Customer Reviews

Fw 190 Sturmbocke vs B-17 Flying Fortress: Europe 1944-45 (Duel)

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The heavily armed and rugged Fw 190 was a B-17 crewman's worst nightmare. Moreso than its Bf 109 stablemate, the 'Butcher Bird' had the firepower and staying power to decimate 8th AF B-17 and B-24 units especially those lacking fighter escort. The combats fought between Fw 190s and B-17s are the subject of this 2009 Osprey release, the latest in their 'Duel' series. Over the years Robert Forsyth has written several wonderful Luftwaffe histories; unfortunately his latest effort misses the mark.

Though the idea of pitting the Fw 190 against the B-17 appealed to me initally, I had misgivings about the appropriateness of the match-up. Pitting a P-51 against a Bf 109, for instance, is valid, both aircraft having pluses and minuses in a dogfight. In a Fw 190/B-17 combat however, there was/is no comparison. The Fort always functioned as a clay pigeon albeit a well-armed clay pigeon!

While Forsyth checked off all the squares in the established Duel format, the book doesn't jell into a comprehensive, cohesive whole. He does detail each aircraft's development and design, the training received by its pilot/aircrew, tech specs and so on.

My problem lies in the 'Stategic Situation,' 'Combat,' 'Statistics and Analysis' and 'Aftermath' sections. Some of the material in the first section seemed to fit better in the second and vice versa. As regards the Combat section, there were a number of engagements where Fw 190s caught unescorted B-17 units and did great execution: 6 March 1944, Berlin; 12 May 1944, Brux; 28 Sept. 1944, Magdeburg; 2 Nov. 1944, Merseburg; etc. Had Forsyth used a straight chronological approach focusing on some/all of those combats, his narrative would have been more apropos to the Duel 'who won?' bottom line. Then too, the Stats/Analysis section was too confusing for my simple mind; too much 1:8 of this and 3.6 of that. The Aftermath coda wasted space on Bodenplate, Kommando Elbe and YB-40s, all of which added little to the main topic.

The book's artwork though was a definite plus. The colorful cockpit and tail turret diagrams, armament views and attack formations were interesting and helpful. Gareth Hector's combat scene of JG 300 '190s closing in on 303rd BG Forts was eye-catching. And Jim Laurier's cover artwork, especially the JG 4 scene, was simply magnificent.

So, while the Fw 190/B-17 idea sounds good, for it to succeed, you really need a sharply focused narrative that separates air combats from air campaigns. And, to do justice to such a match-up probably required more than the standard Duel 80-page format. As is, Fw 190 STURMBOCKE VS B-17 FLYING FORTRESS, EUROPE 1944-45 has an unfinished, or perhaps more accurately, a poorly focused feel to it. Great cover art though!

My discounted copy of this new 'Duel' title arrived today - at this price these titles are worth getting. The Osprey 'preview' image from this volume depicting JG 300 pilots Loos & Dahl boring in on the 303rd BG over Bitburg, 15 Aug 44 appaeared on a number of web-sites pre-publication and my 11-year old thinks its pretty decent - I have to agree this type of computer-art beats the usual dreary battle scene 'painting' in these titles even if the Fw 190's are too close together and the rear B-17 gunner wouldn't be firing a stream of tracer. Whether I can actually persuade my son to read any of the text will be another matter altogether. There seems to be rather more words here than in previous 'Duel' titles starting with a chronology that curiously ends on 2 December 1944. The themes of FW 190 as 'bomber killer' over Germany are explored and there are chapters on the design and devlopment of both types with technical specifications and cutaway artworks, before the author moves on to outline the strategic situation in the European air war. Again. This is a 'Duel' volume - author & publisher should have looked at presenting a couple of the larger air battles over Germany in detail - rather than devoting pages to a strategic overview. There is no chronological account - there isn't the space in this book's 80 pages for anything more than a cursory overview. I particularly liked the B-17 artwork illustrating the various fighting compartments and there are some personal accounts of coming under fire from German fighters. There is a full page colour artwork of the FW 190 cockpit and more artwork depicting the Sturm fighter closing on a bomber Pulk from astern. Photos are small and a little dark and have all been published elsewhere, which is disappointing. Bizarrely the text goes on to discuss the Sonderkommando Elbe ramming Bf 109s of April 1945. There is no detail at all on the huge bomber battles that took place over Germany during late December 1944 and early January 1945.

Some of the text I've read seems curiously to focus on Walther Dahl of JG 300 - there are several pictures of him and his Fw 190s and a full page profile. While acknowledging that his autobiography "Rammjäger" was 'colourful' the book repeats all the old chestnuts regarding his supposed 128 victories and his huge accumulation of bomber kills - for which the authors of the two volume JG 300 history quoted in this book's bibliography found little or no evidence of course. There is a full page given over to a listing of leading Luftwaffe B-17 'killers'. There are two pages devoted to a bibliography entitled 'Further Reading' which includes German-language titles that I somehow doubt will be of interest to the average Duel -series purchaser.

As for the timeline ending on 2 December as already mentioned, that has to be a typo, and should read 24 December, which was the date of IV.(Sturm)/JG3's last big success in the West. Otherwise the book itself is a very selective look at various aspects of the daylight bombing campaign focusing on training, the machines, the men. Nothing to do with the author I doubt, but this is a title assembled to fit a tightly outlined format and as such doesn't work very well at all for me.

The US Eighth Air Force lost 3,339 heavy bombers from the time of its first mission in August 1942 to the end of September 1944, by which time the Luftwaffe was reduced to a token remnant of its original "blitzkrieg" force.

That's 33,390 Americans dead or prisoners of war, an average of 43 losses every day for 26 months. Add the British, Canadian and other Allied losses, and the scope of the air war over western Europe becomes real. Many of those losses were due to the Fw 190, one of the finest fighters of World War II.

Early in the war, the British tried strategic bombing of German naval bases. Almost all bombers were lost; so they switched to night bombing. The B-17, which carried a bomb load equal to the twin-engine Mosquito, was used to confront and crush the Luftwaffe in daylight. It took just over two years; without victory in the air, the ground war would have been horrendous if not impossible.

Ironically, the B-17 was intended for coastal patrol; it took nine years to perfect as a heavy bomber. The plane is typified by Rosie the Riveter; it truly reflects the American ability to develop, mass produce and effectively use massive projects.

The Fw 190 was meant to defeat other fighters; the blunt reality is Germany never created an effective bomber defence. As this book makes clear, they tried dozens of expedients without ever finding the perfect weapon. For example; it took 20 hits of 20 mm cannon shells to down a B-17; the Fw 190 carried 60 rounds each for its four cannons. An estimated 2 percent of shots hit their target; that translates to 1,000 rounds fired by four Fw 190s to down one B-17.

As was said in another context, "We ran out of shells before you ran out of aircraft."

The ultimate German desperation came April 7, 1945, when the Fw 190 was used by the 'Rammkommando Elbe' to ram US bombers. The loss ratio of German pilots was 33 percent, the loss ratio of American bombers was one tenth of one percent, just 12 lost of 1,261 bombers.

This book succinctly sums up a deadly, but truly lopsided, battle.

This is another work in the Duel series, published by Osprey. It seems to me to be fairly representative of other entries in the series. There are a series of photos that contribute to a sense of the contending planes, in the duel between American bombers (the B-17) and German interceptors (FW 190). There are also maps that provide context on the geographic scope of the duel.

The book begins with a bit of history, the recognition by some that bombers could be important weapons in warfare. Americans began to test several possible models. One of these became the B-17 "Flying Fortress." The discussion is not lengthy, but it does give background. Following are sections on the "design and development" of the planes and the technical specifications.

Then, the actual battle situation. As with others in this series, treatments tend to be brief (that is, after all, one hallmark of this series). The combatants are discussed, including their training. We learn of the exploits of some of the German pilots) some of the numbers of planes shot down appear incredible). Combat tactics are discussed, as well as the evolution of those tactics, as both sides tried to figure out how to perform better.

The fate of the German air force is well told, as pilots received less and less training and experienced pilots were killed off by attrition.

Another nice entry in the Duel series. . . .

This book is nothing more than a collection disparate facts and many grainy old photos and drawings. The actual experiences of German and American crews were far and few between. In all good conscience, I cannot recommend this book to the serious student of the WWII air war (1944-45) over Europe.