Last month I started revealing some information about the books that we have commissioned on the back of information that we have received from the book suggestions and book votes that all of our readers (yep - that is all of you out there) have supplied. I started off with the book votes from 2008 and 2009. Now it is time to have a look at which books have emerged from the book votes that were held in 2010 and 2011.
January 2010
Vote Winner: NVG Roman Triremes thundered to an incredible victory in the first month of 2010, getting 62% of the overall votes. This actually has resulted in the publication of three books. First up was the approval of NVG 196 Warships of the Ancient World, which published in January 2013. Then in late 2015 we will see the publication of NVG 225 Republican Roman Warships 509-27 BC (September 2015) with a second book on later Roman warships following in early 2016.
Commissioned: Rolling in at joint 3rd in the January vote became a book in May 2014, with the appearance of NVG 207 Medium Mark A Whippet
February 2010
Vote Winner: A Campaign title on Troy won the Februrary book vote in another landslide result. And although we haven't covered the book in the Campaign series, we did decide to cover it in the Myths and Legends series. Myths and Legends 8 Troy - The Last War of the Heroic Age published in March 2014.
Vote Runner-up: Coming in (an admittedly distant) second was a Campaign on Singapore... something that is already well on our radar, stay tuned for more news on that subject in the future!
Commissioned: This was a pretty comprehensive month, two of the other titles that appeared in the book vote have also been published, Campaign 253 Talavera 1809 which came out in March 2013 and Campaign 256 Fallen Timbers 1794 which came out in February 2013.
March 2010
Vote runner up: A Duel vote in March saw a suggested title on the F-86 Sabre and MiG 15 during the Korean campaign come second in the overall vote - a book which we published in May 2013 as Duel 50: F-86 Sabre vs MiG-15: Korea 1950-53.
Commissioned: One of the other titles to feature in the book vote appeared in pretty short order as Mark Lardas delivered Duel 44 Bonhomme Richard vs Serapis: Flamborough Head 1779
April 2010
Vote runner up: Although the titles in April were intended for the Warrior series, the title that came second overall actually got a more in depth treatment, with GNM The SBS in World War II: An Illustrated History, which came out in September 2013.
For the future? Although two of the other titles in the vote (Greek Civil War and Rhodesian SAS) haven't been commissioned yet, they did add some serious weight to our discussions about the Warrior title on the Rhodesian Light Infantry (arriving as Warrior 177 in November 2015) and MAA 501 Armies of the Greek-Turkish War 1919-22. If those titles do well I wouldn't be surprised to see those two other titles sneak into our future publishing plans!
May 2010
Vote Winner: In a month focussing on the Elite series there was a huge win for a book on Ronin. Although we don't have an Elite title commissioned yet for Ronin, it did lead to the publication of Raid 23 The Revenge of the 47 Ronin - Edo 1703 and the phenomenally well recieved OWG 4 Ronin- Skirmish Wargames in the Age of the Samurai.
Vote Runner Up: The Scramble for Africa 1871-1914 was a very strong second-placed title in May. Again this hasn't translated into an Elite title (yet) but it did open the door for MAA 490 Imperial German Colonial and Overseas Troops 1885-1918 - so expect more on this subject soon.
June and July 2010
The subject for the book votes in these months were the Command series and the Fortress series respectively. As we have wound down the Command series, none of the suggestions have yet come to fruition. We also gave the Fortress series a bit of a break, but with the series coming back later this year, the likes of Korea's DMZ and Native American Fortifications could yet make an appearance on the Fortress list.
August 2010
Vote Winner: World War II Italian Naval and Air Force Elite Units - which was published in January 2013 as Elite 191 Italian Navy and Air Force Elite Units and Special Forces 1940–45
Commisioned: One of the other subjects featured in the vote was Napoleonic Cavalry Tactics - a subject that was too large to even attempt to fit into one of our series books, so we split this into two books, Elite 188 Napoleonic Heavy Cavalry and Dragoon Tactics, which came out in July 2013 and was followed by Elite 196 Napoleonic Light Cavalry Tactics which came out in December 2013.
September 2010
Vote Winner: Napoleon's Swiss Troops - coming in a clear winner in the September 2010 Men-at-Arms book vote. This vote winner went on to be published as MAA 476 Napoleon's Swiss Troops in March 2012.
Commissioned: Two other titles that featured on this list went on to became fully fledged Men-at-Arms titles - the suggested titles on Australian forces during World War I became MAA 478 The Australian Army in World War I in June 2012 while the title that actually finished last in the vote in the month, on New Zealand forces in World War II became MAA 486 The New Zealand Expeditionary Force in World War II.
October 2010
Vote Runner Up: Coming second in a New Vanguard-heavy voting month was Italian Tanks of World War II. Much like some of the titles mention above, when we looked at doing this as a single book we realised that we couldn't get all the detail and types that we wanted into a single treatment, and so, in June 2012 we welcomed NVG 191 Italian Light Tanks to our list, followed by NVG 195 Italian Medium Tanks, which published in December 2012.
Commisioned: Two of the other titles that were up for the Book Vote are destined to appear in the New Vanguard list, though not quite as they appeared originally. ZSU-23 won't be getting a book to itself, rather it will make up a good segment of NVG 222 Self-Propelled Anti-Aircraft Guns of the Soviet Union in May 2015. And as we may have mentioned in this blog, The Valentine Tank is coming.
November 2010
Vote Winner: In the Weapon series themed book vote was won by a landslide, with a title on the Martini-Henry Rifle winning by a huge margin. So we obliged and May 2013 saw the publication of Weapon 26 The Martini-Henry Rifle.
Commissioned: We still haven't been able to pull together the right balance to do justice to the book that came second in the book vote (The Roman Gladius) - but two of the other titles that appeared in the vote have ended up as Weapon series titles, Weapon 28 The Bren Gun in July 2013 and Weapon 30 The Longbow in September 2013.
December 2010
Vote Winner: Dien Bien Phu. This is a title that we have been asked for so many times - and unfortunately we still don't seem to have a way to do it. As I have mentioned before, DBP has proved to be virtually impossible to do because the vast majority of the images are owned by one photo library, and the charges they are placing against those photos simply make it impossible to do the book. However, we continue to look into ways around this and continue to search for a way to make Dien Bien Phu into a Campaign title.
January 2011
Vote Winner: A World War I themed book vote started us off in 2011 and the winning title suggestion on WW1 Railway Guns prompted us to commission NVG 205 42cm "Big Bertha" and German Siege Artillery of World War I in January 2014.
February 2011
None of the Raid titles that appeared in the February book vote generated much interest with a very close run race from all five titles. However, subjects like Mirbat and the South African raid into Angola remain very much on our radar.
March 2011
Vote Winner: A huge victory for the Elite title on The Maori Wars in March 2011, polling 54% of the total votes. Although the Elite series wasn't to get a book on the subject, Men-at-Arms did in March 2013, with MAA 487 The New Zealand Wars 1820-72.
Commissioned: Good performances for ELI titles on Russian Special Forces and French Musketeers resulted in three books, ELI 197 Russian Security and Paramilitary Forces since 1991 ,ELI 206 Spetsnaz: Russia's Special Forces (out in June 2015) and Warrior 168 French Musketeer 1622-1775 which published in July 2013.
April and May 2011
No success for either book vote in April or May, down in part to another appearance for Command in April and a rather muted (and very tightly fought) Campaign vote in May, though at least two of those Campaign suggestions are still being seriously considered.
June 2011
Vote winner: A Duel month, and a very strong win for a title that pitched the Jagdpanther against the SU-100, a book that was published in April 2014 as Duel 58 Jagdpnather vs SU-100 although, we did change the theatre being covered from Austria 1945 to a more general Eastern Front 1945.
Also commissioned: Coming in third in the book vote was a slightly off-the-wall suggestion for covering Panzerfausts in the Duel series - seeing how they were used against Allied armour following D-Day. We can't give away too much yet, but 2016 will see the arrival of something in a very similar vein. A title on the Panzer 38(t) vs BT-7 also performed well in the vote. We haven't covered that subject in the Duel series yet, but it did highlight something of a gap, which we filled in the New Vanguard series with NVG 215 Panzer 38(t) in October 2014.
July 2011
Another huge victory for Dien Bien Phu. See above - we are working on it!
August 2011
Vote runner up: Coming a very close second in a tightly run race was a suggested Men-at-Arms title on Dutch and Belgian forces during World War II - a subject that we covered in MAA 493 Hitler's Blitzkrieg Enemies 1940: Denmark, Norway, Netherlands and Belgium which came out in February 2014.
September 2011
Vote Winner: A pretty huge win for a Men-at-Arms on the Opium wars. Whilst we don't yet have a MAA title scheduled to fit the bill perfectly, an upcoming MAA title (due in 2016) will in part investigate Imperial Forces during the period.
October 2011
Vote winner: Was a New Vanguard on Soviet 8-wheeled APCs. This actually came to one of our hitlist meetings, but we decided to do NVG 222 Self Propelled Anti-Aircraft Guns of the Soviet Union (which is out in May) first to see how that goes. We were then distracted by another Soviet subject that spans WW2 and beyond in 2016 (can you guess what it is?) - but we are keeping the APCs in our minds for an obvious future subject.
Commissioned: The Valentine. It is coming - and not before time!
November 2011
Vote Winner: The Composite Bow ran out supreme winner of this book vote, and you can expect to see it on bookshelves in your local store as WPN 43 The Composite Bow in November this year.
Vote Runner up: The Longbow came a close second to the Composite Bow - but won the publication race as Weapon 30 The Longbow.
December 2011
Commissioned: One of the Men-at-Arms titles that was featured in the book vote in December was a suggested title on the Congo Crisis. In the end we didn't feel that we could quite sustain an entire book on that conflict, so we expanded the idea, and after a two decade-long hiatus added a fourth title to our Modern African Wars series MAA 492 Modern African Wars (4) The Congo 1960-2002.
In fact, that title owes so much to the feedback and support of Osprey customers that I wrote a blog post about the subject.
Stay tuned for the next episode in a few weeks time!
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