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  #11  
Old 30th March 2018, 13:14
Stig Jarlevik Stig Jarlevik is offline
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Re: 1941 – The Non-Stop Offensive Part 1 by John Foreman and Winfried Bock

Well Andrei

To a certain extent I agree with what you say. I would also have wished a lot more would have been included in this, four part, overview of 1941, but now that it isn't we have to look at what we actually get. I think that Foreman's aim was/is not to produce any books about how the leadership of either RAF or Luftwaffe were either thinking or planning for the future. There are many other books which cover such subjects. I agree it is a pity we don't get more times and exact numbers of aircraft taking part in every mission, but that would have made these books very much larger, more expensive etc which may be one reason such details are missing.

However, judging from what interest individuals on TOCH, I see no lack of interest in individual claims/losses, day by day. On the contrary we have an almost 'endless' amount of requests exactly about that. I happen to be one of them as well. So in my mind I think the books are good enough,

I thought it was quite funny that you say these books were good enough in 1988 and not in 2018. That is of course true in a sense. Had this and other books in this genre been available back in 1988, there would have been no need for them today. However since they were basically not (I would say 1987 was a crucial year), I can still see an enormous need for them, at least for those of us interested in day-by-day accounts. Before 1987 I believe only Francis Mason with his ground breaking Battle over Britain and Christopher Shores' Fighter over the Desert/Fighters over Tunisia had been published with a day-by-day theme. From 1987 they were followed by further books by Shores, including co-writers, and many others.

From then on, we have been treated to an incredible number of day-by-day histories from British, German, American and at least one French author( s ).
True they have taken different approaches to the subject, but the fact remains they seem to sell very well, most likely due to a good enough market. People are still interested in the subject regardless if it is 1988 or 2018.

Sadly one nation is missing from these day-by-day histories, at least on my bookshelves, and that is Russia. Published in Russian perhaps? In such a case I would say they would have the same "good" market as their western counterparts....if translated of course.....

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Stig
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  #12  
Old 30th March 2018, 17:04
Andrei Demjanko Andrei Demjanko is offline
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Re: 1941 – The Non-Stop Offensive Part 1 by John Foreman and Winfried Bock

Stig

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stig Jarlevik View Post
I think that Foreman's aim was/is not to produce any books about how the leadership of either RAF or Luftwaffe were either thinking or planning
I am agree with you. But I think it would be sufficient to outline this in a couple of pages, so that it would be clear why, for example, Luftwaffe flew armed reconnaissance sorties against shipping targets virtually every day, and so on. To be fair, I'm judging by the sample, not by the book itself, so, it could be, that strategies of opposing air forces are outlined in the book.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stig Jarlevik View Post
I thought it was quite funny that you say these books were good enough in 1988...Before 1987 I believe only Francis Mason with his ground breaking Battle over Britain and Christopher Shores' Fighter over the Desert/Fighters over Tunisia had been published with a day-by-day theme. From 1987 they were followed by further books by Shores, including co-writers, and many others.
True. It was flashback to the books by Christopher Shores and co-writers, published by Grub Street back in 1980s. I think these books were a revelation and a real breackthrough back then. I can say that the works of Christopher Shores have sparked my deep interest in WW2 aviation history, showed methods of research and eventually brought me here on TOCH.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stig Jarlevik View Post
True they have taken different approaches to the subject, but the fact remains they seem to sell very well, most likely due to a good enough market.
It's difficult for me to judge whether such accounts have a good market or not, but I can remember several posts on this forum from people who know this matter very much better than me stating that the current sales of WW2 aviation history books are much lower then in the past. So maybe absence of the more detailed books is one of the causes?
I am also very interested in a day by day books (in fact I have been buying MAW volumes so far) but the limitations of such books are also apparent to me. The books which attempt to cover a year or so long air campaign in one or two volumes are neither good as statistical summary (only name of pilots for multi-engined aircraft lost, no Marks for British aircraft are in 1941...) nor they are usually good in description of air campaigns in some detail. I am understand that information about daily activities or breakdown of sorties, especially from German side, currently is not always available, but even outline in a few sentences would be sufficient if nothing more is known to the author at the moment of the writing. 1941 in NW Europe is a huge aerial campaign, and it would take 12 volumes to adequately cover it. (and I would like 52 or even 365 vols)

I think that future of the day by day books is in the approach taken by the same publisher with Nachtjagd Combat Archive. In the volumes, which would cover less period of time in much more detail. In the volumes, which would bring the air war out of vacuum of "At 09.00 hours Beaufighter crew fired on He 111 without result" and place it in the context of ground operations and the war at sea, so the reader would be able to see, if the air forces were effective in their assigned tasks or not and the cost of the effort not only in terms of losses, but in terms of sorties flown and ordnance dropped. As for Eastern Front air war, I have no doubt, the publishing of accurate day by day books is only matter of time.
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Andrei
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  #13  
Old 31st March 2018, 01:57
Bombphoon Bombphoon is offline
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Re: 1941 – The Non-Stop Offensive Part 1 by John Foreman and Winfried Bock

[quote=Andrei Demjanko;249977]I do not want to comment critically, but I think the golden times of claims vs losses literature are long over.

Judging by free sample, the book is a great effort, but the genre itself have its fundamental shortcomings. The main drawback is that while providing some statistics and despite the glimpses of aerial combats which could be seen flashing through the narrative this book omits its subject - the air war itself. So we can see a brief summary of claims and losses, but we have virtually no idea what aerial activity behind these combats was all about. What were the tasks of the opposing air forces? What RAF and Luftwaffe did to accomplish these tasks? There is no information on strategical and tactical objectives. There is no information about the daily total number of sorties for RAF and Luftwaffe flown, not to mention of breakdown of these totals into fighter-bomber-coastal-recce, is in the book. There is no information on the ground or shipping targets, tonnage of bombs dropped and damage to the ground infrastructure. We have been only informed that pilot X shot down aircraft Y."

I know what you mean, but realistically, these type of books are not going to be bought by the general public: they are specialist publications bought by those with a specialist interest in the subject, so it is likely this would not be the only book they have on the subject, thus they can cross-reference with their existing books to complete the picture.

Take for example the recent excellent Luftwaffe Crash Archive series: on the face of it, readers may initially be a bit disappointed as the books only tell half the story, mentioning details of the crashed German aircraft but not which RAF pilots/aircraft shot down them down.

However, this information can be completed by cross-referencing with After The Battle's Blitz or BoB books.

Would it be handy to have all the information together in one publication? Yes, but, for example, the Luftwaffe Crash Archive already ran to 12 volumes at £25 each and to include the extra information would probably have doubled each volume's size and price: people have commented about £25 being top end for a paperback book, so they would not pay £50 for them and thus the series would not be viable and have never made it into print.

A separate point is that a lot of this information has already been published 30 years ago, but these publications allow corrections, additions and updates to the research - there may even be new research in another 30 years' time that make these 'latest' specialist publications outdated.
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