Osprey books: Albatros and Nieuport aces, comments?

[Ron_F]

Just received Osprey books Albatros Aces and Nieport Aces in mail yesterday.

there is alot of bad press about them at 12 oclock high! (ww2, not ww1) esp on the Luftwaffe/Russian side about the poor artist plates that are in error/validity.

I was wondering what many of the forumites have found in relation to the prints vs photos, etc.

I did notice a very small blurp about Bishop, but no color plate... ;] hmmmm

anyway, both are done by Norman Franks, so im sure the text is probably correct. will read here soon..

thanks,
Ron F.

[Ginger.]

Take Osprey at face value,when they are good they're very good.I have both the ww1 aces,as a modeller the German one is great.I can't comment on the text on either as I don't know enough.Let's get to Camel and SE5 aces!!!
Iv'e collected Ospreys since day one,they're worth it just for the pictures.

[Richard_Schrader]

Ron;
I have not seen them yet, but I am looking foreward to getting them. So far the best Osprey books I've seen are by brother Barrett.
Richard

[Richard_Schrader]

Ron'
I just walked across the street to Border's and ordered the Albatros book.
Richard

Ron,

>I was wondering what many of the forumites
>have found in relation to the prints vs
>photos, etc.

I have them both. They are pretty good as far as I am concerned and cover a differant arena to the In Action books and the Datafiles. So owning all three is complementary. The GOGS books have more details on the aces, it appears to me like a text run down of the highly detailed info in the GOGS books.

The Nieuport book spends more time than usual on the Belgians and the Italians which get rare air time in mainstream books. The Albatros book also gives a lot of airtime to the non famous Jasta's so again it is pretty good.

As to accuracy in the profiles, due to the film used at the time and the way it affects warm colours as well as there being little to no fabric and documentation on what colour a lot of these aircraft were, it pretty much comes down to what you reckon is the go from the actual photo. Black/Red, Yellow/Olive ...

There are plenty of pictures, plenty of text and lots of coloured profiles. For 18 USD they are a great buy. But then Ron you got any library space left?

Gordon stumbled upon the likelihood of an Osprey release of an Aces of the Eastern Front? Italy, Palestine??????? where! Barret or Russell do you have an inside line on the scope of that title?



cam

[Barrett]

Hi gang: I believe there'll be a SPAD aces book fairly soon--probably not enough Brits for a separate title. Will be posting Aerodrome reviews of the Nieuport and Albatros titles for Scott shortly.
The Albatros profiles are especially interesting. I just ADORE Frommherz's sky-blue jobbie from J.Boelcke.

[wingstrutdotcom]

I have the Alb book. I think it is good. I just wish they put a little more interesting text in than just using the data and text that seems to appear in every book by Franks. While I like the data it gets a little dry seeing it re-packaged under differing titles. Something new and fresh would be nice for a change. Maybe tell us some little known facts about the aces.

I thought the color plates were good and they had a really nice selection of interesting photos. the photo "two old bones" at top of page 23 was really interesting. I thought it would have been nice for them to tell us a little more about what happened to those planes.

[Ron_F]

Just trying to get a feel for some of the more involved modelers/die hard enthusiasts have to say about them.

Osprey has a bad wrap in the WW2 genre by the die in the wool Luftwaffe and Russian buffs.

cam,
Yep, still got at least 2-3 shelves left for books...now if i can just get the 600-700$ for all those i want right now........hehe

Ron

[Ira_Silverman]

The next 2 World War I titles will cover the SPAD VII and Fokker Dr.I Aces. Both by Norman Franks, and both due early 2001.

VBR,

Ira

These books are excellent introduction to the WW1 aces. Sure there are some errors - for example, in the Albatros book the color plate for Jacobs' "Kobes" is actually an Albatros D.II - but overall are very nice.

The Nieuport book would have been better broken up since it really doesn't mention a lot about the French aces. Odd, since the Nieuports are French birds.

However, they are defintiely recommended. Since the color plates are in the hands of a different WW1 historian other than Franks, they should be accurate, markings-wise.

Matt Bittner
WW1 Modeling Site