Reviews
"A new hardback Special Edition Monograph from Kagero, with 192 pages devoted to the design, development and operational service of the early versions of the famous Messerschmitt Bf 109, through versions A – D. They have tackled the subject before but this expands on it and puts a lot together into one very good reference book. It's quite weighty, and has a good quality 'feel' to the book as a whole, coupled with some colourful artwork on the cover. The story starts with that of Willy Messerschmitt, his early designs, his obvious drive to want to design and build his own aircraft leading to him setting up his own company, while it includes the animosity between himself and Erhard Milch, who was to go on to become Secretary of State for the Reich Aviation Ministry. Boosted by success with his design of the Me 108, his design for the Bf 109 then goes through the various prototypes and the differences between them as the design was 'tweaked'. We now know of course that his design was to become an icon of the Luftwaffe in WW2 with a reputation to rival that of the Spitfire. These elements of the story, accompanied by many archive photos take up the first 36 pages of the book. Having gone through the ups and downs of the process to get the design accepted, next come the operational stories, starting with trial by combat in the hands of the pilots of the Condor Legion in the Spanish Civil War. This includes extracts from veterans accounts of what they experienced using the 109 in action. Many of these now experienced pilots brought their combat experience home, and used that to their advantage with the opening of WW2 and the invasion of Poland, which is tackled in a similar mix of veteran's accounts in with the history story, before getting to their use in the Phony War and a short section on camouflage and markings that takes us up to page 73. The well captioned archive photos used throughout this section, and there are over 100 of them, will interest the aviation historian as well as provide lots of detail and some diorama ideas for aircraft modellers in particular. Pages 75 through to 106 are filled with excellent 1/72 scale plans for the A-D variants. This is followed by a section from page 107 through to page 176 filled with the marvellous 3D computer images that Kagero have become well known for. These show complete airframes, including some 'skinned' so you see all the internal spar and bulkhead structure within the airframes. Coupled with these are detailed images of section of the aircraft, such as the engine and particularly the finer detail of the cockpits, ideal for a modellers reference. The final section stays with computer generated images, but this time illustrating a variety of colour schemes, some in profile, some in 3D views, including the greys of the Condor Legion to the Green splinter camouflage of the Blitzkrieg era and some very colourful bright red and white marked machines in use by the Swiss air force. This is an excellent combination of history, archive photos and modern computer generated imagery that I find a really delightful mixture and a pleasure to read through as well as having some first class modelling references at hand on the bookshelf, all in the one book" – Military Model Scene
"As always with Kagero's titles, the layout, artwork and texts is first rate, with plenty to recommend it. The photos are of great interest from a historical point of view, with many showing maintenance situations, and more candid photos of aircrew and ground crew, as well as the test pilots and technicians. A very thorough book at a reasonable price, and I'm looking forward to seeing the next volume. Very highly recommended" – Britmodeller.com
