Customer Reviews

Luftwaffe Fighter Aircraft in Profile: (Schiffer Military History Book)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It is magnificent. Very well and beautifully is made. For me this book at once has become the encyclopedia on the German pilots. It is a pity, that I about the German pilots know a little. But your book very much has helped me to receive a lot of new and magnificent information. It really is magnificent.

The short biographic data about the pilots very much have liked. For me this opening. I speak to the authors of a thank. And main do not stop. Continue this theme. And me is sad that we in Russia can not buy such books. It is very expensive. A thank.

I apologize for my English language.

This book provides a useful starting point for anyone interested in the complexities of Luftwaffe paint schemes from the Second World War, in particular the closing 12 months. Its appeal to modellers will be immense; each profile is associated with a known pilot and thus gives the paint schemes depicted far more than just technical interest.

The desire to associate each colour profile with a known pilot also results in the one weakness of the book. Some of the atypical schemes are missing, such as the late-war Bf 109G aircraft that were painted in an overall air-superiority light grey or the Fw190D-9 and Me262 aircraft flying with bare metal undersurface panels. A colour is also missing. No use is made in any of the profiles of RLM 84 (a yellow-green) that was used as the undersurface colour on several Fw190D-9 and Bf 109G aircraft. I suspect this is in part becasue these very late-war schemes are difficult to associate with a pilot. On another colour, Ken Merrick, one of the doyens of Luftwaffe paint shcemes, has now apparently decided that RLM 83 was not quite as bright as all that (see the NASM Me262 for an extreme example of RLM 83), and I am glad to see that the artist for this book has used a toned-down colour for RLM 83. The interpretation RLM 81 looks a little too brown to me, with not enough violet, so to speak, but that may simply be a matter of taste.

These, however, are minor quibbles. The book contains excellent art and the information for each profile is generally spot on. It is an excellent addition to my shelves, which I will no doubt refer to frequently. As Claes Sundin makes clear in his foreword, it is just so useful to have all this information in one source, especially in such an attractive format. I heartly agree and I look forward to the follow-up volume alluded to in the foreword.

This is probably the best work of its kind that I have read - a must have for WW-II aviation buffs and modelers. The artworks and production quality are stunning, and set a new standard. The accompanying text appears to be the product of scrupulous research is very interesting and informative. My only wish is for plan drawings and coverage of additional types such as the DO 335 and HE 100-112. I hope the authors don't stop with this book, but instead go on to cover the fighter forces of other nations in WW-II.

Well, if you want to see many good side views of Luftwaffe fighters, this is probably the best book available today. The computer/art work is fantastic. I actually found the short text (about each pilot and his mount) to be quite interesting.
Should get a 5 star plus raiting.

While on the left side, one can have the actual story of the pilots that flew the planes, on the right side one can found a color profile of the plane.

This works very well as the profiles suddenly come alive and tell a story.

While the book doesn't seem to have as many profiles as the Histoire&Collection series (see my other reviews), and the colors seem less vivid, the book is a extra-ordinary complement to said Histoire&collection series as the story of the planes seem much more researched.You also get a good reference for RLM colors and markings.

I thought the book could have benefited from top down views which are hard to find anywhere.

So far, it terms of the ideal combination for the luftwaffe fighters, I strongly advise to purchase this book and the Histoire&Collection series.

A strong lesson in History, beautiful and captivating.

I find myself picking it up every once in a while just to marvel at the illustrations and the stories (mostly sad) of the pilots.

Normally I would give this book 5 stars. What stopped me from doing so, is Mr Bergstroem's foreword. A book like this should be free from political polemic. I can sense his communistic leanings by the way he described Hermann Graf's "repentance" after the war. By writing...(he) had the strenght of seeing through what he had done... Mr Bergstroem does an unjustice to thousands of pilots who flew and died in defence of their home country. His foreword sounds very naive. I just like to know what he would have done under the same circumstances - would he have found out what courage is? Hopefully he can refrain from politics in his next book. It only detracted from an otherwise excellent piece of literature on the Luftwaffe.