Kagero books

[Graham Boak]

I've not bought any, so far, for two reasons. One is the large stock of books testing the joists in my loft already. The other is I feel that I will have to pay for stuff that I don't want. I only model in 1/72, so wouldn't want the 1/48 transfer sheet - I probably don't even want the 1/72 one! No, I don't read Polish.

So is there really enough new and interesting stuff in these books to justify paying the money? If so, which are the best ones?

[Brian Bines]

I bourght a couple of the 'miniiatury' unit histores including no.6 ''JG 5 Eismeer'' these are in Polish and English and I found them very good. I suppose it depends on how much knowledge one has already, certainly worth buying one to start with,
Regards
Brian

[Ludovico Slongo]

Don't know about these books in general, but I bought the two volumes regarding 112 Squadron; they were not so cheap - 20 € each that, in Italy, is the same price of the Osprey "Aircraft of the Aces" books - they contained some stuff for modelers as photoetched deatails and decals and I'm not a modeler; but at the end they were not disappointing at all. Inside the 100-112 pages volumes there were quite a lot of photos some of them I've never seen before, colour profiles were nice and the text was quite interesting -at least compared with Robin Brown's classic on the subject.
Regards

Ludovico.

[Lagarto]

Graham, I would obviously recommend the ones I wrote myself

This is the latest:
http://www.squadron.com/ItemDetails.asp?item=KG3024

As with all previous volumes, it's a Polish-English edition, full of rare photos (most of them from the San Diego Aerospace Museum archives, I daresay never published before), superb colour profiles (if anyone wishes to have a look at some samples, please PM me), and - last but not the least - the book offers Thunderbolt's quite detailed operational record ETO June-December 1944. It's packed with quotes from various P-47 pilots' memoirs and lots of action, which hopefully make a smooth and enjoyable reading
And don't be scared off by my English, the book was thoroughly proof-read by an English speaker

[Brian Bines]

Have anymore been added to the 'miniatury' series after no. 33 ''Me 262 Units''

[FalkeEins]

Next one is Vol IV of JG 27 (1943-45)
Overall I prefer them to Osprey - the A-4 size of the monograph series works in their favour and the Luftwaffe titles utilise some interesting sources & photo collections (Barbas, Stipdonk, Crow to name a couple )- they do tend to regurgitate what has appeared before and if you have an extensive library (Prien etc) then they're not at all essential..a number of their works merely offer a slimmed down version of other hard-to-find works..Pegg (Hs 129), Jurleit (Me 262 units)- whether or not this is with the agreement of the original authors I have no idea..other titles - Me 410 combat history, JG 11, JG 52 (1939-1941), Bf 110, JG 301- are/were produced in collaboration with well-known authorities such as Petrick, Barbas, Reschke and/or offer English-language versions of rare German texts - ..overall I tend to think their publications are quite 'collectable' - super little titles for the modeller & ridiculously good vfm especially if you purchase directly from http://www.kagero.pl - on that front there's simply no 'western' publisher can compete with them. Having said that ..check out the rendition of Hajo Herrmann's wilde Sau Fw 190 in a recent Fw 190 monograph..it is spectacularly inaccurate and rather unfortunately coincided with the new pictures in the Lorant/Goyat JG 300 book..

[Jim P.]

What FalkeEins said - if you collect the 'big' sources, these are mostly redundant. Also agree with the 'buyer beware' alert. Some of these Eastern European titles are quite good, some are flights of fancy. 10 years ago when this stuff first started to appear I bought a bunch, and was both happy with some, disappointed in others. Now I prefer to see before I decide to buy.

[WEISNER]

does anyone have any thoughts on the recently released JU 88 vol III title? it has not made it to my local hobby store yet and fear I may have to order it direct?
Kevin

[Dénes Bernád]

Originally Posted by FalkeEins

a number of their works merely offer a slimmed down version of other hard-to-find works..Pegg (Hs 129)...

I can wouch to what FalkeEins and Jim P. have written, at least RE: the Hs 129 book.

I flicked through the Kagero book in the local bookstore and could not find a SINGLE new photo of this highly interesting aircraft type. Moreover, the indifferent quality of many photos raise questions about their original sources.
Based on the few paragraphs I read in haste, I could find no new information in it either.

I would like to point out, however, that I am not familiar with most of Kagero's other titles, so this particular book could be the exception rather than the rule.

[John P Cooper]

I currently only own (FW 190 vol. IV) one but I was very happy with the quality although some of the content is a bit suspect at least according to other sources and this forum.

With this in mind I did find some interesting tidbits of information that I was able to verify (and enjoy) Additionaly I really feel the technical diagrams in the book are very well done and it has somoe nice colour profiles.

Overall they are the Cliff Notes version and open the door to further reading.

Regards,

John