine guns soon grew to a pair of them covering the rear quadrant (the Mg 81Z twin-barrel machine gun) and heavier 20mm or 37mm guns facing forward to rain cannon shells on tanks and other ground vehicles. In addition, as the Ju 87 evolved, it doubled its combat radius and enhanced protective armor features to enable it to survive in the ground attack role.

A quick look-see comparison suggests that the Ju 87 was in the same performance class as the RAF’s Fairey Battle – a rightly-despised death-trap and one of the more ill-conceived combat aircraft of all times – but in fact, the Ju 87 was a better combat aircraft. Although it had archaic-looking fixed landing gear (the Battle had retractable gear) the Ju 87 could carry a single large bomb – the Battle was cursed with carrying a gaggle of ineffectual small bombs. The Stuka was remarkably maneuverable – by any standards, a fact that often surprised and sometimes endangered attacking fighter aircraft – and it was remarkably sturdy as well, capable of absorbing significant battle damage. The RAF’s Battle could be shot down by the proverbial “dirty look” and it flew like an out-of-tune furniture-moving truck (“mobelwagen” in German).

The misnamed Battle fulfilled its best destiny by providing harmless anti-aircraft target practice for front-line German Flak units – but the Ju 87 actually continued to viably destroy enemy targets through 1944. Just as The Battle of France proved that the Fairey Battle could not survive without escort fighters (though it remained extremely vulnerable to Flak), The Battle of Britain proved that the Ju 87 couldn’t stand against fully modern fighters such as the Spitfire without heavy fighter escort. However, Germany could provide that fighter escort – and that made the Stuka viable over Soviet Russia at least through the end of 1943, when growing Soviet Air Force strength forced the Luftwaffe to shift most ground-attack duties to Fw 190s and to operate the Stuka either as a night-attack aircraft of as a high-risk ground-hugging tank-buster.

In fact, operations in Russia proved that the Stuka was really more contemporary with the Ilyushin IL-2 Sturmovik, another dedicated two-seat ground attack aircraft. On the Allied side, the closest we came was the ungainly Fleet Air Arm Skua and the world-famous ship-killer, the US Navy’s Douglas-built SBD (Slow-But-Deadly) Dauntless. However, while the SBD continued to soldier on until 1945 (though the replacement Curtiss-built SB2C Helldiver was available beginning in 1943), it never took on ground targets in fighter-contested skies, and after Midway, it seldom if ever flew anti-shipping strikes without heavy USN fighter escort.

The SBD – considered obsolescent and due for replacement in 1941 when the war broke out for America – was at least one generation ahead of the Ju 87 in terms of design features. It was faster, more heavily armed (until the Ju 87s started carrying tank-buster 37mm Flak cannons) and could always carry a 1,000 pound war-load as standard (and could, in a pinch, on very close-range missions, carry a one-ton bomb). Like the Stuka, the Dauntless was surprisingly maneuverable, and with twin rear-facing machine guns (and two forward-firing heavy .50 caliber Browning machine guns) more heavily armed. During Coral Gables and Midway – until the USN woke up and started carrying more fighters onboard their carriers – SBDs were routinely used as low-altitude anti-torpedo-plane fighters, and in the right hands, these dive-bombers had some success (even a few surprising successes against the rightly-feared Japanese Zero). But of the dive bomber and ground attack planes of its mid-30s generation, the Ju 87 stood out alone as the best-of-breed.

Early European combat in the Ju 87 proved it to be a fearsomely-accurate weapon – a fact the Germans enhanced and capitalized on by adding a pair of permanently-mounted sirens (Jericho Trumpets) as well as noisemakers affixed to the fins of the Ju 87’s main bombs. The noise was petrifying and demoralizing – until you got used to it (at which time the Germans removed the sirens as added drag without added benefit) – and over Poland, France and the Low Countries (and again over the Soviet Union) the Stuka was both deadly and unstoppable.

Only when faced with RAF Spitfires and Hurricanes over Southeastern England did the Stuka “meet its match” – and author John Ward contends persuasively that the Germans might have won that pivotal battle if Goering had been willing to either provide more protection from escorting Messerschmitts or suck it up and take the losses – the Stukas were about two days away from knocking out the Chain Home radar picket line and the RAF’s most critical front-line fighter airfields. However, the Germans withdrew the Stuka – and changed their tactics from knocking out the RAF to “punishing” London – and found too late that London could take more punishment than Ventnor Island’s radar station or Biggen Hill airfield.

Over Russia in the early days, the Stuka reasserted it’s primacy as a dive bomber – and bombing aces such as Hans-Ulrich Rudel (ultimately the most decorated single individual in Hitler’s Germany). Rudel was an “iron man” who flew more than 2,500 missions and destroyed more than 500 tanks, along with sinking a Russian battleship and creating havoc beyond measure in the ranks of the Red Army. He finished the war flying ground-attack Fw 190s with one foot amputated (and not yet healed) and the other in a cast. A defiant and unrepentant Nazi to the end, Rudel was nonetheless the epitome of combat pilot, and long after everyone else had given up on the Stuka, he still found it a viable and effective tank-killer. His book, “Stuka Pilot,” cannot be too strongly recommended for those who want to see what combat flying for Hitler against Russia was really like.

Which brings us to the two new books on Stukas which I’m reviewing here.

The Classic Colours book (Ian Allen/Specialty Press) is an excellent example of what this series delivers best – lots of photos which illustrate (with the help of extremely useful captions) the color schemes and color variations to be found in the aircraft in question – in this case, the Stuka. The text is useful but hardly world-beating – except for the sidebars on individual Stuka pilots, which I found very informative – for me, worth the price of the book, as they gave an operational insight most other 100-page one-aircraft books tend to lack.

The Classic Colours Stuka (Vol.1) book has 96 pages with probably 200 photos and a useful narrative text that makes it more than a picture book. If you’re going to model an early version of the Stuka (Anton, Bertha, the carrier-capable Caesar or the extended-range Richard), you’ll want this book at your side to help you identify features missed by the kit manufacturers and to accurately mark your finished model.

The last Stuka I modeled (not counting a 1/144 scale Stuka used as a “gate guardian” on an N-Gauge model railroad “empire”) was the old Revell 1/32nd Bertha – converted to a carrier-capable Caesar (C-0, used in Poland in combat) with catapult spools and an arrestor hook, then back-dated with older exhaust ports and other refinements to make it the carrier-version of the pre-production B-0 and early-production B-1 Stukas. If I’d had this book in hand, I’d have done a better job on both the modifications and the color scheme, though both were more than adequate for a 1970s-era kit build.

Today’s modelers demand more research and more accuracy, and the Classic Colours book on the Stuka (Vol. 1) will give modelers just what they need.

The Motorbooks (MBI) book by John Ward, Hitler’s Stuka Squadrons – The Ju 87 at War 1936-1945, is a far more ambitious book – and it more than amply fulfills the author’s most sanguine ambitions. It is a 224-page developmental and operational history of the type – filled to overflowing with photos, featuring side-profile drawings of the various versions (complete with operational specs that are mostly on-target based on my standard references, Green’s “Warplanes of the Third Reich”).

Some of the photos here overlap those in the Classic Colours book – a few are the hoary old chestnuts we’ve been seeing since Hitler invaded Poland, but some photos found in both are new to me, suggesting that they’d come from recently declassified ex-Soviet photo archives. True or not, it is great to see new photos, and Ward’s book has hundreds of clear, detailed new-to-me Stuka photos.

The photos are worth the price of admission – whether you’re a modeler or a historian/aviation buff – but the text on the aircraft’s development and operational deployment will really, really (and I mean really) strike a positive note with the armchair historian and aircraft buff. I literally couldn’t put it down – and considering how many aviation books I devour (and how many I put aside unfinished), this is high praise indeed, and well-earned.

I particularly appreciated Ward’s analysis – I never before heard how close the Stukas came to delivering a death-blow to the RAF (and I’ve read a lot of Battle of Britain books), nor did I realize how effectively the Stuka was reborn over Russia (or how effective even a handful could be when air superiority was first achieved. I think I liked most the fact-based analysis and explanation of how relatively low numbers of Stukas could do so much war-winning damage in 1939-1942. This put the plane in a new and welcome perspective, and made the book every bit as good a read as it is a resource for modelers and researchers.

Bottom line – both books come highly recommended, though for somewhat different reasons. They cover the core material differently enough – and in sufficient depth – for me to be able to recommend both of them as a kind of “tag-team” – historian, buff or modeler, the pair of these books will serve you better than either one standing along.

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Sweet Nutcracker - Hs-129 Tank Killer (or, Everything That Was Wrong About the Luftwaffe in One Single Aircraft)



Henschel Hs-129 In Detail
By Denes Bernad
Specialty Press/Midlands Books
Review by Ned Barnett
(review copy provided by Specialty Press)


The Henschel Hs-129 tank-killing ground attack aircraft is one of those remarkable wonders/blunders that have always – to me – defined the Luftwaffe. Innovative in concept, this plane is a classic example of a great design that was botched in execution. Pummeled by bureaucracy and political in-fighting; the Hs-129 was nonetheless effective in combat. And most important, it was a classic Axis example of too-little, too-late.

As an aircraft, the Hs-129 has always fascinated me. From the early Profile publications and the contemporary Airfix kit to the later and larger-scale kit by ESCI, this plane has always intrigued me. It had the weapons, but not the power to really make use of those weapons. Limited horsepower forced bizarre (to me) design choices that are part of the aircraft’s charm, and part of the reason it so utterly failed to make a difference in aerial combat. Now, thanks to Denes Bernad and Specialty Press/Midlands Books, I have been able to be reacquainted with this bizarre precursor to the A-10, Su-25 and MiL-24 dedicated anti-tank ground attack aircraft. For the historian, this book focuses on technological development without focusing over-much on operational use; for the modeler, it is pictures and drawings and text that make it possible to create wonderful models of a variety of special-purpose versions of the Hs-129.

I’ll go so far as to say this: If you want to understand German design philosophy (and the equipment shortfalls that influenced that design); if you want to understand how the Luftwaffe’s command did so much (through indecision and constant change-orders) to assist the Allies’ eventual victory – or if you want to build a superbly-accurate model of this aircraft, you need this book!

But before I go farther into the book, let’s look at the plane and its protracted and frustrating development – and a bit, too, on its remarkably small production run.

The Luftwaffe – along with the Soviet VVS and the Italian Regia Aeronautica – had the opportunity to stage a combat dress-rehearsal for World War II in the blood-soaked skies over Spain. Many lessons were learned – some legitimate, some not.

On the “mistaken” side of the ledger, the Soviets “learned” that the biplane was still viable, and put the I-153 fighter into production in 1939 – a lesson the Italians also “learned” before introducing the CR-42. This “lesson” represented a huge step backwards for the Soviets, who had introduced the world’s first successful retractable-gear cantilever-wing monoplane fighter (and the first 300 mph fighter) six years earlier. In 1935, the Soviets had in operational squadrons the I-16, the most advanced fighter in the world. Equally mistaken, the Germans “learned” that the fast medium “strategic” bomber would always get through, without the need for long-range escort fighters or heavy on-board defensive weapons. So they canceled General Wever’s planned “Urals Bomber,” ensured that the Bf-109 was more a long-range intruder than a viable escort fighter, and “protected” their bombers with a few puny rifle-caliber machine guns. Four years later in the skies over Southeastern England, the Luftwaffe learned their mistake – too late to win the Battle of Britain, but still in plenty of time to lose the war.

However, the Germans did learn a few lessons worth knowing – improved versions of the Bf-109 and the Ju-87 were the result of those lessons, as was the value of “terror-bombing” of unprotected cities. Warsaw in 1939, and Rotterdam and Coventry in 1940 were just tactical extensions of Guernica. But an often-overlooked lesson the Luftwaffe learned was the value of a dedicated ground-attack aircraft in the critical army-support role. The elegant Hs-123 biplane proved adequate in this role in Spain, but Germany knew that a bigger, better and more heavily-armed plane was needed (and so did the Soviets, who learned the same lesson and began developing the war-winning Sturmovik). In 1937, the Germans began the development of one of the world’s first dedicated ground-attack machines – a logical extension of the world’s first ground-attack aircraft, the armored and heavily-armed German Junkers J-1 of WW-I. This was the visionary concept. How it was executed becomes the “botched” part of the equation.

Several manufacturers competed for the production prize – but only Henschel started with a clean sheet of paper, and their design won because it most closely met the Luftwaffe’s requirements. The armored ground-attack version of the Fw-189 was a remarkably similar design to the Henschel, but it was bigger – and because it had the same puny Argus 440-horsepower engines – it performed less well. However, even the from-the-ground-up attack Henschel – created with those two one-lunged Argus engines in mind – was underpowered to a remarkable degree.

I’d like to make a brief aside here and talk about the importance of aero-motors in the creation of war-winning aircraft. Too often, the importance of having the “right” engine is overlooked – or just assumed. In the U.S. especially, we had enough engine manufacturers, each striving to build engines to meet specific needs (some big and powerful, some small and efficient), to ensure that we had engines for all military aircraft purposes. Hell, we even powered many of our WW-II tanks with aero-engines – Wright Whirlwinds, for instance – while still building 100,000 planes a year for ourselves and our allies.

Consider radial engines (a comparison I use because the Hs-129 was radial-powered). We started the war with engines in the 1,000-horsepower class which quickly grew to 1,200 horsepower and ultimately almost up to 1,600 – the R-1820 started at about 700 hp in the early B-17s, and wound up at 1,475 hp powering the “Wilder Wildcat” – the Grumman/Eastern FM-2. The R-1830 grew in much the same fashion. A step up, our R-2600 radials went from 1,600 hp in the early B-25s and TBFs up to 1,900 hp in late-war aircraft; and a further step up was the R-2800, which grew during the war from 1,900 to about 2,500 hp – and powered the B-26, A-26, P-47, F4U, F6F and other war-winners. At lower power levels we had engines to power our trainers and utility aircraft, but no American war-built plane had to enter combat with engines rated at below 1,000 hp, even at the start of the war.

The Soviets had a similar range of engines – they never had to face the problem of fielding modern combat aircraft with under-powered engines. The Brits did not have that choice – at least not early in the war – and they had to send into combat planes like the Blenheim, with engines under 1,000 hp, when the Blenheim needed at least two 1,200 hp engines to have a prayer of performing its mission. Compare that sad-sack aircraft to the American A-20 – the Havoc had a smaller crew, a heavier defensive and offensive armament, a larger bomb-load and a longer range. This added performance was thanks to its powerful R-2600 engines, which at 1,600 hp, gave the A-20 a 300-mph-plus top-end speed, even combat-loaded. The British engine problem was due to misguided government policies and a too-small civilian flying industry base to justify creating better radial engines – it didn’t help the Brits that pre-war, American engines were so readily available, as well as so reliable.

The Germans, unlike the Brits, could at least blame the Versailles Treaty for their woes. The cause was different, but the results were the same – a limited selection of mostly old-design (hence heavy for the horsepower produced) and low-powered radial engines. To be sure, the BMW (Bavarian Motor Works) company produced an excellent high-horsepower radial – it powered the Fw-190, for instance – but between the top-end BMW and the very low-powered engines designed for primary and basic training aircraft, the Germans had nothing in the middle. So instead of designing a ground attack aircraft with a couple of 850 hp engines, in 1937 Henschel created their Hs-129 around a couple of 440-hp Argus engines. Even when horsepower was upgraded in the early ‘40s, they didn’t go to 1,000-to-1,200 hp radials – what I consider to be about the functional minimum for this aircraft, considering it’s mission – but did the best they could with a couple of hand-me-down French Gnome-Rhone radials of about 800 hp each.

The US Navy’s new TBF single-engined attack aircraft – which entered combat at about the same time as the Hs-129 – had a 1,600 hp R-2600 engine. The roughly mission-comparable (to the Hs-129) US A-20 two engined ground-attack aircraft, which was designed at the same time as the Hs-129, but which saw combat far earlier, had a couple of 1,600 hp R-2600 engines – twice the power of the revised and upgraded Hs-129 B, which had two hand-me-down French-built Gnome-Rhone 800 hp radials. Is it any wonder that the Hs-129 was defined by its compromises and performed like a dray wagon instead of a hot-rod?

A comparison between the A-20 series and the Hs-129 series is useful. Both twin-engined ground-attack aircraft began as 1937 design studies, both completed production in September of 1944, and both were heavily influenced by lessons from the Spanish Civil War. Douglas first considered a pair of 450 horsepower radial engines for its 7A design, before rejecting that design as being grossly underpowered for the mission. Later in 1937, Douglas upgraded the design to model 7B, which featured a pair of 1,100 hp R-1830 Twin Wasp engines, while Henschel stayed with the 440-hp engines through at least 1940.

The US Army Air Corps was budget-strangled in the late ‘30s, but the French ordered 270 of this potential world-beater as the DB-7, specifying 1,000 hp versions of the R-1830 engine, those these were soon switched back to the more powerful 1,100 hp versions of the Twin Wasp radial. Before the first production Hs-129 flew – with puny 440-hp engines – the first 64 production DB-7s were entering combat with the French Air Force in the anti-tank role. Some of these remarkable first-version of the A-20 survived to the end of WW-II, seeing combat against isolated, cut-off pockets of German forces stranded in France in late ’44 and early ’45.

After these first combat models proved the design’s value, the A-20 series was upgraded again, being mated to the superb 1,600-hp R-2600 engine, ensuring that by the time the upgraded Hs-129 entered combat, its nearest American rival would have exactly twice the base horsepower. Germany knew this was a problem – they wanted to give the Hs-129 an engine in the 1,200 class – but it had none to give. Eventually they settled on an Italian engine design – only to have Italy drop out of the Axis. However, this was in late ’43, at a time when the A-20’s replacement – the A-26 (with more than 4,000 available horsepower in two combat-proven R-2800 radial engines) was already in production.

I haven’t focused on in-line engines – Germany had several good ones, including engines in the right horsepower class for the Hs-129’s mission – but those were all completely committed to more viable combat aircraft and were never considered for the Hs-129. The Daimler-Benz DB-600-series engines were excellent, but they were committed to powering the Bf-110 Zerstorer and the Bf-109 fighter. The similarly high-powered Junkers Jumos were another excellent series of engines used primarily in bombers. The British had an abundance of good inline designs – as well as a few major disasters. While it’s true that engine design flops killed off the Manchester and the Whirlwind, the latter the world’s first four-cannon, 400 mph fighter, the Brits also developed the Merlin and the Griffon – two exceptional engines used in high-altitude interceptors and low-level ground-attack aircraft.

However, the Soviets had production capacity to spare (as did the Americans) – even while relocating their factories to the frozen steppes of trans-Urals Siberia – and had good-quality inline engines that were major improvements over the foreign designs on which they were based. The Soviets were able to power the single-engined ground-attack Sturmovik with a powerful, 1,770 hp Mikulin Am-38F liquid-cooled inline piston engine. America also had an abundance of inline engines – Packard-built Merlins and home-grown Allison V-1710, an often-underrated engine that performed well below 20,000 feet – and, when turbo-supercharged, continued to perform well on up to 40,000 feet. At the time the Hs-129 was being redesigned for the 800-hp Gnome-Rhone, the Allison was reliably producing 1,200 hp.

Another factor often overlooked is production itself. Many historians marvel at Germany’s ability to produce huge numbers of combat fighters, even late in the war – more than 30,000 models of the Bf-109, for instance, were manufactured. However, a closer look shows that this productivity was achieved at a sacrifice – other aircraft were shelved altogether or produced in quantities that would have the Allies laughing in smug self-satisfaction. The Hs-129 – for all it’s flaws – was still a competent ground-attack aircraft. It was capable of destroying tanks at a time when the Panzer forces were being overwhelmed by huge numbers of qualitatively competitive Soviet tanks – but it was never available in quantities sufficient to need.

From 1942 to September 1944 – when production ceased for political reasons – Henschel produced only 1,168 Hs-129s (and of those, more than 100 never left the factory). To put this in comparison, during a single three-month period in 1941 – long before US aircraft production hit it’s stride – Curtiss produced nearly that many copies of the Tomahawk – the British name for early-model P-40s. Britain received so many of these excellent machines so fast that it was able to give 100 to China – mounts for the soon-to-be-legendary American Volunteer Group (the Flying Tigers) and several hundred more to the hard-pressed Soviets, even as they waged a pitched battle with Rommel in North Africa. Focusing merely on ground attack aircraft, Douglas produced 7,098 A-20 series aircraft before production ended in September, 1944 – the same month that production ended for the Hs-129. These A-20-series aircraft were used against the Germans by the French, the British, the US Army Air Corps and by the Soviet Union. They were roughly 100 mph faster than the Hs-129, and could carry roughly twice the bomb load, and could carry that load twice as far (though the British considered it “short-ranged.”). This was not the only Western Allied ground-attack plane – the P-47, the Hurricane and the Typhoon both performed yeoman’s work in ground attack, and the P-51 and Spitfire (though more vulnerable) were also big successes in the ground-attack role. The P-47 could easily carry twice the Hs-129’s ordnance load, well more than twice as far, and at three times the speed – but it wasn’t even a dedicated ground attack machine. For a dedicated tank killer, other than the A-20, we need to look at the Soviet Sturmovik.

Though it had a single engine, the Sturmovik is the most comparable of aircraft to the Hs-129. Both were designed as ground-attack aircraft, and both were initially designed as single-seat aircraft. Both could carry machine guns or auto-cannons capable of defeating tank armor. They had similar top speeds (just above 250 mph) and range (400 miles). Both were heavily armored against ground fire.

However, there the comparison breaks down. The Sturmovik – more formally, the Ilyushin IL-2 – had a single engine with more power than both of the Hs-129’s engines – twice the power, but half the drag. However, the real important factor here was in the production of the two aircraft. As noted, around 1,050 Hs-129s were produced and delivered – roughly 1,000 were eventually distributed to combat units. The story was somewhat different for the IL-2: a total of 36,163 IL-2s were built, making it the single most produced military aircraft design in all of aviation history. If Germany was to have a chance – given that the Soviets were producing more T-34 tanks in a year than all the German tank production of the entire war – then the Luftwaffe needed to procure and issue to combat units the Hs-129 in Sturmovik-like numbers. In the US, a plane built in numbers as low as the Hs-129 would never have been issued to combat units – in those quantities, the logistics of keeping such a small fleet was not considered worthwhile. But the Germans tried to make use of every Hs-129, trying to make dozens perform like hundreds, and hundreds to perform like thousands.

The plane could have been produced in greater numbers – though even 2,000 seems a stretch – but the RLM – the Luftwaffe ministry assigned to order and monitor aircraft production – kept changing it’s collective minds. The stop-and-start-and-stop-and-start priority fluctuation is nothing short of amazing. The Henschel plant was first ordered to switch to Ju-188s, then to switch back to keeping the Hs-129 production line flowing. Later, with 100 machines nearly ready for delivery, the RLM said, “scrap them all – we need Ju-388 strategic bombers.” So Henschel did, though they never got enough machine tools and pattern dies to make even a single Junkers. At best, the Henschel factory worked at 65 percent capacity, though even 100 percent wouldn’t have been enough to turn the tide. Production crawled for nearly three years on what was basically a simple, low-tech, easy-to-manufacture aircraft. Ilyushin produced as many Sturmoviks in the average month as Henschel’s Hs-129s were manufactured and delivered during all of World War II.

In combat, the Hs-129 primarily saw service against the Soviets – however, a few were assigned to North Africa, a few trainers based in France might have flown combat missions against the Western Allies (note – this is pure speculation – the training squadrons were based on France in early ’44, so it may have been that they saw limited combat operations after Overlord, but that’s not been confirmed, at least not yet). And Rumania, which also flew the Hs-129, had a couple of dozen planes still in operation at the time when Rumania left the Axis and joined the Allies – these then flew to the end of the war in service against the Germans.

However, the vast majority of these Hs-129s flew against the Soviets in the 1942-1945 timeframe. In spite of negative comments by test pilots, those who flew the Hs-129 in combat praised it to high heavens. Perhaps it was the heavy armor plate, which helped them survive attacks that would have defeated any other plane in the sky – except, perhaps, for the extraordinarily well-armored Hs-129 – though surviving reports praise the plane’s low-level maneuverability and performance. Apparently, they didn’t mind having the engine instruments mounted on the engines – not inside the incredibly-cramped and superbly-armored cockpit – or perhaps they so enjoyed smashing Soviet armored fighting vehicles (which the Hs-129 could do with ease) that they overlooked all the other planes’ obstacles.

All of which is prologue to my review of the book, Henschel Hs-129 in Detail. This is a great book – useful for those fascinated by mil-tech, and absolutely essential for anyone contemplating the building of a model kit of the Hs-129. I build the old ESCI kit years ago, and now that I have this exceptional book in-hand, I plan to build the modern Hasegawa kit. It should make an interesting complement to my new Eduard IL-2 Sturmovik kit – both are in 1/48th scale, large enough to do justice to these heavily-armed and –armored ground attack aircraft.

I first became fascinated with the Hs-129 when I read the old (late 60s) Profile Publication on this mixed-bag aircraft. When I first opened this book, I thought it would be a “super-Profile” – but I was wrong in one or two important areas. These don’t distract form the book – they define it. Profiles covered design and combat utilization – this new book covers only the design, construction and modification of the Hs-129. There is virtually no mention of combat operations – nor was there any such intent. This book is a technical reference, ideal for the historian or modeler – my lord, between the intense quality of the photos and the many reproduction from factory manuals and Luftwaffe manuals, a modeler who couldn’t super-detail an Hs-129 kit based on this book Just Isn’t Trying Very Hard. In addition, while photos are not there for all sub-variants, the recoilless mortar fired by photo-sensitive sensors would be as spectacular to model as it would be to see it fire. The mention of a flame-thrower-equipped version already has me thinking about ‘conversions.’ There are more, but I trust this is enough to whet the appetite of any normal plastic-basher.

Specifics – 96 magazine-sized pages, probably 3-5 photos per page (most in B&W) – a smattering of color profiles, lots of break-out chart with weights-and-measures, performance specs and related information. The text is useful and informative, the captions on the photos are even more useful – but damned hard for these 55-year-old eyes to read without squinting. Diagrams galore – most from official Luftwaffe publications – show everything worth modeling. Frankly, I can’t wait to get the Hasegawa kit, then re-read this book, making careful notes of everything I want to see in my finished model.

Hey Little Kobra Don’t Ya Know You’re Gonna Shoot ‘Em Down?


Attack of the Airacobras
Soviet Aces – American P-39s – The Air War Against Germany

By Dmitriy Loza – Translated By James F. Gebhardt
University Press of Kansas
Review by Ned Barnett
(Review Copy provided by review author)

Why would a World War II Soviet tank crewman write a book about Soviet fighter pilots who used a much-disparaged (at least in the West) and apparently obsolete “transition-era” fighter aircraft? Perhaps because that tank commander served, during the Great Patriotic War, in an American-built Sherman tank. Though he doesn’t make an issue of it (though he does mention it in the introduction), Loza knows at first hand how nearly 50 years of post-war Soviet policy downgraded both the contribution of Lend-Lease equipment … and of the brave Soviet soldiers, sailors and airmen who manned those “officially-despised” but apparently nonetheless essential American and British contributions to Soviet success in the Great Patriotic War.

If that’s not the reason he wrote this book (I think it is), it’s still a good one – and whatever the reason that inspired this old tanker to write about aerial combat, this is a remarkable book about a plane that – by virtue of what the Soviets were able to do with it – has to be one of the most misunderstood and under-rated combat aircraft of World War II, and maybe of all times.

Starting in late 1941 but really ramping up in early 1943, the Soviet Union received nearly 5,000 Bell P-39 Airacobra fighter planes, primarily through America's Lend-Lease program, though the earliest arrivals were hand-me-downs from the UK. The Soviets quickly adapted the planes that nobody else wanted into a remarkably lethal weapon system. This became an odd coupling of capitalist planes and Marxist pilots – a coupling that became uncomfortable to the post-war Soviet Union, leading to many “myth-understandings” about the P-39 in Soviet hands.

This was a classic “transition-era” fighter, built for the last war, not for the next one. Bell developed their P-39 as a short range pursuit (interceptor) aircraft intended to fly coastal defense missions at relatively low altitudes. However, by Soviet standards, the P-39 was equipped with a powerful engine and deadly hard-hitting weapons. In the hands of gifted Soviet fighter pilots – who’d learned to survive in the crucible of war and who “didn’t know any better” than to think that they had a great plane on their hand, the P-39 was able to out-fly, out-fight and eventually dominate the Luftwaffe from the Kuban Peninsula and the Caucusus foothills to Eastern Europe and Berlin.

Primarily, in order to tell this remarkable story in microcosm, this book is a narrative of the operational history of the incredibly-successful 9th Guards Fighter Division of the Soviet Air Force (the VVS) from the time in early 1943 when elements of the 9th Guards first took the P-39 into combat (at a time when the Americans were phasing it out of front-line combat units as fast as possible) to the very end of the war. The 9th Guards had some of the best pilots in the Soviet VVS, including two of the Soviet Union’s four top aces – Aleksandr Pokryshkin and Gregoriy Rechkalov – which suggests something about the men, and about the aircraft they flew so loyally and so well.

In spite of the apparent obsolescent nature of the P-39, the 9th Guards took 354 “Kobras*” into combat in the final battle for Berlin – and scored it’s last two victories, over Prague, on May 10th, two days after the war officially ended.

*“Kobra” is not a term found in this book – however, the term is widely and authentically used in Osprey’s recent book “Soviet Lend-Lease Aces” – where it has the ring of authenticity. This otherwise excellent book is all but bereft of “insider” military slang so beloved of military aviation buffs.

Everybody who’s ever studied the American and British use of American-designed combat fighters in World War II knows that the Brits – at a time when they were desperate for anything that could fly – rejected the Bell Airacobra out-of-hand, sending most of them to the Soviets in late 1941 and giving the rest back, as the Bell P-400, to the Americans, who were even more desperate for modern fighters. The unloved and unwanted P-400 fought in the early days of 1942 over New Guinea – along with some early-model made-for-the-USAAF P-39s – while others performed remarkable service in Guadalcanal, primarily in the ground support role. Other Americans used the P-39 over North Africa and Sicily, but traded them to the French and turn-coat Italians as soon as they could, preferring to fly almost anything else with wings.

However, the Soviet fighter pilots loved the P-39 – but not, as latter-day myth-makers would have it, for it’s supposed ground-attack and tank-busting abilities (hint – the Soviets didn’t have armor-piercing ammunition for the P-39’s 37mm cannon, but they did have AP for the twin 37s mounted in their world-class IL-2 Sturmovik). Instead, the Soviet pilots loved the P-39 as an air-to-air weapon, and fearlessly took it against often superior numbers of Bf-109F and G-model Messerschmitts – or even the against the much-vaunted Focke-Wulf Fw-190s. Those Soviet fighter pilots loved the heavy nose armament – sufficient, even without wing guns (often removed in combat) for shattering the best-protected Luftwaffe fighters and bombers with a single on-target burst of fire. They loved the P-39 for it’s (comparative) long range, and it’s unexcelled cockpit radios – no less a figure than Aleksandr Pokryshkin, the undisputed “Father of Soviet Fighter Aviation” and the number-two Ace in the Soviet VVS in World War II, said that the Kobra’s radio was its best feature. They even loved it for it’s remarkably clear cockpit glazing – something far superior to that produced by existing Soviet technology. They loved the Kobra’s armored protection, they loved its turning ability – and didn’t seem to think it was sluggish or had poor altitude performance. The Airacobra’s abundant liabilities – at least those found by other Allied fighter pilots – either didn’t exist for the Soviet pilots, or they found these “liabilities” to actually be real strengths.

Pokryshkin, who was promoted to Marshal of Aviation in December of 1972 at the end of a remarkable career, clearly thought the Kobra was something special. He scored most of his 59 official victories (more like 72 actual victories) in the Kobra. At the very end of the war – as a highly-respected major-unit combat leader – he literally went to the mats against his political masters (a dangerous thing to do, even for a multiple-winner of the coveted “Hero of the Soviet Union” honor). The Commissars wanted all the Soviet aircraft in the skies over Berlin to be Soviet-built (they wanted all the tanks to be Soviet-built, too, though some of their best units served in “obsolete” Shermans). Pokryshkin put his life on the line – literally – in order to keep his unit flying “obsolete” P-39s in the skies over Berlin. Knowing he’d be going up against the latest fighters in the German armory, flown by the best surviving pilots in the world, Pokryshkin wanted to stay in his beloved P-39 rather than convert to the supposedly superior Yaks and LaGGs. Perhaps he knew something about the diminutive, hard-hitting P-39 that escaped American air-combat “experts.”

Like the Brewster Buffalo and the Curtiss Hawk 75 in the hands of the Finns, P-39 Airacobras – when in the hands of the 9th Guards Fighter Division’s pilots – was a plane without equal. These fighter jocks were among the highest-scoring pilots in the Soviet Union – they fought a long and bloody no-holds-barred struggle against some of the best pilots the Luftwaffe could field (including top-scoring ace Erich Hartmann) – and right up till VE Day, they swore by their Kobras. It’s almost enough to make you wonder if surfer-singers Jan & Dean had read the history of the 9th Guards Fighter Division before they recorded “Hey Little Cobra (don’t ya know you’re gonna shoot ‘em down?).”

This remarkable book doesn’t tell you why the Kobra was so effective in the hands of these Soviet aces – instead, it shows you how this remarkably small fighter made such a big mark in such a huge war. While the book follows a rough chronological combat history – from early 1943 to the end of the war – it doesn’t flow as a single narrative. It reads more like a series of interesting and somewhat interconnected articles – but that’s not a bad thing, as this flexibility gives Loza the opportunity to bring in details of how the VVS operated in wartime – fascinating minutia I’ve seen nowhere else. Do you want to know how many spare/replacement Allison engines the 9th had on hand for the final battle over Berlin – or how they came up with the formula that told the Commissars just how many spares to have on hand? This book spells it out. Want to know about how food supplies were handled – or how gasoline was sent to the front – or how the VVS had its own medical service to ensure that recovering pilots were returned to their own units? This book spells it out.

In fact, in addition to covering aerial combat, this book covers it all. Did you know that the “communist” Soviet Union paid cash bounties (“bribes”) to successful pilots and aircrews – even ground-crews? While – except for the frankly mercenary American Volunteer Group (the Flying Tigers) – the capitalistic Western Allies would never think of (let alone condone) cash awards for combat success, the communistic anti-materialistic Soviets paid out 5,000 rubles for 120 successful combat missions and 1,500 rubles to the man who shot down a bomber. Sink a sub and you get 10,000 rubles. Even the mechanics got “bribed” – 100 missions without an abort was worth 1,000 rubles to a crew chief or engine mechanic – and if 75 percent of a unit’s ground crewmen qualified for cash bonuses, their supervisors were in for a 1,500 ruble bonus themselves. What’s that? The sound of Lenin spinning like a lathe?

While highlighting lots of fascinating facts about the air war over the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the last two years of the war, mostly, however, this book follows dozens – maybe hundreds – of individual aerial combat engagements. This is a book about aerial combat, and it delivers on this promise – in spades!

The Leitmotif is clear – outnumbered formations of 9th Guards Fighter Division Airacobras are attacked by (or attack) larger and more powerful Luftwaffe units; and, through superior tactics, the Soviets usually score a 3.5 to 1 victory margin, even when facing 3-to-1 or even 5-to-1 odds. It also shows what happens (in tragic detail) when even the most experienced combat leaders forget hard-won lessons, and pay a staggering blood-price for their lapse in judgment. It’s not all one way; however, after two years of horrendous losses, a particularly brutal kind of Darwinian selection occurred – those Soviet pilots who’d survived the Luftwaffe onslaught flying I-15 and I-16 fighters in 1941 and 1942 were now ready, in 1943, to decimate their hated foe with planes that others felt were – at best – marginal. And, while the Soviet military system had many flaws, the author is at great pains to describe how the success of aces and leaders was passed on to not only green replacement pilots but also to other units across the length and breadth of the 2000-mile front line. When a pilot or a unit found something that worked, the Soviets were – by 1943 – quick to integrate that lesson into combat units from the Kuban to Murmansk.

This book dissects aerial combat in remarkable detail – it’s depth and breadth are little short of stunning – and it is that very depth and breadth that make the notion of the P-39 Airacobra as a competent and competitive war-fighting machine right up until the final battles over Berlin “almost” believable. The Americans and the Brits weren’t wrong. For their kind of warfare, the P-39 was – at best – an also-ran. But in a war where fighter strips were built just five or ten miles behind the front lines – on both sides, the P-39 could thrive. In a war where combat in the weeds was more common than combat in the stratosphere, the P-39 could excel. And in a war where quick slashing hits at bombers or fighters took the place of endless swirling dogfights, the P-39 was a combat-master.

Along with more than 300 pages of fascinating, detailed text, the book has several useful maps, dozens of “I’ve never seen ‘em before” photos, and some tables that will be remarkable to the true WW-II aerial combat buff, including a list of every Soviet ace who scored even one shared kill on a Kobra. That list is remarkably long – and when you read elsewhere the stringent rules followed for confirming kills, you’ll realize that this isn’t propaganda-mill victories, but flesh-and-blood triumphs over the truly hated Germans (and if you don’t really believe that the Soviet-in-the-street hated the Germans no matter how bad Stalin was, read this rampantly non-political book that nonetheless shows the Soviets’ profound and reverent love of the “Motherland” – and makes it clear that to invade the “Motherland” is no different than raping your mother).

The publisher says this is based on interviews with Soviet veterans and extensive access to squadron histories and logbooks – and I believe it. This book is part of the University Press of Kansas’ Modern War Studies series.

A great book – well worth the price: Retail $34.95 – new at Amazon for $26.56.
University Press of Kansas – http://www.kansaspress.ku.edu

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Polikarpov’s I-16 Fighter – It’s Forerunners and Progeny



Polikarpov’s I-16 Fighter – It’s Forerunners and Progeny
Red Star Volume 3
By Yefim Gordon and Keith Dexter
© 2001 Midlands Press and Specialty Press
Reviewed by Ned Barnett
(review copy provided by Specialty Press)

This book initially came out in 2001 – and it was a great addition to the literature at that time. However, since 2001, restored I-16s are once again flying, stirring a new level of interest in these remarkable transitional-era fighter aircraft. Beyond that, Eduard, Trumpeter and a half-dozen other kit manufacturers have issued great new kits of the I-16 and its immediate predecessors, the I-15 and I-153 biplane fighters. That influx of new Soviet fighter kits makes this book well worth another look – if you don’t have it, and if you’re planning to build one of these great kits (I plan to build five of them), this book is an absolute godsend.

It’s 126 pages long – 20 of those pages are side-view line drawings and side-view color plates – lots and lots of color plates, illustrating just how many color schemes are available to modelers.

Mostly, however, this book is chock-full of detailed photos – lots and lots of photos – along with enough text to help you make sense of both the photos and the almost-bewildering number of models of I-16s that were manufactured.

Why does this matter? At the time of it’s entry into service, the I-16 was perhaps the most advanced fighter aircraft in the world – it did in the early 1930s what the MiG-15 did in the early 1950s – it catapulted Soviet fighter aircraft into the forefront of world development. Initially built with an enclosed cockpit, the I-16 was among the first operational cantilever monoplane fighters with retractable landing gear. The I-16 also carried more than the then-standard two rifle-caliber machine guns. With streamlining, strength and raw power, the I-16 set the standard for all the fighters that followed, right on through to the beginning of the jet age.

The I-16 was a dominant fighter for most of the Spanish Civil War – while early Messerschmitt Bf-109s came in late in the war and offered some performance advantages over the I-16, pilot skill was often the margin between success and failure. Later, in the far-eastern border clash between Imperial Japanese forces based in the puppet state of Manchukuo (occupied Manchuria) and Soviet armed forces based in Mongolia – the Khalkhin Gol “incident” – the I-16 proved more than a match for the supremely maneuverable Nakajima Ki-27 fighter.

However, by 1941, the I-16 was long past its prime – but for a variety of reasons, the Soviets didn’t have enough of the next- replacement aircraft in squadron service, and the now-obsolete I-16 had to soldier on. Many brave Soviet pilots died in 1941 and 1942 – and in some cases, into the early months of 1943 – for the “crime” of being assigned to front-line fighter planes that should have been relegated to ground attack or advanced-training duties. In spite of the I-16’s antique-status, more than a few exceptional pilots actually racked-up impressive success rates while flying these museum-piece fighters. These include Red Banner Baltic Fleet Lieutenant Senior Grade G. Tsokolayev, Lieutenant Senior Grade G. G. Guryakov, five-victory ace Lt. Krichevskiy, another well-known ace – Boris F. Safonov – and Hero of the Soviet Union Vasiliy Golubev.

The long and the short of the I-16 is this: In it’s prime, this aircraft was the best in the world at what it did; and even though it was used long after it should have been retired, in the hands of a skilled pilot, the plane could still hold it’s own in combat with the vaunted German Luftwaffe.

This book – Polikarpov’s I-16 Fighter – captures the essence of this remarkable aircraft. The narrative text tells the story if it’s creation, development and combat career. The illustrations will appeal to aircraft history/technology buffs and modelers alike. Strongly recommended!

Convair B-36 Peacemaker - Warbird Tech Series Volume 24







Convair B-36 “Peacemaker”
Warbird Tech Series Volume 24
By Dennis R. Jenkins
Reviewed by Ned Barnett
(Review Copy provided by Specialty Press)

This is an update of a review first published in early 2000; but book hasn’t changed, but new information on the B-36 has made this fine volume even more useful and relevant – and the release of 1/144th scale Peacemaker kits add a further incentive for revisiting this remarkable little 100-page book.

The B-36 served operationally for just 10 years, from 1948 to 1958 – it was slow for it’s time, cruising at just 250 mph, but the Peacemaker flew so high that it was largely invulnerable for most of it’s career. With an unrefueled combat range of 10,000 miles, missions of 40 hours were not uncommon – though they must have been butt-busters of monumental proportions. This book – from Specialty Press’s excellent Warbird Tech series – does an excellent job of capturing the sheer enormity of this remarkable huge aircraft, known with irony and a bit of affection as “Magnesium Overcast.” The war-winning atomic bomber, the B-29 Superfortress, looked like a Piper Cub when parked in the B-36’s shadow (which Convair and the Air Force did a lot, for PR purposes).

It also captures the details, with sketches of the turrets and engine installations, close-up photos of cockpits and bomb bays and low-slug auxiliary jet engines. It should come as no surprise that the B-36 was frequently modified to fulfill special missions – perhaps most amazingly as an aircraft carrying an operational nuclear reactor (which did not power the plane, but only tested airborne radiation shielding). At least one B-36 was modified as an all-jet YB-60, intended as a competitor to the Boeing B-52 but – at a top speed roughly 100 mph less than the B-52 – too little, too late.

The book has a relative few color photos – most B-36s weren’t all that colorful – but the author found a color shot of a gaudy B-36 used to drop test atom bombs over Nevada and the Pacific – this one looks like a cross between a circus wagon and an 8th Air Force “formation ship.” Modelers who see this photo will absolutely want to figure out a way to build it. However, what it lacks in color it makes up for with line drawings – many from documents created by Convair and the Air Force for Peacemaker crews and ground crews – that really make this aircraft come to life.

Whether you like military technology and aviation history or whether you’re a modeler looking for reference material and interesting ideas, the Warbird Tech Convair B-36 “Peacemaker” is a book you’ll want to add to your personal library.

Bell P-39/P-63 Airacobra & Kingcobra - Warbird Tech Volume 17




Bell P-39/P-63 Airacobra & Kingcobra
Warbird Tech Volume 17
© 1998 Specialty Press
By Frederick A. Johnsen
Reviewed by Ned Barnett
(review copy provided by review author)


Hasegawa just came out with a 1/48th scale P-400 – the export version of the P-39D Airacobra – that is by all accounts (including my own) the best-of-breed. There are other good-to-great kits of the P-39 series by Eduard, Accurate Miniatures (re-released as a post-war air racer) and even the venerable Revell/Monogram kit, which isn’t too bad. And that’s just in 1/48th scale.

That is reason enough to revisit the 1998-issued Warbird Tech book on the P-39 and P-63. This series of 100-page photo-and-text books are of uniformly high quality – interesting to historians and aircraft buffs and extremely welcome for modelers who appreciate seeing the details, as well as the overview. This one is a classic example of the breed.

This book begins with the development of the P-39, a radical and revolutionary aircraft that was largely robbed of its place in American military history by an “official” decision to build the plane without a turbo-supercharger. This lack of supercharging hamstrung the aircraft at any altitude above 15,000 feet – making it useful for ground attack and for aerial combat on the Eastern Front, where high-altitude combat was few and far between. However, for North African and Western European combat – and in air-to-air fighting against the Japanese – the plane was a pale shadow of what it could have been. American combat pilots – except for a relatively few ground-attack fighter units in the Southwest Pacific – were eager to transition out of the ‘Cobras and into something a bit more suited to all-altitude combat.

Fortunately, many P-39s and almost all P-63s – the upgraded redesign of the Airacobra – were Lend-Leased to the Soviets, who knew how to use it in both ground-attack and air-to-air combat. They appreciated the hard-hitting 37mm Oldsmobile-built aircraft cannon and the two .50 caliber Browning heavy machine guns – to enhance performance, the Soviets often stripped off the wing guns as unnecessary. Although this fact was almost a state secret until the fall of the Soviet Union, a significant number of the Soviet’s most successful aces ran up their scores in Bell-built aircraft.

An interesting side-issue covered by this book is the US Navy’s Airabonita – a tail-dragging fighter very similar to (but hardly identical to) the early-model P-39s. The book includes three rare photos and several pages of insightful narrative about the XFL-1 Airabonita, a fascinating “might have been” that never got beyond the prototype stage.

Except for the butt-ugly TP-39Q two-seat trainer, and a single one-off XP-39E (which was really a prototype for the later P-63) the P-39 seemed to stay the same from P-39D to P-39Q. However, the P-63 became the basis of a variety of interesting conversions. One P-63 was used by the Navy – post-war – to test both tricycle landing gear and swept wings on carriers. This paved the way for the FJ-2 Fury and other swept-wing carrier combat aircraft. Another was used to test a “butterfly” tail, such as later appeared on the Beechcraft Bonanza, and discovered that it offered no meaningful performance increase. I’ve built the Navy version – it was an interesting kit-bashed conversion – and have thought about the Butterfly Kingcobra as well.

However, for my money, perhaps the most fascinating conversion – and the only one that saw active service in the USAAF – was the “Pinball.” This was a heavily-armored, sensor-laden but unarmed aircraft that was used to train bomber gunners. These gunner-trainees would use a light .30-caliber machine gun firing frangible bullets – and shoot at the brightly-painted (high-visibility) Pinballs, which flew pursuit-curve attacks for the gunners’ benefit. Every time the target plane was hit, a light bulb in the nose flashed – hence the name. These aircraft saw extensive service in the Southwest US during 1944 and 1945 – and this book not only traces their operational career, but provides detailed drawings highlighting the areas of the Pinballs that were up-armored. If you want to build a Pinball, this book will be extremely helpful. It’s not the only source on the Pinball, but it’s got a lot of useful information – text, photos and line drawings.

Bottom line – you can’t go wrong with Warbird Tech titles. If you’ve got an interest in the P-39 Airacobra or the P-63 Kingcobra – or the prototype US Navy Airabonita – this book is for you. The last time I was at my local Hobbytown USA, I saw one on the shelf, so I presume this book is still in print.

The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway - and - The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign









The First Team – Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway
and
The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign
John B. Lundstrom
U.S. Naval Institute Press
(Review Copy provided by review author)


I have been studying naval aviation combat since the early 1960s, and I have never come across a book half so comprehensive, from a historical basis – nor half so useful, from a modeling perspective – as this two-volume set recently reprinted by the Naval Institute Press. The title – “The First Team” – refers to US Naval Aviator fighter pilots who were in service at the start of World War II; a convenient way of focusing on naval fighter combat from December 7, 1941 to the end of the Guadalcanal campaign in early February, 1943. This was a time when the F4F Wildcat bore the brunt of the aerial warfare – a few F2A Buffalo fighters served in the Navy during this time-frame, but the only Buffalos that saw combat were serving with the Marines (who are outside the scope of this two-volume study).

This book covers literally every incident of aerial combat that included US Navy fighter aircraft from December 7 through the end of Guadalcanal. I mean EVERY incident, every American shoot-down (and every American shot down) and every American carrier attack on a Japanese island target fought during the first 14 months of the war in the Pacific: the Wake relief force, the Gilbert, Marshall and Marcus Island raids, the assault on Rabaul, and the attacks on Tulagi, Lae and Salamaua – and of course, Guadalcanal. The books also cover every carrier vs. carrier battle that was fought in the Pacific before 1944: Coral Sea, Midway, Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz. In short, The First Team two-volume book is incredibly comprehensive. Maps and charts illustrate each battle, each significant combat incident, each movement of carriers and air groups – the detail is remarkable. Author John Lundstrom makes these battles come alive in ways that no other history I’ve read have been able to accomplish. But for all their value as pure history, these books go way beyond that.

For instance, The First Team covers combat tactics – the prime reason why the vastly-inferior F4F-4 Wildcat was able to best the incredible Japanese Zero in almost every encounter (including decisive victories at Midway and Guadalcanal). Pre-war, the US Naval air service – alone among the world’s air forces – trained its pilots to successfully use deflection shooting, permitting pilots to attack from beam positions, instead of just from directly astern. To perform a deflection-shooting attack successfully, the pilot couldn’t aim at the target; instead, he had to aim for where the plane would be when the bullets arrived.

Deflection shooting is a kind of lead-the-target targeting performed by duck hunters and skeet shooters; a process vastly complicated in aerial combat because both the attacker and the target are moving at several hundred miles per hour, generally in different planes. However, when successfully executed, deflection attacks are almost unbeatable. This kind of deflection shooting permitted American Naval fighter pilots to attack the enemy with limited risk of counter-battery fighter from defending aircraft. Deflection attacks were decisive in attacks on bomber aircraft, but this approach also gave U.S. Naval aviators a significant advantage over the more maneuverable and – at most altitudes – faster Japanese fighters.

Other tactical elements explored in great detail were the comparative tactical formations – American transition from four-aircraft divisions to two-aircraft divisions while the Japanese held onto the far more awkward and inflexible three-plane formations – as well as the evolution of the “Thatch Weave,” a mutually-supportive defensive formation the Japanese were never able to effectively counter.

The First Team also looks – in depth – at the training of Japanese and US Naval aviators. In 1941, Japanese naval aviators were, man-for-may, the best-trained pilots in the world, yet thanks to different tactical approaches, they were consistently outfought, first by well-trained US Naval Aviators and later even by grass-green Ensigns not long out of advanced training programs. Training and organization were critical – Japanese were taught to move in units of three aircraft, and to take advantage of their aircraft’s incredible maneuverability.

American Naval Aviators were trained in deflection gunnery, in pilot-wingman cooperation and in emphasizing mutually-supporting defensive tactics culminating in the unbeatable Thatch Weave – which remarkably was under development before the outbreak of the war, though “conventional wisdom” has held that Commander John “Jimmy” Thatch developed the mutual-support tactics in response to initial combat with the Japanese.

Another factor that The First Team explored which worked against the Japanese was the very different organizational structure of the two countries’ carrier air groups. In the US Navy, carrier air groups were fungible organizations – new squadrons and new pilots could be shuffled through the air groups, and these groups could be shuffled from carrier to carrier as needed. By contrast, Japanese carrier air groups trained as a unit, and were permanently assigned to a specific aircraft carrier.

When a Japanese group suffered significant combat casualties, not only were the individual squadrons no longer combat-capable, but the carrier itself was out of the battle. As a result, after the bloody draw at Coral Sea, surviving Naval aviators from the sunken Lexington were able to go back into combat onboard the Yorktown at Midway – less than a month later – effectively replacing losses the Yorktowners suffered at Coral Sea with combat-tested pilots. Even though the Yorktown had been badly damaged, it was patched together and able to field a combat-ready air group that proved decisive at Midway less than a month later.

However, as explained in The First Team’s assessment of Japan’s carrier air group organization, the Zuikaku – which, unlike the surviving Yorktown, was undamaged but which also suffered heavy pilot losses – was unable to serve at Midway because the Zuikaku’s carrier air group had been decimated, and a carrier without an air group is little more than a target. Although sufficient combat-experienced pilots from the heavily-damaged Shokaku had survived and were at least technically available, because of a long-standing organizational policy, the Japanese were unable to restore the Zuikaku’s group.

Instead, both air groups had to be restored to full combat capability only after receiving infusions of trainees, which required a long work-up period. The Yorktown’s presence at Midway was decisive; the absence of Zuikaku was at least potentially just as decisive. Had two Japanese carriers – Zuikaku and Hiryu – survived the first devastating US Naval attack, their return strike may have done more than just knock out the Yorktown.

The books even get into fascinating controversies, such as the odd decision to put six .50 caliber machine guns into the Navy’s new folding-wing F4Fs, even though they’d add a further weight penalty that would – along with the weight of the wing-fold mechanism –cripple the Wildcat’s climb, range and overall combat capabilities. The early-war fixed-wing F4F-3 carried four .50 caliber machine guns – which US Navy fighter leaders felt was sufficient to knock down unarmored Japanese bombers and fighters. However, the fixed wing took up deck and hanger space and sharply limited the number of fighters a carrier could handle. With fighter squadrons growing from 18 to 27 to 36 aircraft, the need for folding wings was essential, even though the weight penalty imposed by the folding mechanism would inevitably degrade performance.

The initial decision to go with six .50 caliber guns in a folding-wing Wildcat was made by the British Fleet Air Arm, which did not routinely face fighter-to-fighter combat – minimizing the need for high-end performance – yet rightly felt it needed the heavier firepower inherent in six .50 calibers to swiftly knock down armored and well-armed German and Italian bombers. Oddly, instead of listening to their own fighter leaders, the US Navy’s “Brass Hats” listened to the Brits, and decided – in the name of production efficiency – to standardize on the British design.

The result was the F4F-4 – a sluggish, slow-climbing short-range fighter which had six .50 caliber machine guns but fewer total rounds of ammo (and, therefore, a much shorter firing time) than the older F4F-3. This plane had a harder time climbing to a decisive altitude. It had difficulty conducting CAPs of more than a couple of hours or escorting bombers farther than 175 miles; and when it did find targets, this new Wildcat all-too-quickly ran out of ammunition. When front-line Naval Aviators complained about being asked to fight what was arguably the best carrier planes in the world with an increasingly second-string fighter plane, the Navy Brass in Washington told these front-line troops to fly their Wildcats with a 2/3rds fuel load and two unloaded guns – absurd advice to pilots who knew they needed every bullet and every gallon of gas every time they went head-to-head in combat with the best-trained naval aviators in the world, the Japanese.

These limiting factors for the new F4F clearly had an impact in the loss of the Yorktown at Midway, as well as the loss of so many torpedo planes at that same battle – and these F4F deficiencies may have also contributed to the loss of the Hornet at the Battle of Santa Cruz four months later. Nobody from the greenest Naval Aviation Ensign all the way up to Admiral Chester Nimitz had a good thing to say about the F4F-4 – but it was only after the end of the Guadalcanal campaign that the General Motors-built FM-1 reverted to a four-gun armament – too late to face down the Japanese.

Yet remarkably, the US Navy seldom fought the Japanese head-to-head without coming out on the winning end. Ultimately, the Wildcat scored a three-to-one winning margin over the Japanese – not because the Wildcat was a better fighter aircraft, though it did have some advantages, but because American Naval Aviators had better tactics, from the two-plane division to the Thatch Weave.

As noted, while it had dramatically shorter range, at least a marginally lower speed at most altitudes – and it was far less maneuverable than the Zero – the Wildcat that fought the Japanese from December 7, 1941 to February, 1943 did have some significant advantages over its adversary. The Grumman was solidly built – earning for its manufacturer the affectionate nickname “Grumman Iron Works.” The Grumman fighter was also well-armored (at least where it counted), and – early in the war – it began to receive functional self-sealing fuel tanks that would absorb a 7.7 millimeter (.30 caliber) Japanese machine-gun bullet.

While it was slow to climb, the Wildcat could dive like a bat out of hell – given enough altitude, American Naval Aviators could always break off combat with Japanese Zeros – and given an initial altitude advantage (hard to come by, but not impossible to achieve), the Wildcat could initiate combat – attack Zeros and other Japanese aircraft – with no recourse by the Japanese. They couldn’t escape a diving Wildcat; they could turn and fight, but couldn’t run away.

Further, in a head-to-head attack, the Wildcat’s rugged structure and .50 caliber armament (either four-gun or six-gun) easily outmatched their Japanese adversaries. The Japanese Zero’s 20 mm cannons were low-velocity weapons useful only at short range; the longer-ranged Japanese 7.7 mm (.30 caliber) machine guns had too little hitting power to ensure a quick victory over the Wildcat. On the other hand, the standard American .50 caliber Browning heavy machine guns were fast-firing, long-ranged and hard-hitting enough to knock down any Japanese fighter – or bomber – they could hit.

All of these factors were covered in fascinating detail in The First Team, making them a feast of information, insight and factual data for the historian – and the history buff.

Beyond that, the two “First Team” volumes also offer a great deal to modelers. Each book is heavily illustrated with contemporary photos which show evolving markings on US Navy fighters. Not a few of these photos will also offer modelers display and deck-handling diorama ideas.

In addition, Appendix 3 of The First Team and Appendix 4 of The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign each features side-view profiles of F4F fighters in use during the time periods covered by the books. Together, these let modelers authoritatively paint-and-mark virtually any F4F that fought off one of the USN fleet carriers during the first year of the war – including carrier-based planes that temporarily served on Guadalcanal. With the recent spate of new F4F Wildcat releases in 1/32nd scale (including the soon-to-be-here Trumpeter Wildcat), this kind of reference will prove invaluable to modelers.

Bottom line: These two books are remarkable. For those interested in carrier-based fighter combat during the dark early days of World War II in the Pacific, these are “must-reads.” The books have been released in Trade Paperback format by the US Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland – it’s also avail

Hawker Hurricane - The Mushroom Models Publications Book





Hawker Hurricane
Mushroom Models Yellow Series
© 2006
By Marek Rys – Color Illustrations by Jacek Jackiewicz
Reviewed by Ned Barnett
(Review Copy provided by Mushroom Models Publications)


“Another Hawker Hurricane book? Amazon lists 397 Hawker Hurricane books. Man, I need another Hurricane book like I need …”

That was my first thought when I received Mushroom Model’s latest release; seldom have I been more wrong. If I had to be limited to just one book on this critical transition-era fighter aircraft, I’d take this new volume hands-down. At least for modelers – though it’s useful for historians as well – this is far and away the best one-volume book on the Hawker Hurricane I’ve got in my collection.

The Hurricane was the first monoplane fighter in the RAF – as well as the first with a retractable landing gear (the Gladiator was the first with an enclosed cockpit) – as such, it is what I consider a “transition-era” fighter. Developmentally, this puts the Hurricane on a par with the Seversky P-35 and Curtiss P-36, the Polikarpov I-16 and the fixed-gear fighters by Mitsubishi and Nakajima – yet the Hurricane outperformed and outlasted all of them. Born in 1935, the Hurricane was the most numerous and effective RAF fighter in the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940 – and this remarkably long-lived fighter remained operational throughout the war and, in one rocket-equipped squadron flying in the Eastern Med, until 1947.

During the dozen years the Hurricane saw operational service, this remarkable aircraft went through three major designs – Mk. I, Mk. II and Mk. IV – along with literally dozens of minor variations. This book covers most, if not all of these variations, including foreign modifications that include a Yugoslav-built Daimler-Benz powered Hurricane and a handful of Soviet modifications – from re-weaponed combat machines to two-seat UTI Hurricanes – that were news to me. Reading through the book and studying the detailed 1/72nd scale line drawings of these variations, I was inspired to start off modeling a whole series of Hurricane conversions. For a modeler, it doesn’t get much better than that.

In addition to roughly 100 pages of text that include detailed drawings and contemporary black-and-white operational photos, this new Mushroom Models Hawker Hurricane book has 30 pages of side-view color profiles – the Luftwaffe- and Japanese-marked Hurricanes were especially interesting. The book also has 74 pages of color photos – primarily “walk-around” and detailed construction, cockpit, engine compartment and landing gear photos – of surviving flight-capable and museum Hurricanes. Photos of Sea Hurricanes show useful details of catapult spools, arresting gear and other navalized features, sure to be useful to FAA modelers.

The 70 pages of narrative text, which focuses on construction and development, rather than operational service, doesn’t chart a lot of new territory – for a plane as well-covered as the Hurricane that would be difficult – but what is covered is well-presented and interesting. The story of the Hurricane’s development holds together well, and in addition to recapping well-known information about this remarkable fighter, there are some intriguing new bits of information, such as plans to re-engine the Hurricane with Rolls-Royce Griffon and Bristol Hercules engines – sure to appeal to the “what-if” modelers.

For modelers and for those who are interested in the development of one of the most successful of the transition-era fighter aircraft, Mushroom Models’ new Hawker Hurricane title is a useful bargain and strongly recommende

American Volunteer Group Colours and Markings



American Volunteer Group Colours and Markings
Osprey Aircraft of the Aces #41 © 2001
By Terrill Clements
Review by Ned Barnett
(Review copy provided by review author)


This may become a continuing refrain at this review site – “just what we need, another book on ...”

It’s my hope that, in each case where that question comes to mind, I’ll also be able to provide they answer, “Hell YES we need this book!” I’m pleased to say that this book on the often-covered American Volunteer Group – the AVG – is needed, welcome and very well done. And I say this as one who’s got at least a dozen good books on the AVG, from biographies by Scott and Boyington to the recent and superb “Sharks over China.”

I’m glad to be able to report that, once again, I’m finding that a new book – new to me, anyway, though it was first published in 2001 – that explores new aspects of even an often-explored subject is well worth having. In this case, author Terrill Clements interviewed several surviving Flying Tigers, and in the process, brought new insights into this well-reviewed topic. For me, this was a page-turner, with new insights into a well-traveled story, and lots of useful-to-modelers photos, drawings and pilot commentary.

Most students of things military will recognize the AVG – a group of three squadrons of mercenary pilots in the employ of the Nationalist Chinese government. Always under-strength and under-manned, these brave soldiers of fortune – themselves often cast-offs from the pre-war US Army Air Corps and the US Naval Air Service – blazed a trail of glory across the skies of Southeast Asia for barely six months. From their first combat on December 10, 1941 until July 4, 1942 when the AVG was disbanded and reconstituted as the 23rd Fighter Group of the U.S. Army Air Force’s China Air Task Force, the AVG destroyed nearly 300 Japanese combat planes in the air and on the ground, losing just 20 pilots and perhaps 35 or 40 aircraft in the process.

Not surprisingly, the AVG – the Flying Tigers – have been covered widely, in everything from a piss-poor John Wayne wartime propaganda movie to a series of books, articles, seminars and websites. Did we need another book? Surprisingly – especially if you’re a modeler or you want to know more about the people who made up the AVG – the answer is a resounding YES!

The book is a godsend to modelers like me who have a “thing” for the American Volunteer Group – for instance, it has a dozen-page chapter that probes almost excessively (if “excessive probing” into AVG markings is possible) into the color schemes and markings of the group’s 99 remarkably historical Tomahawk fighters. Not only are very specific details of even the smallest markings spelled out, but in many cases the author is able to say who painted on those markings – when – and where he bought the paint! In focusing on the people who painted and serviced and flew these Tomahawk fighters, the author swings back to further coverage on the markings: asking – then answering – specific questions such as “who created the various versions of the shark-mouth,” for instance, and “how the squadron and personal markings evolved over time.” For “marking nuts” (and who, among those who model the Flying Tigers, isn’t something of a “marking nut” at heart?) this book is a “must” for your hobby bookshelf.

A personal aside about my fascination for the AVG’s Hawk Model 81 Tomahawk – the primary mount of the AVG, which also flew a few USAAF hand-me-down P-40Es late in the Group’s abbreviated lifespan – this AVG Tomahawk is a beaut! Not exactly a P-40, the AVG Tomahawk was built to a British Lend Lease contract as an offshoot of their Tomahawk Mk. II. These aircraft were then passed on, again through Lend Lease, to Nationalist China to help in their ongoing war against Imperial Japan. Other Tomahawks from the same production run were Lend-Leased to the Soviet Union, and amazingly – since the fall of the Soviet Union – a few of these Tomahawks have recently been discovered and are currently being restored to flight status or for museum displays.

The aircraft from this particular production batch is really an amalgam of the P-40B and P-40C, with features from both aircraft. However, when taken into the USAAF at the time the AVG disbanded, the plane was referred to “officially” as a P-40C. No matter what it’s designation, to my eye the AVG Tomahawk is not only the most elegant and attractive P-40, but also the most deadly-looking.

Sure, later models of this Curtiss fighter had more powerful armament – six wing-mounted .50 caliber Browning heavy machine guns as opposed to the Tomahawk’s two nose-mounted .50s and four wing-mounted .30 caliber Brownings – and these later models also had the ability to carry and drop bombs. They also had heavier armor and better gunsights – and very likely improved self-sealing fuel tanks, too. No question that the D and E models (the Kittyhawks) and the later F-model through N-model Warhawks were, in most cases, technically more capable warplanes. But the Tomahawk looks deadlier (at least to me), and because it wasn’t weighted down with heavier armament and extra armor, it may well have been a bit more maneuverable – that judgment is really up to the pilots who flew both in combat, and this book didn’t address that issue.

Speaking of judgment, one AVG pilot – a former US Navy F4F-3 Wildcat pilot – felt that the Tomahawk’s firepower was superior to the Wildcat’s. No question that four .50s had a more potent punch than two .50s and four .30s – but against lightly-built, unarmored Japanese aircraft, the higher volume of bullets from those six guns (and the .30s’ inherently higher rate of fire) proved decisive in those brief on-target instances in combat.

Confirming this, one of the Japanese Imperial Army Air Force’s leading surviving aces – quoted in the book from a recent TV documentary – referred to gunfire from the Tomahawks as a “rain of bullets” that never seemed to stop. He should know – hit by two .30 rounds from an AVG Tomahawk, he barely survived. Hospitalized for months, he didn’t return to combat until long after the AVG had become the 23rd Group of the U.S. Army Air Force’s China Air Task Force – and long after the fast-shooting “transition-era” Tomahawk had been replaced by later-model P-40 Kittyhawks with their harder-hitting but slower-shooting six .50 caliber machine gun battery.

Part of my preference for the Tomahawk – and therefore part of my interest in the AVG – is my fascination with what I call “transitional-era” aircraft. The P-35 and P-36 were the US Army Air Corps’ first all-metal monoplane fighters with retractable landing gear, enclosed cockpits and heavier armament than the two rifle-caliber machine guns that had been common in all air forces from 1916 to roughly 1936. The early P-40s – the Tomahawks – were little more than re-engined P-36s, and were still what I consider “transitional” fighters. They didn’t carry or drop bombs, they still had a mixed armament that included light rifle-caliber machine guns, and their radios sucked on toast.

However, the more robust P-40E had completed the transition. With heavy armor, decent radios, six .50 caliber heavy machine guns and the ability to drop bombs, the P-40E was fully the conceptual equal of the second-generation monoplane fighters such as the P-39 Airacobra (which some might consider a “transitional-era fighter, too” – that’s open to debate, at the very least) and the early Allison-engined P-51 Mustangs. They were also the equal to other “evolved” planes that started out as transitional-era fighters, including the cannon-armed Hurricanes and the Daimler-Benz DB-601-powered Bf-109 E fighters. While these later P-40s might be better fighter aircraft – hell, they WERE better fighter aircraft – they had lost some of the distinction I think all those first-generation “modern” monoplane fighters shared.

When it comes to modeling, I prefer the transitional era fighters (this also applies to the jet era – I really like those first-generation jets, as well as those awkward hybrids like the Ryan Fireball) – and because I find the Tomahawk the most elegant of the breed, I’m particularly pleased with this book. For the Tomahawk modeler who likes the AVG, this book is sensational!

Along with this superb narrative are fifteen pages of color plates – including 1941-1942 color photos – and dozens of contemporary B&W photos. The photos are interspersed throughout the book, and accompany a narrative that focuses on the personalities – the pilots and ground crewmen – who made up the Flying Tigers, as well as their oft-reported combat operations.

While the book focuses more on markings than on aerial combat, it does note that in exchange for the loss from all causes of 20 combat pilots, the AVG racked up a confirmed kill rate of 296 Japanese aircraft, including many victories over Ki-43 Oscars (the equal, in speed and maneuverability, to the better-known Zero) flown by some of the premier fighter jocks of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force. To all causes, the AVG lost about 70 of their 99 original Tomahawks – though more were lost to training accidents than to combat, and most combat losses were either planes bombed on the ground or shot-up Tomahawks that brought their pilots home before being turned into spare-parts bins.

At a time when the Japanese were clearing the sky of Allied planes over Hawaii, the Philippines, Java, Singapore and Western Australia, the relative handful of AVG Tomahawks – and an even smaller contingent of RAF Buffalos and Hurricanes – stood up to the largest aerial armadas to be seen in the Pacific before the start of the great Carrier battles of 1944, and gave better than they got. Much better!

In many cases during the defense of Rangoon, a dozen or so AVG Tomahawks and another dozen RAF fighters – including the often-maligned Buffalos – would rise to fight air fleets of 150, 200 or more Japanese fighters and bombers. While the Allies were too few in number to inflict losses sufficient to deter the Japanese – who seemed to have a near-endless supply of replacements – these AVG and RAF forces inflicted damage all out of proportion to their numbers, and lived to fight another day. And another day. And yet another day – in the case of the AVG, for six long months.

Even if you cut their victory numbers in half – an unjustified move, in my opinion, since so many AVG kills were confirmed by wreckage that fell in Allied territory or into occupied China were loyal partisans eagerly confirmed the victories – the AVG scored in combat at a trade-off rate that wasn’t matched by the Allies until Hellcats and Corsairs took to the skies in overwhelming numbers more than two years later. With vastly superior numbers – and vastly superior combat planes – it’s relatively easy to rack up impressive victory totals. When outnumbered 10-to-1 – or even 20-to-1 – while flying against combat-tested veterans … when flying planes the world considers obsolescent, if not down-right obsolete – survival alone is remarkable. But to score a 5-to-1 victory margin over a confident and skilled enemy at the peak of his strength and power is all but unbelievable.

But, in the case of the AVG, the unbelievable was all in a day’s work.

This detailed, superbly-illustrated 96-page book is pure Osprey, which in this case is a good thing – Osprey has a strong track-record of producing books that add real value to both the amateur historian and the avid modeler. Since I have a particular affinity for modeling early-model P-40s, this book has proven especially interesting and useful – but anybody with an interest in the Flying Tigers or in modeling the Tomahawk will find real value in this book.