Fw 190 Jabo Units in the West
Malcolm Lowe; Osprey

The latest 96 page title in Osprey's Combat Aircraft series covers the units using Fw190's as fighter bombers in Western Europe. The first chapter attempts to describe the development of the various versions of the Fw190 fighter bomber but I found the text less than clear (line dwgs or photo's of each type may have helped here). Chapter two outlines the Luftwaffe's early attempts with Bf 109E/F's which were not ideal for the task due to lack of range and then covers the mid-1942 introduction of the Fw 190, which was much more suited for such op's. Chapters three and four cover op's in 1943 and 1944, while also detailing the organisation/equipment changes late in the war.

The campaign is explained by descriptions of numerous raids including period accounts by both German and British participants, illustrated by relevant photo's. It soon becomes clear that it  was basically forced on the Luftwaffe by the failure of its 1940 bomber operations and diversion of multi-engined types to the Eastern Front. It also becomes clear that apart from tying down a few RAF squadrons, it had no military value as the vast majority of attacks consisted of bombing and machine-gunning shopping precincts in coastal towns which were either poorly defended by AA or not at all (the 5th August 1942 attack on Yeovil hit the town centre and steered well clear of Westland's factory!).  There does not seem to have been any target planning - seafront hotels. gasometers and churches often were attacked (their size making them easily recognisable at low level?) and also schools (ditto due to large area?). Casualties, no doubt grievious to the residents of the towns targeted, were generally minimal (Teignmouth was attacked 21 times and suffered 79 dead), although in about a dozen cases casualties exceeded three figures. These attacks certainly did nothing to disrupt wartime production - only one on Ashford in Kent seriously damaged factories (Southern Railways' workshops). The RAF had a hard time combatting these raids at first as the Spitfire V's performance at low level was not particularly good but the introduction of the Typhoon and Spitfire XII changed things dramatically with German losses generally being 5 - 10% and a couple of times 50% (almost no Luftwaffe pilots survived to become POW's). Chapter five briefly describes the last futile "jabo" action of the war - Operation Bodenplatte - which merely destroyed what was left of the Luftwaffe's fighter arm.

This title is recommended to those interested the air war in Western Europe post-Battle of Britain and the 11 pages of colour side views are a boon to the modeller. It has obviously been well researched and the result is a quite detailed description of yet more German incompetence. This reviewer was left wondering why the Luftwaffe saw this campaign as even marginally worthwhile!