Customer Reviews

The French Army 1939-45 (1) : The Army of 1939-40 & Vichy France (Men-At-Arms Series, 315)

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I'm no authority on this subject. I bought this book to use as a reference for painting 20mm wargames miniatures. The technical details about the French Army and its uniforms are impressive. I found the number of tables with information a bit too much to digest. The authors use French uniform terms without providing a glossary to explain their meaning. The color plates are well done, but I have a problem with the basic uniform colors, which conflict somewhat with other references I found. To resolve the problem, I bought another book, "1940 Le Soldat Francais", which pictures men dressed in actual period uniforms. Their colors are truer than those featured in the Osprey book. However, as the title suggests, "Le Soldat" was published in French.

This work is a splendid example of the new emphasis of the publisher on producing comprehensive works in a handy cheap format compared with the earlier broad brush treatments which covered too much in too little detail.
The new emphasis is on sets and volumes covering various national armed forces in as much detail as is available, consistent with the current purpose of the works in the series, which have evolved from an original emphasis on serving the military miniature maker market into works intended to enlighten the general reader in enough detail to satisfy the merely curious and to point the way to further reading.
Most of us, including myself, have little need for, or the patience to read, voluminous studies, often in foreign languages, covering many eras and nations. My main interest is in the US forces, their allies and their enemies in the twentieth century.
That said, these works should be purchased as presented, in sets within the series. Since they are produced as a set, the volumes cover only relevent parts of the general history and the clothing and individual equipment is covered as it appears in each period. The French Army, US Army, British Army, and Italian Army series all have three volumes, covering the major theatres and time periods of the war. The German set has five.
This should be read along with the volume on the French Foreign Legion.
If you want an introduction to the fascinating variety of clothing and equipment of the forces covered, this set is for you.

I found the book in question very informative, I was unaware of the french forces during the period of time question, A must for person interested in the WW2 period of history

Nice Osprey reference title. Should be required for wargaming 1940 invasion of France.