Customer Reviews

Soviet/Russian Aircraft Weapons Since World War II

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This book is, in my opinion, most suitable towards intermediate (learn most of what's commonly available online, already has a few other references on his shelf and starting to develop a general position based on what has been learned) level military enthusiasts. It provides an overview of a wide variety of Russian weapons with some details.

Definitely not suited for beginners (this is definitely not to be your first desk reference) due to the occasional errors pointed out by other reviewers. Don't worry, the errors are quite obvious and a more experienced reader will filter them out automatically, but a beginner will ingest some funny stuff indeed.

If you want a concise and brief history of Russian/Soviet Airborne arms development this is a good book for you. However there are so MANY Technical screw-ups in the book to make it almost worthless as a Desk reference. Many tables have the wrong designations, Incomplete data, misspelled words etc. Worst off is this book does NOT include information about many particulars of weapons systems. Even Obsolete ones. If you want technical information on weapons, you are far more likely to find it in Yefm Gordon's Famous Russian Aircraft series. Mikoyan MiG-31 (Famous Russian Aircraft) The MiG-31 book in that series is by FAR more complete on the R-33/R-37 family than this book for example.

I have never seen another book like this on this topic. The pictures are fantastic and there is lots of interesting history and comments on the weapons development and such. The color photos are amazing. I found it very interesting how the author broke up the development by design bureau. I paid alot more at the book store than what Amazon is asking for.

Must give credit where it's due, Yefim Gordon has put together another very good book, this time dealing with the much neglected subject of Soviet/Russian air launched weapons.

You can find dozens of books on modern Russian aircraft, but until now, an English language publication dealing with the weapons themselves has been sparse.

The book has a very nice layout, and is easy to navigate. Weapons are listed by type (these are Air to Air missiles, Air to Ground missiles, Rockets and Bombs), and then further broken down by subtype (Short Range AAM's, Long Range AAM's, etc.), then by design bureau.

The book is very comprehensive, with each missile/rocket/bomb type receiving a detailed development overview, B&W photos, and detailed line drawings. The end of the book has several pages of color photos for further reference.

For anyone interested in the subject, this is a gem of a book to add to your reference library, and I highly recommend it, not only for covering this neglected subject, but covering it in detail.

This book is a bible for those die hard soviet military equipment fans.