Quote:
Originally Posted by Stig Jarlevik
After a quick glance it seems the aces claimed appx 312 victories
Also what makes your book (English version) different with regard to the fighter pilots than the one written by György Punka some 14 years ago? I understand you have expanded the topic 'ace' and no doubt the number of photos as well.
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The 38 Hungarian aces of WWII scored over 370 air victories. Everything (including statistics) are described in deep detail in the book.
As for the Osprey book, these projects are uncomparable. Punka's Osprey book is actually another edition of his 'Messer', under a new title (the text is approximately the same). That book contains no info about the aces, their military and civilian careers and many important questions. That follows general time and few units and shows general combat. It also contains high number of serious errors related to individuals, dates and events.
My book contains the very detailed military career all of the aces. Since 99,8% of the RHAF's wartime material was lost, it was not a small challenge and a result of a 23 year-long extremely intensive and careful research, during which I left no stones unturned related to these pilots.
It contains several chapters prior the ace biographies about general statistics and fates of them, about the RHAF air victories during WWII in general, about the air victory concept in Hungary itself, about the confirmation system in Hungary (compared to others), about the tactic and combat methods in air combat, about the awards, and there is a rank comparison table (Hungarian/German/Soviet/USA). After that, the very detailed bio of all 38 aces, including their combat performanace, flight hours, awards (with exact dates), air victories (with very exact details), with flown aircraft as an introductory. Then comes the very detailed military biography of the actual pilot (basic details from the family, the cause, why the choose the military flying if it is known), training, service at home and at the front units with the very details of his combats (including many named opponents, so details about their victims and victors as well). Very details of their death (if they died), and if survived the war, their military/aviation related fate after 1945 etc etc etc. The most successful ace's bio (Dezső Szentgyörgyi) is 22 page-long, but the shortest one is still 5 page-long. And of course it is a serious academic work (with 722 endnotes).
But if you seriously think, that an A/4 size, 402 page-long book contains no more info compared to a B/5 size, 96 page-long one, you should ask a more mathematical related individual about these dimensions, not me.