Customer Reviews

Focke Wulf Fw 190 in Combat

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This book does a great job of breifly reviewing the development of the FW190 and it's many variants. It also presents some brief examples of the FW190 in combat,some tactics, and Pilot interviews.

I was disappointed that it did not present more interviews and tactics. It almost appears that the information included was left over from prior research efforts by the author and assembled to publish a new book.

but frankly how likely is that..??? This is a re- print of material that originally appeared in 1977, but having said that, this is still better than the plethora of new volumes on the subject being cheaply thrown together by authors you've never heard of (Caygill, Lowe etc) and publishing companies eager to make a quick buck. However, if you've read anything at all by Price in the last twenty years most of this will be familiar to you, eg. Ernst Schröder's account of the December 17 Sturm mission flown by JG 300 or Oskar Romm's account of his Sturmjäger career with IV./JG 3. Price has a marvellous ability to regurgitate his material in whatever project he turns his hand to.. for instance the chapter on JG 6 over Normandy in this tome appears in his lastest Air Combat compilation, while large portions also appear in 'Last year of the Luftwaffe..' and the Air battles books. One or two new photos appear in this edition but really the work could have done with an overhaul in this department with many of the photos being reproduced on a multitude of occasions subsequent to their first appearance in 1977 ( Red 19 anyone...yawn...). There is new material being presented by authors out there but not by this particular writer who appears to have given up on serious Luftwaffe research some time ago. Sad to say that the best single volume on the Fw 190, Peter Rodeike's Jagdflugzeug 190 is not carried by Amazon.com

This book does a great job of introducing and describing the German WWII Focke Wulf-190 in terms of design, history and combat service. Also included are personal experiences of ex-pilots and plenty of b/w photographs (some of which I haven't seen elsewhere). I especially liked the interviews with the main people from the original FW-190 design team (including Kurt Tank, the 'father' of the FW-190) which provides a rare look at the thoughts and objectives of the fighter's designers.

Overall, there is lots of well-organized information and the book should satisfy all but the most demanding aviation enthusiasts. The only fault I found is the lack of colour plates (for scale modellers), but if this is what you are after, I'd recommend 'FW-190 Aces of the Western Front' and 'FW-190 Aces of the Eastern Front'. While not perfect, this book is the one I'd choose if I only bought one book on the FW-190.

Although this book is not the definitive account of the famous Fw 190 fighter it is a very good introduction accompanied by a wealth of details. Alfred Price gives emphasis on the technical description and the development history of the aircraft but he doesn't ignore the human side, providing many first hand accounts of the Fw 190 in combat, especially against the Western Allies. The book contains valuable comparisons of aerial performance between the Fw 190 and every Allied fighter of the West, as well as a good account of the interesting Mistell experiment.