Customer Reviews

88 mm FlaK 18/36/37/41 and PaK 43 1936-45 (New Vanguard)

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I'm assembling an article on how to correctly identify various models of the 8.8cm Flak guns so I've been accumulating various books. I usually don't get too worked up about inaccuracies in these and one can understand that some of the older books don't enjoy more recent research. Mis-captioning of period photos is not uncommon. However, while looking through the Osprey New Vanguard book on this subject published in 2002, the mistakes in this thing were just too egregious to bear!

The most glaring are the color plates where either the artist or the author lists various fittings of a Flak 18. Some gaffes: a) The book says that the fuse setter seat is the ground attack gunner's seat, b) the panoramic sight atop the flak gun, used for emplacing the gun, is listed as a azimuth and elevation device for moving targets, c) the ramming rod is listed as a "firing lever" but the worst is when the end of the shell rammer is listed as the eyepiece for the telescopic sight!

I wonder if the authors ever even have SEEN one of these in actuality. To say that the panoramic sight which sits 8 or 9 feet in the air, is used as a azimuth and elevation sighting device for moving targets is just outrageous. The seating misidentification makes me believe that the author and/or artist have not the first idea how the weapon was fired.

The very first color plate is mis-identified too! I mean, the author and artist chose the subject! Then they caption it wrongly??

VERY disappointing effort by the authors and Osprey! A waste of my money. Hmmm... now what was my eBay password again?

By the way: I tried to edit my Two star rating to one or zero but was unable to do so. It's THAT bad.

Lisa Chow, one of the Amazon reviewers of this book, points out the many errors regarding the captions and photos. Other deficiencies of the book involve a lack of discussion on tactics used by the weapon (especially in anti-tank role), strengths and weaknesses and the importance of crew quality and training.