Luftwaffe Secret Projects: Fighters 1939-1945

There's several books and a a few websites that talk about the "secret" weapons the Germans developed in Word War Two. For the most part it's rehashing of the same material, the Second World War is one of the most documented events in history, so the aircraft out there are documented numerous times. What makes this books (and all the succeeding ones) rise above the rest is it focuses on specific subset of aircraft, projects that for the most part never got past the prototype stage, and documents it with an encyclopedic thoroughness. My only fault is the illustrations vary somewhat in quality, and sometimes don't match exactly with the schematic drawings. However, for aircraft that often were never available to photographed that's about what can be expected. I consider this series a must have for all military aviation enthusiasts.

At the beginning of World War II the world had pretty well settled on what fighter aircraft would look like: an engine up front (usually a V-12), a low wing, a single pilot, machine guns firing through the propeller and/or mounted in the wings. To be sure there were some that didn't look like that, the Navy wanted radial engines, the P-38's twin boom construction, the P-39 with its engine behind the pilot, but most, from all air forces met the standard. But as time went on, the tecnologies began to change. Where do you put the radar, and the changes in airframes to suit the jet engine where you had big air intakes and exhausts caused a tremendous amount of thinking about where things go. At the forefront of this thinking was the Germans. They were basically ahead of the rest of the world. They had rocket and jet engines much further into development and production than the rest. Each of the airframe manufacturers in Germany produced a number of prospective designs to present to the Government. Strangely enough, many of these designs have a very close resemblence to aircraft produced later by the Soviets, British or Americans. Once in a while the author shows photographs of the later planes with the sketches or drawings the Germans were doing. Obviously most of these aircraft were never built. You think about, sketch, discuss, and design very carefully before you commit the money to bending sheet metal. It makes you wonder where the authors found all this information.

I found this book, and it's two companions, to be very informative, keenly illustrated, loaded with rare photos, and easy to read. It makes a great coffee table book, and I would highly recommend to anyone interested in the WWII Luftwaffe and what might have been... Super job Mr's Schick and Meyer!

I was amazed at the amount of material that I had never seen before in this book. The illustrations are extremely well presented and the background material places them in historical context. I have truly enjoyed this book!