Heinkel He 111: An Illustrated History. Design - Development - Variants - Operations - Equipment
 

http://www.christian-schmidt.com/pro...oducts_id=9181





Usual disclaimer,
Ed

Re: Heinkel He 111: An Illustrated History. Design - Development - Variants - Operations - Equipment
 

Since the book seems to be available, I wonder if any TOCH members have it already? I definitely hope that the book has plenty of engineering and handling info.

Re: Heinkel He 111: An Illustrated History. Design - Development - Variants - Operations - Equipment
 

I can't believe Classic would try to cram into one book the history of this aircraft. To make a good history of this important aircraft 5 books of this size would be required. Very sadly IMHO another potboiler just like the, at best, mediocre Fw 200 book. The best thing that can be said is that the standard of production is very good.

Re: Heinkel He 111: An Illustrated History. Design - Development - Variants - Operations - Equipment
 

Publishing is a business. It's a matter of what the owner of the Classic name — Ian Allen when the book was planned — was willing to commission, based on what they thought would sell. I can quite understand why you would like a multi-volume history of the He 111 but (a) somebody would have to spend years writing it and (b) someone would have to risk a lot of money to publish it. I don't know how you feel but I wouldn't gamble my own money on that scale so I can hardly be too critical if other people won't either.

Re: Heinkel He 111: An Illustrated History. Design - Development - Variants - Operations - Equipment
 

It's a good argument Nick but they managed it with the excellent Me 262 and Fw 190 series, I can't believe these volumes didn't make money... Ok I know the He 111 is perhaps not as 'sexy' but this volume is very disappointing.

Re: Heinkel He 111: An Illustrated History. Design - Development - Variants - Operations - Equipment
 

Nick, publishing is business, however, that is no explanation to everything. I have not seen this book yet, but, from the comments expressed so far it seems that the subtitle of the book is very much misleading. As the subtitle is Design - Development - Variants - Operations - Equipment, one would well expect the contents to be approx. equally shared. Yet, apparently the technical side is very skimpy and the vast majority is devoted to operations. And here it went south.

If the publisher assessed that e.g. a 5-volume set is not feasible, then what was needed is called priorization. There is an old military maxim "if you defend everything, you do not defend anything". In other words, one should have never, NEVER, attempted to cover everything within a single volume of 336 pages. Instead, there should have been a clear focus, and that focus should have been what has not been covered in any substantial detail before: design and development. Thus the book should have been "He 111 - An Illustrated Study: Design and Development".

The coverage should have focused entirely on He 111's design and development emphasizing engineering and piloting PoV with analyses on manufacturing, testing, aerodynamics, systems, handling and performance. I.e. something similar to Christoph Vernaleken's Ju 388 book. And in this 336 pages would have allowed significant detail.

The situation with WW2 aircraft monographs in general is exceedingly annoying for those more technically minded readers. For some unfathomable reason, vacuum cleaner (aka jet) enthusiasts are provided with books that have great engineering detail and analysis, but piston aircraft enthusiasts are treated like Dummköpfe: simplistic text devoid of technical analysis coupled with plenty of nice photos and maximum amount of colour (te none of the colour is used for e.g. fuel system schematics). In Luftwaffe case, one does only need to compare books on the Me 262, He 162, Me 163 to books on any LW piston aircraft.

Re: Heinkel He 111: An Illustrated History. Design - Development - Variants - Operations - Equipment
 

It's a good argument Nick but they managed it with the excellent Me 262 and Fw 190 series, I can't believe these volumes didn't make money... Ok I know the He 111 is perhaps not as 'sexy' but this volume is very disappointing in comparison. I agree totally with Jukka the title is too expansive: the book should have concentrated on one of the aspects and done it very well rather than poorly for all sections. I gave up reading it because it was too lightweight in the sections of my interest.

Re: Heinkel He 111: An Illustrated History. Design - Development - Variants - Operations - Equipment
 

Forgot to mention that shouldn't Classic (or other British publishers) perhaps consider co-operating with native German authors when doing books on German aircraft? After all, it would be quite perverse to have the best known Spitfire or Lancaster book to be written by German authors...

Re: Heinkel He 111: An Illustrated History. Design - Development - Variants - Operations - Equipment
 

I don't agree with this line of thinking at all. What matters is the end result, i.e. the book itself, not the Author's nationality, or citizenship.

For example, recently a monography of the German aircraft Henschel Hs 129 has been published by the German publisher Unitec Medienvertrieb, in their Flugzeug Profile series (No. 54), by German author Manfred Franzke, which turns out to be a disgrace.
The content "closely follows" (i.e., copied) my own book on the same aircraft type, the majority of the photos are the same (in several cases even the so-called Moiré lines that show due to poor quality scanning of printed photos are visible! The "author" even published my own detailed table on the overall Hs 129 production I worked on so hard for so long, without giving the source, of course. What a shame...

Re: Heinkel He 111: An Illustrated History. Design - Development - Variants - Operations - Equipment
 

But Manfred Franzke and the Flugzeug Profiles aren't the standard, it's the press for absolut beginners ... in Germany you buy if you haven't any other ideas.

Re: Heinkel He 111: An Illustrated History. Design - Development - Variants - Operations - Equipment
 

It might very well be, but it does not change the issues I described in my previous post.

Re: Heinkel He 111: An Illustrated History. Design - Development - Variants - Operations - Equipment
 

Denes, not nationality per se. But, in case of German aircraft, the key archive is (afaik) the Deutsches Museum. It would be most interesting to know how much time did Forsyth spend there...

Re: Heinkel He 111: An Illustrated History. Design - Development - Variants - Operations - Equipment
 

I wouldn't disagree in the least about the choices an author makes in what he/she chooses to emphasise. I haven't seen the He 111 book, I was merely arguing that simple questions of profitability may well stand in the way of publishing something approaching an "ideal" book on a given subject, especially a multi-volume series. Readers do seem to prefer fighters to bombers or reconnaissance types, the first jets do exert a fascination and the result is that you get multi-volume studies of the Me 262 and Fw 190. I don't know whether or not Ian Allen would have made money by commissioning multiple volumes on the He 111 — and nor does anyone else here, we only have opinions — but how many of us would risk thousands of pounds of our own money trying to prove them wrong?

"Thus the book should have been 'He 111 - An Illustrated Study: Design and Development'." Unless you wanted to sell a copy to me, in which case it should have been "He 111 — An Operational History." Neither of us is "right" about this, we simply have different tastes in books. I've said this before but if Jukka or anyone else thinks there is a market for a deeply technical book on any aircraft, then waiting for someone else to write or publish it hasn't been particularly fruitful up until now.

As for Jukka's comment that "it would be quite perverse to have the best known Spitfire or Lancaster book to be written by German authors" — on the other hand it could be quite refreshing, couldn't it? It would depend entirely on what perspective such an author could bring to the subject.

Re: Heinkel He 111: An Illustrated History. Design - Development - Variants - Operations - Equipment
 

Nick, the title "He 111 - Operational History" would be OK to me per se. I just wonder how detailed such a history would be for an aircraft so widely used...

Nick wrote:"...but how many of us would risk thousands of pounds of our own money trying to prove them wrong?" As you said, publishing is business. And what those thousands of pounds are is called the cost of doing business.

I do also think that it is quite incorrect to air that "do it yourself" phrase every now and then. We readers are the demand, and the publishers are the supply.

As for technical books, as I have tried to say, there is something peculiar with books on piston-engined aircraft from post-WW1 to 1945. There is simply no supply, therefore it is impossible to gauge the possible demand. And if that is compared to what is available to sailship, ship, tank and train enthusiasts, it is strange.

Re: Heinkel He 111: An Illustrated History. Design - Development - Variants - Operations - Equipment
 

"... what those thousands of pounds are is called the cost of doing business. I do also think that it is quite incorrect to air that "do it yourself" phrase every now and then. We readers are the demand, and the publishers are the supply."

Nevertheless. I see a moral difficulty in condemning others for failing to take a risk that I would not take myself. You might however be able to exercise some influence on a publisher if you were to start a crowdfunding/subscription initiative — if enough people to sign up you demonstrate that the demand is there. This has been done with music and films but I don't know if anyone's tried it with books.

Re: Heinkel He 111: An Illustrated History. Design - Development - Variants - Operations - Equipment
 

Dear All,

As recently noted, Ian Allan sold the Classic Publications imprint to Crecy. Add to that that much has been said about the declining state of affairs for book publishing and Robert and Eddie may have found themselves in a possible financial squeeze, accepting the page limitations dictated to them by the number of pages that could be published and still eek out a profit. The result may seem like an anemic book.

Had they narrowed the topic range to cover some aspect in more detail, the anticipated number of buyers might have made the book uneconomical to publish in the first place. At least here we are getting a 336-page book, not the 220-page book that Chevron was constrained to under Ian Allan.

Let's see how well this one sells as to whether there is a market for books on a very staid old warhorse such as the He 111.

As for switching publishers, John Vasco said it well under a different TOCH! topic:

"Because the volume of work that Crecy have taken on is so huge that it will take quite some time for everything to be assimilated into their system.

This will, as far as I am aware, include contact with all the various authors (myself included) who have had work published through the Ian Allan imprints now with Crecy, examination of contracts, possibly entering into fresh contracts for new/revised works, etc..

It is a massive change, and any benefits will necessarily take quite some time for the buying public to see how everything has shaken into place and is then taken forward."

So, be kind out there.

Regards,
Richard

Re: Heinkel He 111: An Illustrated History. Design - Development - Variants - Operations - Equipment
 

Re: Heinkel He 111: An Illustrated History. Design - Development - Variants - Operations - Equipment
 

Bomphoon, if a niche subject book is excellent and properly marketed, it can be well profitable for the publisher. One good example is the Australian military author/publisher Jason Mark, whose books tend to sell their print runs quite quickly despite being very expensive (approx. £50 for a small format (A5) book). There are two publishers who publish mostly military aviation history books for the Finnish market of a tad over 5 million people. And their books tend to be more expensive than comparable books of British publishers.

To be frank, I suspect that the aviation history niche market would do significantly better if we readers committed ourselves to it a bit more. One often hears complaints about lack of funds to buy books, yet in the next sentence one hears that there is money a plenty for tourist travels, tobacco and especially booze (and often those travels' primary goal is to get drunk).

Re: Heinkel He 111: An Illustrated History. Design - Development - Variants - Operations - Equipment
 

While they may not be perfect,The Classic Series are beautiful books ! My He 111 copy was just under $50 Canadian delivered...good price in my eyes.I got hooked on Classic's with the soft cover Jagdwaffe series...first time I opened one I was stunned...what an improvement over the old "In Action" series and the poorly printed Schiffer soft covers ! The series is currently at number 25...I look forward to hopefully another 25 or so.Only one I'm missing is # 8...Me 163 Vol 1...hopefully it gets reprinted as copys are in the retarded price range right now,,$500 to $1000 a on E Gag.And of course # 21...Volume 4 of the Fw 190 which has still not been printed.Anyways-Cheers to the writers and the publishers !

Re: Heinkel He 111: An Illustrated History. Design - Development - Variants - Operations - Equipment
 

I had a chance to examine a copy earlier this week. Based on the quick examination, the following observations were made.

As is typical of recent Classic releases, physical and design quality is excellent, though the brief time did not allow for thoroughly checking out for typos.

The subtitle of the book does not really apply to the book's contents as the coverage is totally devoted to operational aspects. In short, the title should indeed be "He 111 - An Operational History".

The technical coverage is primarily through manual illustrations that are interspersed with the text throughout; a bit strange decision giving impression of a thorough technical coverage when there is not.

Performance details and analysis are lacking. There is a specification appendix at the end of the book, but the figures are the standard figures from Heinkel documentation. There are no test reports, no payload/range curves etc. But there is for an nth time a reproduction of Eric Brown's text.

The bibliography reveals a decent number of archival references, but mostly related to operational service, not technical documents etc.

There was meagre coverage of the testing and production aspects of the story. And there was no comparative analysis of the He 111 to its contemporaries.

So, as currently titled, the book does not deliver it*. As an operational chronicle, seems to be quite ok.

*There is more space devoted to the Spanish Civil War than on handling and performance of the aircraft.