Review

Osprey Publishing keeps providing modelers and aviation aficionados with plenty of reading and reference material. The latest installment of their “Aircraft of the Aces” is devoted to those that flew with JG3. I have to say that I like a lot the most recent books of this series, in which they cover both the history and aces of a single unit.

JG 3 is a very relevant unit to both the modeler and historian, as it participated in all major Luftwaffe campaigns and some of the most significant battles of the war, including the Battle of Britain, Battle for Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, Normandy, Ardennes and Berlin. Not only that, it also flew all the marks of the Bf-109 (from the early –Es to the late –Ks), plus the Fw-190, both radial and inline versions. In addition to that their aircraft wore all different camouflages, from Western Front to Eastern Front (snow camouflage) to Desert and Mediterranean camouflages.

The book is divided chronologically in the following chapters:

• A slow start
• Battle of Britain and after
• Barbarossa - an abundance of aces
• Mediterranean interlude
• Growing Soviet resistance
• Defense of the Reich
• Normandy bloodbath
• Retreat and defeat
• Appendices

The appendices include a list of the Aces that flew within JG3 and their awards.

Like any other book in this series, the book is profusely illustrated with B&W pictures and it includes 32 color profiles, mainly of Bf-109, but also there are a few Fw-190s.

Highly recommended to modelers and aviation aficionados.

I would like to thank Osprey Publishing and IPMS/USA for the review sample.