Military Model Scene

Title: Royal Navy Torpedo-Bombers vs Axis Warships 1939-1945
Author: Matthew Willis
Publisher: Osprey
ISBN: 978-1-4728-5248-9

Number 124 in the Duel series from Osprey, an 80-page soft-cover book in the standard series style, including plenty of archive photographs accompanied with some excellent artwork.
Spread across 9 sections, the Introduction leads into a Chronology which actually lists key events from as far back as 1914, before going into the detail of Design & Development and the Technical Specifications of Royal Navy Torpedo bombers, and the major Axis warships (German and Italian) that they would be trying to sink or disable, and the anti-aircraft weapons they carried. As for the Strategic Situation, there were fewer major German warships for the Navy to worry about, while the Italian Navy in the Mediterranean offered a greater threat to that region. Then The Combatants is a section devoted to the people involved, the aircrews, the flak gunners and the senior commanders on both sides. When it comes to the details of actual Combat actions, these include those in Norway, the attack on Taranto, the hunt for the Bismarck and the Battle of Matapan. This section includes useful maps, along with diagrams to lay out the typical attack profiles used by the aircraft on ships at sea. Even with successful operations there were aircraft losses, and not every mission was successful, however brave the aircrew were. The story of the Channel Dash, of Gneisnau and Scharnhorst were a less successful example. As the war progressed new aircraft types such as Barracuda and Tarpon (the Fleet Air Arm version of the US Avenger) but still the Swordfish and Albacore served on. Final elements looking at Statistics & Analysis along with the Aftermath, the successes and failures of both sides of this Duel is summarised.
With artwork, archive images, maps all playing a part in the story, the text is informative and easy reading, telling the story of this particular WW2 duel, with a nicely balanced look at both sides.
Thanks to Osprey for the review copy.

Robin