Market research - 'Most Wanted' Luftwaffe books

[Jukka Juutinen]

Martin Giles mentioned low numbers as an explanation to the difference between aircraft and ship books. Not necessarily, but the difference applies to tanks too, and tanks definitely were produced in mass. For German tanks one can check e.g. Alexander Volgin's book on Tiger II or Walter Spielberger's series. They are highly detailed and very technical.

What is also interesting is that books (in English) on German aircraft of the 1933-1945 era, the most detailed ones are on types that were very insignificant for the total Luftwaffe effort. The most detailed such books I have come across cover the Ta 154, He 162, Me 163 and Do 335. All this while really meticulous books are lacking on the Ju 87, He 111, Hs 123, Hs 126, Fi 156 aspect very poorly covered is Luftwaffe aircraft armament , especially "ordinary" weapons like the MG 151 and German gun turrets and defensive installations.

There is also a very strange gap in aircraft monographs, namely that the post-WW1 to 1945 period is very susceptible to that superficial technical treatment of aircraft. there are excellent books with significant technical details on WW1 aircraft (for example the old Putnam "German Giants") and again with particle suction devices (=jets) the same technical emphasis resurfaces.