Customer Reviews

Kriegsmarine U-boats 1939-45 (1) (New Vanguard) (v. 1)

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If you want to learn about U-Boats pass this one up. What you end up with is a cleverly marketed first half of a small booklet. I was enfuriated to see that I have to buy the second volume just to end up with what is a 100 plus page pamphlet on U-Boats for twenty five dollars all told after purchase.
Osprey does well in presenting targeted overviews of certain subjects but they are starting to carry this marketing strategy to an extreme. I have seen enough of this now with other Osprey titles that I have this advice for would be book buyers: If it says NEW VANGUARD somewhere on the cover...pass on it. If its an "Osprey" publication, get a good look at it before you buy and make sure its not part of one of their "series" ploys first.

Oh, well, I made the mistake of not having read the first two reviews otherwise I could have saved myself a few $$$.

The first two reviews are accurate and there's really not much to add here, but I will emphasize a couple of aspects. It seems to me that to address the complexity of the U-boat force in two short pamphlets is quite inadequate and even insulting for the serious reader. I only have the first one and it's 48 pages short. There can be no justification whatsoever to split this subject up into two seperate "volumes" unless each one were a few hundred pages long.

I don't find the illustrations particularly good either. There is a double page illustration of the inside of a U-boat but it's not very detailed, too small, and a little dark. There are also full-page sized comic book style illustrations which may be nice but don't convey any information at all. There are some illustrations of different versions of conning towers, but they're too small.

The written information is, however, well conveyed, but there's just too little of it.
To me the whole thing seems to be more like a popular booklet for junior high school kids who show some interest in the subject.

This is a very basic primer.
Of little use to anyone who is interested in U- boats. There are many other books that are more interesting, have more facts and more pictures and illustrations.
I read the entire book in a couple of hours.
Some of the pictures were interesting but hardly worth the price of the book.