The In Action series should be familiar to all. David Doyle continues his update of this series this time focusing on the iconic P-51 Mustang, a plane many would say was the best of the war.

The book begins with the NA-73X prototype designed to help supply Britain in the early part of WWII. The USAAC would only allow North American to export the planes if they provided 2 at no cost to the Army for evaluation. These two became the XP-51 one of which survives today with the EAA in Wisconsin.

Osprey Publishing just released the latest installment in the Aircraft of the Aces series: “Spitfire Aces of the Channel Front 1941-1943”.

Typical of the Aircraft of the Aces series, this book is profusely illustrated with period (B&W) pictures, both of the airplanes and their pilots, plus 36 selected color profiles. The book also has many first hand narratives describing individual combats while keeping them in the overall context of the strategic situation.

The book is split into 5 main chapters, as follows

• Defense to Offence
• Leaning into Europe
• Greatest Air Battles
• The Endless Offensive
• Preparing for Invasion

The first chapter is very brief and describes the general strategy of “Rhubarbs”, “Rodeos”, “Circuses” and the organization of “Wings” which would typically have a strength of 3 to 4 squadrons

The third kit in Eduard’s FW 190A-8 series is the Fw 190A-8/R2 “Sturmbock” variant. As the American daylight bombing raids became larger and more frequent the Luftwaffe searched for ways to increase the effectiveness of their daytime fighters in bringing down the B-24s and B-17s without drastically increasing their vulnerability to American escort fighters. Focke Wulf’s solution was to add additional armor to key areas of the Fw 190 and to up-gun it. The result was the Fw 190A-8/R2 which had extra armor around the engine, the ammunition boxes in the wings and along the sides of the cockpit. In addition the side panels of the windscreen were beefed up with extra panels of glass and large side panels of toughened glass were installed on the outside of the main canopy. The R2 also had the outer 20mm cannons in the wings replaced with 30mm cannons – giving the Sturmbock a hefty punch.