The Focke Wulf FW 190: 1939-1945 [Paperback]

I disagree a bit with my fellow previous reviewer. The colors in this book are quite pretty and accurate, in line with most of the latest knowledge about them, putting all possible color quarrels aside. These disputes can be very arbitrary, given field paint preparation, mixing colors, fading, etc. RLM 74 Grüngrau and RLM 75 Violettgrau, for example, look better than those from many profile books I have seen or owned.

However, I DO agree in the many, many factual errors, like wrong Jagdgeshwadern, or naming a color NOT used on the plane, then representing the correct one. Stuff like this will be confusing to all but people who are well versed in Luftwaffe planes and can spot the mistakes, laugh, and disregard them. I'd say there are about 10-15 errors I have found in contradictory color info vs. the colors on the profile, and stuff like the below mentioned "JKG-300" :)

These are, of course, unjustifiable errors.

The wealth of profiles, on the other hand, giving the info below each one a margin of error, is very welcome, and they do include many that are for me fresh and very peculiar and curious paint jobs. It includes many pages with FW-190F and G profiles, which are rarely found in one single book, if at all. And of course, many FW-190Ds and Ta-152s also.

One sadly lacking thing is that there are NO TOP VIEWS of any particular plane, apart from the two generic camo pattern top views. This is not a book about pilots or battles (and I don't think that it was meant to be). I would say buy it for the profiles only, as the info may be misleading and is only cursory anyway. I have painted many 1/300 miniatures using profiles from this book.

..or in other words this book is very cheap ..and practically worthless to anyone seriously interested in finding out more about this aircraft and the men who flew it..
For a book based exclusively on a collection of aircraft profile drawings the artwork has to 'look right'; here it simply does'nt. A vast selection of 190s are illustrated but they all have curiously shaped cowls and heavily shaded panel lines where none exist, not to mention weird colours...there are no accompanying reference details and nothing in the way of 'unpublished' photos as promised in thr blurb - how do they get away with it! Errors abound on every page...JKG 300 indeed ! The 'icing' is the dreadful English language translation from Alan McKay...awful...'or so the story goes..' to quote him!!
As the intro in the original French edition stated, this work was essentially cobbled together from a variety of well known English language sources and designed for non-English speaking enthusiasts. There seems ultimately little point in offering a translated edition...the bottom line... even Osprey does this sort of thing better..!!

This may not be the best book on the FW 190, but is really good. The over all history, modifications, markings, weapons and camouflage are here. And it has a large number of profiles, over 100, many with patterns I had never seen before. Is essential for the model builder, highly recommended.