Product Description

This work looks at the Focke-Wulf 190 and the aces who flew it. Nimble, speedy and well-armed, the FW190 was the scourge of the RAF and USAAF from the moment it appeared over the skies at Abbeville in August 1941.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #472001 in Books
• Published on: 1996-05-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

Customer Reviews

Disappointing
I normally enjoy John Weal's text ( perhaps the less said about the profiles the better !) but this time I felt particularly short changed..this book has a very 'rushed' feel about it....defence of the Reich, Jan-December 44 is covered in barely six pages..mis-indentifying Norbert Gradzaidei for Bretschneider in the pic on P80 just added to the disappointment....could and should have done better

a disappointingly brief overview
I must admit to enjoying all of John Weal's Osprey titles. He writes well if not always entirely accurately. However this particular volume is perhaps his worst in terms of factual errors. Given that the defence of the Reich relied largely on Fw 190 equipped units, in particular JG 300, Weal's portrayal seems inadequate here...the most outstanding Fw 190 pilot of the summer of 1944, Konrad Bauer of 5./JG 300, doesn't even get a mention here. No, that is not Bretschneider on P.80 and no, the unit was not permanently based at Loebnitz during the winter of 1944. Moving into 1945, there is nothing either on the last major air battle over Berlin (14 January 1945) and again nothing on the German fighter opposition to Operation Varsity (the Rhine crossings of March 24 1945). During this latter battle, II./JG 300, a powerful Fw 190 equipped Sturmgruppe, specialising in mounting high altitude attacks in massed formation against 8th AF bombers was caught at low level by packs of P-51s and virtually decimated. There are plenty of other minor errors in the text; an incorrect WerkNr. given for Mueller's Green 3 to listing Wilhelm Dormann as having flown with JG 300. The profiles are not that much better, most of the late war Fw 190s being portrayed here with yellow undercowls, where they were simply unpainted. The "black 13" of IV./JG 3 was not flown by Walther Dahl either, since he was Kommodore of JG 300 by July 1944 ! The last short chapter devoted to the ultimate 190 variant, the Ta 152, is translated directly from Willi Reschke's JG 301/302 history but not acknowledged as such...