Dogfight

The solitary Dogfight title for 2025 is Spitfire I – Phoney War and Battle of France. The most famous British fighter of them all, the Spitfire was blooded in the early skirmishes against lone German bombers probing Britain’s coastal defences during the eight-month-long Phoney War. Units used well-rehearsed battle formations to make short work of any aircraft encountered, but crucially they had not encountered any short-range German Bf 109 or Bf 110 fighters. This all changed with the Blitzkrieg in the West, launched on 10 May 1940. Although the RAF had reluctantly sent a steady stream of Hurricane units to France from the autumn of 1939 as part of the British Air Forces in France, it had kept all of its Spitfire I squadrons firmly based on British soil and under direct RAF Fighter Command control. As German forces rapidly advanced, Spitfire I units were dragged into the fighting, and Luftwaffe fighters were soon encountered during sweeps of the French coast from airfields in southern England. The combat experience subsequently gained during the Battle of France and Operation Dynamo (Dunkirk evacuation) served Spitfire units well, as they modified their fighter tactics for engaging Bf 109s and Bf 110s ahead of the Battle of Britain. Author Tony Holmes explains how Spitfire I pilots went from employing pre-war tactics during the Phoney War to adopting fighting formations similar to the Jagdwaffe by the end of the campaign in France. The rapid evolution of the Spitfire during this period is also examined.

This the newest series in Osprey’s extensive list of aviation titles, with each book focusing on a single fighter type – and the pilots that flew it in aerial combat – during a specific campaign or time period. A brief development history of the fighter (and its weapons) is included, and the author examines both the training undertaken by the pilots strapped into the aircraft, as well as analysing the tactics they employed. Each Dogfight volume includes more than 50 photographs, six pages of detailed ribbon diagrams and armament view(s).  

There are seven titles planned for 2023 covering a handful of famous fighter types – World War 2 icons in the form of the Me 262, A6M Zero-sen, F4F Wildcat, Spitfire and Fw 190A-8; and the F-8 Crusader and MiG-21 ‘Fishbed’ of the Vietnam War.

 

 

Me 262 Northwest Europe 1944–45 by Robert Forsyth

The Me 262 was one of the most advanced aircraft designs of World War 2.

The Me 262 represented the state-of-the-art in terms of design, performance and combat capability for the Luftwaffe. Fighter aces such as Adolf Galland, Walter Krupinski, Johannes Steinhoff and Klaus Neumann (all JV 44) and Georg-Peter Eder, Rudolf Rademacher, Walter Schuck and Theodore Weissenberger (all JG 7) flew the new jet fighter, enjoying success as they quickly came to terms with flying the world’s most advanced interceptor in the deadly skies over Germany in 1944–45.

Making its operational debut in the summer of 1944, and powered by the Jumo 004 jet engine, the Me 262 outclassed anything the Allies had in terms of speed and firepower ratio, offering a formidable punch with four 30 mm Mk 108 nose-mounted cannon. Eventually, the Luftwaffe would also introduce the 55 mm R4M air-to-air rocket, batteries of which would be slung under the jet’s wing to be used against formations of B-17s, B-24 and B-26s. But the problem the Luftwaffe faced was one of numbers. To the end of the war, availability of machines and trained pilots was to prove an insurmountable problem, but despite this, the high-performance, incredibly sophisticated Me 262 made a significant impact on the air war and was the source of considerable concern to the Allies thanks to the exploits of a veritable handful of often veteran Jagdwaffe pilots.