The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

Hi everyone,
I have been fortunate to have helped the author, Calum Douglas, with his just-about to be published book "The Secret Horsepower Race".
I thought that members here might appreciate a little heads-up? I am not impartial as I have some involvement. However, I have no financial connection and I hope that this info will be of interest.
The book is a chronological description of WW2 Western Front aero-engine development. Calum has used archive research of original records to base the book on. Importantly, he has translated much original German material to English. This makes the book easy for English speakers to understand.
This is not a book of engine manuals. It is a history of the technical developments that allowed engines to increase in power from around 1000hp to around 2000hp in service use during WW2. Much of the Allied development is previously known but, the German story has been, at best, fragmented and poorly understood. Some of the details in this book are groundbreaking.
The book is well illustrated and is a big book with 478 large pages.
Despite not being a compilation of engine-manuals, there is a lot to get your technical head engaged. To me, it combines a great mixture of info and background story.
Price is £35 from the publisher and cheaper from other outlets. I believe the print-run is largely sold so, if you are interested, I would advise buying now.

Cheers

SM

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

Oh yes, the word-count is about 250,000.:)

SM

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

Interesting article in the newest "Iron Cross" magazine,"Merlin V. DB 601A"

It compares both engines, the author concludes that the DB 601 was the better strategic engine in 1940 by its thoroughness, precision and economy of design.

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

The book's advertised here, with a cover image.

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

On another site, the author reports that the finished book is with the publisher and that orders placed with them are beginning to go out. The print run was 2,000 copies.

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

Yes, it is out from Mortons.
This is a book that deserves careful reading. I would advise taking it as a complete read-through first. There is a lot here and, the stepping-stone format gives a great perspective, if you can manage to do that!
Calum has great cross-references and the context of the timelines should be carefully understood to guide your comparisons of competing developments.
A great book, not light reading!

Cheers

SM

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

Here is the author signing some copies.

https://twitter.com/CalumDouglas1/st...7Ctwgr%5Etweet

Usual disclaimer,
Ed

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

It is interesting to note that Douglas relies on massive amounts of DB technical documents. These type of documents are often claimed not to exist and thus authors keep pouring out totally uninteresting combat chronicles and painting guides.

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

Jukka,

I understand why you are skeptical. Here is a quote from the author's site:

"Professor Doktor-Ing. Karl Kollmann, chief designer at Daimler-Benz aero engines until 1945. The Professor wrote his technical memoirs in 1947 which lay at the family home, almost unknown to the outside world until January 2016, when his son graciously supplied them for me to study.

"Kollmann`s work was central to the engines that would power the Messerschmitt 109 throughout the entire Second World War, and through his fathers writings an unparallelled opportunity exists to form a window in time back to a fighter aircraft engine designers drawing office in the 1940`s."

Best,
Ed

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

Not only that but Calum has made countless visits to IWM Duxford to work through their material, in particular the German Document Centre and the Milch Collection as well as innumerable visits to Kew and elsewhere.

This post on his FB page makes it pretty clear that he has taken the road less travelled: https://www.facebook.com/TheSecretHo...41693639582601

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

Kollmann was never chief designer at Daimler-Benz, he was a sub-department head in the department of Ing. Friedrich.

Visits to the Daimler-Benz archive in Stuttgart and the Deutsches Museum in Munich would have been more important for history than IWM or Kew - in my humble opinion.

I look forward to his research on Jumo Motors.:D

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

From the author's site:

"I have spent five years travelling all over the world to secure original documents from the Second World War and the 1930`s, to write a book about piston engine development “in their own words”.

"Two thirds of the materials in the book is quotes from original letters, memos and technical reports, many of which have never been seen before, and hundreds of primary archival sources are referenced.
Archives I have used to research this book include:

• Bundesarchiv Militärarchiv – Freiburg, Germany
• Daimler-AG, Corporate Archives, Germany
• Farnborough Air Sciences Trust, Farnborough, UK
• Institute of Mechanical Engineers, London, UK
• Imperial War Museum, UK
• NASA – Langley Research Centre, Virginia
• MAHLE Powertrain
• RAF Historical Branch, UK
• Ricardo, Shoreham, UK
• Rolls-Royce, Derby, UK
• Technikmuseum Hugo Junkers, Dessau, Germany
• The National Air and Space Museum – Washington DC
• The National Archives – Washington DC
• The National Archives – London, UK"

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

I am not skeptical about this book (already ordered). I meant that often authors claim that in-depth technical documents do not exist and thus technically in-depth monographs especially on German aircraft are supposedle impossible to write and thus aircraft monographs have become combat chronicles.

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

Jukka,

No one can know everything. I have been researching on different sites, including those that offer documents that were supposedly destroyed. And sometimes, people are told that this or that does not exist so they do not look. Other times, researchers are prevented from getting certain documents because they do not know the file name or some other detail.

It would be good if we all had comparable levels of knowledge but that is often not the case. Recently, a book about a German tank from World War One was released with new photos and corrected information.

Best,
Ed

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

Had you actually read what Calum Douglas has written about his research you would have known that he has used DB archives extensively.

As for Jumo Motors research, where one can read yours in a human language (=English or Finnish; only a sadist can come up with a language structured like German)?

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

I bought the mag to see what that article is like, I doubt I will buy any more editions.
Worth noting that for the price of just 3 mags, you can buy The Secret Horsepower Race book.

SM

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

What is the issue? The Secret Horsepower Race book already covers the subject and the other articles aren't interesting?

Anyway my pre-order of the book is on its way.

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

If anyone wants to discuss the merits of Iron Cross magazine there’s already a thread under Books and Magazines.

If anyone thinks a thread’s going off topic, contact John Beaman or me rather than starting an argument.

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

Any reviews of the book yet??

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

Not that I've seen. Meanwhile, the author has announced that the book is going in for reprint. So, a good sign.

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

I'm working my way through it, up to 1942 so far. I think it superb. Definitely one of those books.

A couple of minor quibbles: he doesn't know his aircraft to the same depth as his engines, and he is inclined to take Hives' comments as gospel (not always...). But this is the first reference I've seen to an Me409, plus photos.

Lots of praise for other details.

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

An excellent book in many respects, it gives insights that I would not get anywhere else. I would heartily recommend it.

The text jumps around too much for my taste. One minute you are reading about Schneider trophy race engines, then suddenly something about Bristols and then back to Schneider for no apparent reason than they all happened about the same time.

I have a feeling that it is essentially a history of the Merlin and its German competitors, with significant asides for the other makers and their engines, but the Merlin is very much the yardstick he judges everything else against

I wanted more though.

Italy gets a few mentions but nothing really concrete
France - not really mentioned at all
USA - only two engines discussed P&W R-2800 and Allison V-1710

Would have liked discussions about other makers - Wright not really looked at, P&W R-1830 from Wildcat not covered. Implementation differences in Thunderbolt, Corsair and Hellcat of R-2800 would have been interesting

UK - RR Griffon - disappointing coverage
Bristol Hercules - definitely wanted more (I know it was not a fighter engine, but it was a successful sleeve valve engine of similar power to the Merlin)

More of the engines in development as the war ended that went on to bigger and better things afterwards.

I do not know enough to comment on the German coverage, though it appeared to be quite good

Lots of lovely graphs from original reports, but reproduced so small that I need a magnifying glass to see what they actually say

Probably room for a second edition

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

Calum has mentioned that he kept the coverage of the R-2800 to a minimum due to the existence of a very good book on it already (by Graham White). Ditto regarding the V-1710 (by Dan Whitney).

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

Books by other authors

I do hate it when authors say, " I did not tell you about this because someone else has already produced a good book on it"

I will never know, as I am not interested enough to buy a book on just the R-2800 or V-1710 to find out how they fit into his thesis.

Martin

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

Seems that you are not really interested in the topic then. No serious library lacks especially the V-1710 book.

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

Not really serious on the topic. You could be right, but I was serious enough to splash out on this book. Is it too much to ask to tell me the whole story in one place?

My interest is in British engines and in particular their use in bombers.
There were only eight Lightnings in the whole of Bomber Command and only two of those belonged to the RAF. Bit rich to buy a book on the V-1710 in order to fully understand what is in The Secret Horse Power Race.

Any way there were not nearly enough accounts of combat operations and squadron life to keep me happy. A few colour side views of Spitfires would have been really great

Regards

Martin

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

Thanks for the review.

What about the Jumo 213? How many pages deal with the 213?

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

Perhaps I am falling to a very clever joke, but nevertheless: Did you really expect combat accounts and squadron life in a book written by an engine designer?

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

@Peter - attached is a photo of the index covering the Jumo engines

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

Sorry, I can see my sense of humour is lost on you.

Martin

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

I see what you did there ;)

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

@Mikael Olrog
Thank you very much.

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

A lengthy review here: https://www.standingwellback.com/boo...rsepower-race/

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

Hi Graham,

Have you finished the book yet? I think that the whole book builds to a crescendo that has some greater clarity after being completely read. I will agree with many comments, "this and that" could have been done differently. The book is not perfect. But, it is a great book that brings many of the important technical aspects of WW2 piston engine development out into wider readership. In fact, there are huge amounts of material that Calum left out of this book, due to publishing constraints. Looking to the future, I see that the substance in "The Secret Horsepower Race" might act as a catalyst for many future studies, and that must be a good thing.
BTW, I get what you mean about Lord Hives, nonetheless, a great man!
Cheers

SM

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

I have read about 170 pages thus far, and I have to say that it is the best WW2 aircraft related book I have ever read. Only Dean's AHT and Whitney's Allison book come even close.

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

Hi Peter,

Just to follow up on Mikael's excellent index page picture, the Jumo 213 gets a fair amount of coverage, mostly due to the advanced features such as the swirl throttle. Of course, the very late engines were developing in several technical ways and Calum follows this quite well.

Cheers

SM

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

Great comment Jukka. You are getting into the meat of the book. It will be good to hear your further thoughts as you finish it!
Cheers

SM

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

Will probably end up buying it :) but, how much info does it have on the DB 60X family? I'm especially interested on the DB 605 A problems & solutions.

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

Ivan, a lot! The book clarifies a whole set of problems the DB 605A had and why and what were the solutions.

Re: The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.
 

Thanks :)