A couple of weeks ago, on the forum a few of people asked a very pertinent question - "What are the 5 best selling books in each of the Osprey series". In response I posted up a historical listing of our ten bestselling titles of all time, but I thought that it would be well worth expanding on this and showing you the big hitters in each series.

Now, as i think I may have mentioned in the past, actually coming up with a definitive list is a little tough, and is particularly hard on the newer titles in our library...as some of our books have 40 years worth of sales behind them, whilst other books only have a few months worth of sales to rely on. The other issue is that 40 years is quite a long way to go back and for various very boring technical reasons our records are only really accurate over the last 25 years or so - but with that in mind, lets see which books lead the race.

Aircraft of the Aces
1) ACE 29 Bf 109 F/G/K Aces of the Western Front
2) ACE 8 Corsair Aces of World War 2
3) ACE 9 Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Aces of the Western Front
4) ACE 1 Mustang Aces of the Eighth Air Force
5) ACE 6 Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Aces of the Russian Front

Aviation Elite Units
1) AEU 16 Richtofen's Circus
2) AEU 1 Jagdgeschwader 2
3) AEU 5 B-29 Hunters of the JAAF
4) AEU 24 332nd Fighter Group - Tuskegee Airmen
5) AEU 2 56th Fighter Group

Battle Orders
1) BTO 3 US Armored Divisions
2) BTO 23 Desert Raiders: Axis and Allied Special Forces
3) BTO 31 The Royal Navy 1793-1815
4) BTO 20 Rommel's Afrika Korps
5) BTO 10 US Tank and Tank Destroyer Battalions in the ETO

Campaign
1) CAM 15 Waterloo
2) CAM 1 Normandy
3) CAM 16 Kursk
4) CAM 41 Rorke's Drift
5) CAM 24 Arnhem

Command
1) CMD 2 Erich von Manstein
2) CMD 5 Erwin Rommel
3) CMD 1 Napoleon Bonaparte
4) CMD 3 George S. Patton
5) CMD 4 Julius Caesar

Combat Aircraft
1) COM 4 Mosquito Bomber / Fighter Bomber Units
2) COM 18 B-17 Flying Fortress Unit of the Eighth Air Force
3) COM 8 P-61 Black Widow Units of World War 2
4) COM 10 SBD Dauntless Units of World War 2
5) COM 2 B-26 Marauder Units of the Eighth and Ninth Air Forces

Duel
1) DUE 2 Sherman Firefly vs Tiger
2) DUE 4 Panther vs T-34
3) DUE 1 P-51 Mustang vs Fw 190
4) DUE 13 Panther vs Sherman
5) DUE 6 USN Carriers vs IJN Carriers

Elite
1) ELI 3 The Vikings
2) ELI 11 Ardennes 1944 Peiper & Skorzeny
3) ELI 23 The Samurai
4) ELI 9 The Normans
5) ELI 19 The Crusades

Essential Histories
1) ESS 38 The Vietnam War
2) ESS 1 The Crusades
3) ESS 8 The Korean War
4) ESS 37 The Spanish Civil War
5) ESS 20 The Iran - Iraq War

Fortress
1) FOR 2 Hadrian's Wall
2) FOR 10 The Maginot Line
3) FOR 37 D-Day Fortifications in Normandy
4) FOR 17 Troy
5) FOR 5 Japanese Castles

General Aviation
1) The Concorde Story
2) Red Eagles
3) Spitfire Flying Legend
4) Lockheed SR-71
5) Aircraft of the Aces: Legends of World War 2

General Military
1) Out of Nowhere
2) Shadow Warriors
3) Warriors of Medieval Japan
4) SEALs
5) FUBAR

Men-at-Arms
1) MAA 46 The Roman Army from Caesar to Trajan
2) MAA 34 The Waffen SS
3) MAA 228 American Woodland Indians
4) MAA 170 American Civil War Armies (1)
5) MAA 154 Arthur and the Anglo-Saxon Wars

New Vanguard
1) NVG 1 Kingtiger Heavy Tank
2) NVG 5 Tiger 1 Heavy Tank
3) NVG 3 Sherman Medium Tank
4) NVG 2 M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank
5) NVG 109 Imperial Japanese Aircraft Carriers

Raid
1) Raid 26 Tora! Tora! Tora! Pearl Harbor 1941
2) Raid 2 Israel's Lightning Strike: The Raid on Entebbe
3) Raid 27 Tomahawk and Musket: French and Indian Raids in the Ohio Valley
4) Raid 1 Rangers lead the way: Pointe-du-Hoc D-day
5) Raid 4 Who Dares Wins: The SAS and the Iranian Embassy Siege

Warrior
1) WAR 2 Waffen SS Soldier
2) WAR 11 English Longbowman
3) WAR 1 Norman Knight
4) WAR 3 Viking Hersir
5) WAR 71 Roman Legionary

Weapon
1) WPN 6 Sniper Rifles
2) WPN 1 The Thompson Submachine Gun
3) WPN 5 Katana: The Samurai Sword
4) WPN 2 The Rocket Propelled Grenade
5) WPN 13 The M1 Carbine

 

So, there you go, that is the list for the bestselling books in each of our series. As you can see, most of the bestselling titles have a good few years worth of sales behind them, but there are a few notable books that sold so well and so quickly that they have been able to break into the bestselling lists despite being much younger than other books in the series - NVG 109, WAR 71, MAA 228, AEU 24 and BTO 31 all being prime examples of this.