Product Description

Discover the history of a classic duel as the finest American and German pilots were pitted against each other in the war-torn skies over Europe. The P-51 personified the might of the Eighth Air Force's fighter strength in the latter years of World War II. Their opposition were the pilots of the Fw 190 committed to the final, frontline defence of the Reich. Commonly known by its adversaries as the 'Butcher Bird', the Fw 190 was the scourge of its enemies, superior to all Allied fighters until the introduction of the P-51. Relive the thrill and terror of a dogfight as these two evenly matched opponents battled for supremacy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #98452 in Books
• Brand: BOOK WORLD
• Published on: 2007-09-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 80 pages

Customer Reviews

great new book series - material falls short
A new series from Osprey entitled 'Duel' looks at weapons system as used by both sides of the conflict placing them in an interesting comparative context. This particular title deals with two of the main protagonists of the air battles over Germany during the period 1943-1945 and covers topics such as design and development, technical specifications, combat deployment and tactics. However the title is something of a misnomer since the comparision between the two types is difficult to draw - if anything prinicpal opponents of the P-51 over Germany were the light, agile, power boosted Bf 109 in its G-6/AS & G-10 variants brought togerther in 'leichte Gruppen' to defend the Fw 190 as it went up against the bombers.
US 8th AF historian Martin Bowman - a recognised authority on the P-51 - produces an interesting text on the P-51 within the limitations of space imposed in the typical Osprey format. Unfortunately the profile of the FW 190 presented here is not quite so detailed. The two 'duelists' were anything but - the disparity in developmental time frame between the two fighters represents a good four years of aviation progress. The high performance P-51 Mustang with its laminar-flow wing was conceived during 1940/41 and didn't really come into its own until 1943 over Europe while the FW-190 'Butcher Bird' was a 1937 project. The Fw 190 was no thoroughbred. Conceived by Kurt Tank at Focke Wulf AG - a WW I infantry soldier turned aircraft designer - his creation was a 'workhorse', powered by a massive air-cooled radial engine and suited for a range of operating environments and mission types - lethal in its early incarnations but hardly elegant. In the battles fought high over the Reich during 1944 the P-51 was 'cutting edge' while the Fw 190 was a lumbering bludgeon totally unsuited for fighter vs. fighter combat. The A-8 variant - produced in greater numbers than all the other FW 190 sub-types put together - weighed in some 2,000 kg heavier than the first Fw 190s to see service over the Channel during 1941 while powered by the same BMW 801 engine.
Not surprisingly then the Mustang out-performed the 190 in virtually all flight modes - while not always outclassed, unless flown by an experienced pilot, the Fw 190 would invariably come off worst. During the period 1943-45, the quality of Germany pilots, aside from the shrinking number of 'Experten', was significantly inferior to the American pilots, most of whom had hundreds of hours in the air during training before heading to the war. Late-war Jagdwaffe pilots had less than 100 hours of total flying time before being strapped into their 190s and sent against the bombers or - by March 1945 - on ground strafing sorties against American tank columns pushing deep into southern Germany - here the Fw 190s prinicpal opponent was the P-47. Bowman's book reflects this imbalance. Fw 190s fighting over the Reich through 1943-45 - the period selected for the 'Duel' comparison - were generally deployed as bomber destroyers, while the high altitude and high performance variants of the venerable Bf 109 where the key opponents of the P-51 over the Reich - only the odd Staffel of Fw 190s might be deployed as cover against P-51s and these were generally machines stripped of their heavy armament and flown by the handful of pilots that had achieved successes against the P-51s. Bowman's work fails to even make mention of the leading Fw 190 ace Konrad Bauer of 5./JG 300 who had enjoyed the most success in combat against the P-51s including three P-51s downed in a matter of minutes on 9 September 1944..
The strength of a book like this should surely be in the first-hand accounts of combat but as already suggested this volume falls well short of accounts from the German perspective. This issue - and no doubt the language barrier - is probably reflected in the predominance of info presented on the P-51, most of which has been seen many times before elsewhere. There is little on the discussion of tactics from the German side no doubt due to a lack of sources or perhaps the absence of any original research by the author. While there is one informative passge on the P-51's gunsight, there is nothing on the gyroscopic EZ 42 sight developed for the Fw 190. The vignettes presented on the aces profiles page are again disappointing fro the German side - Walther Dahl was not a 128 victory ace by any means, Ernst Schroeder didn't engage the bombers on 27 November 1944 and his famous 'Red 19' was not written off following this sortie but rather repaired and returned to service with JG 301 as recent research has demonstrated ...in fact for a complete compendium of accounts from Fw 190 pilots engaged in defence of the Reich sorties, alongside a consideration of what it was to fly and fight against massed bomber pulks while desperately trying to avoid the attentions of the agile and long-ranged escort fighters there is no better reference source than the recent Geschwader chronicle of JG 300 published by Eagle Editions also available through Amazon. My suggestion is invest the money saved here on those impressive works..

Handy if you're into the P51
I have to say I was attracted to this by the cover art, which is excellent. The artwork throughout is very good, there's a useful set of pictures, and the writing is clear. There's also a good description of the P-51's special gunsight, although it's a shame they didn't reproduce one of the training manuals mentioned in the text (there are some small photographs of a manual, but they are hard to make out).

The book has a couple of flaws. It concentrates heavily on the P-51. My impression of the book is of a series of P-51 combat reports, written in the typical style, e.g. "I opened fire at 300 yards. I saw strikes along the fuselage and tail. I saw the aircraft turn on its back and dive into the ground. The pilot did not bail out", repeated several times. I assume this is because the authors had far more access to Allied paperwork and surviving P-51 pilots than German sources. The text makes clear that most FW-190 pilots did not survive to tell their tales, and I assume a lot of the Luftwaffe's records were lost or have not been translated. The FW-190 therefore comes across very poorly, it seems to have been hammered out of the sky in droves by the mighty P-51. The book points out that the Luftwaffe was, by 1943, outnumbered, and by 1944 its pilots were fresh from training school, with no previous combat experience. As a consequence it's hard to draw a mental picture of the two aircraft, because their combat was influenced by so many external factors. Perhaps the book should have been "Fw 190 vs B-17" or something similar.

The second problem is that there's almost no coverage of the faster, long-nosed FW-190D model, which seems a more apt match for the P-51. It is mentioned in passing (on pages 18 and 26, according to the index, amounting to a paragraph of text, with no photographs), but none of the combat reports involve it. The machine pops up in Pierre Clostermann's "The Big Show", so it must have played some role in the war, but of course Clostermann didn't fly P-51s. The Focke Wulf TA-models are quantified but not really described. In keeping with the book's format, there is no discussion of the other aircraft involved in the combat. The FW-190's early fights with Spitfire Vs are mentioned as part of the FW-190's development story, but its performance on other fronts is not discussed. Similarly, the P-51 is only described in terms of its fights with the FW-190, so there's nothing about how it stacked up against other planes.

Overall however, and insofar as this is weighted towards the P-51, it's an entertaining read, although I suspect it overlaps heavily with one of Osprey's dedicated P-51 books. If you already have a good book about the P-51's actions in the European theatre of operations you probably won't need this title as well.

Nothing to rave about
Nothing to rave about, has all the basic info like development historys you find in other books, just compressed.
Good for anyone starting on subject or who has a glancing interest in subject.
Not a book you really need.
Over priced as all Osprey books.