Product Description

The 'storm troopers' of the Luftwaffe, the elite Strumgruppen units comprised the most heavily armed and armoured fighter interceptors ever produced by the Germans. Their role was to smash like a mighty fist through the massed ranks of USAAF daylight bombers. Only volunteers could serve with these elite units, and each pilot was trained to close with the enemy and engage him in extremely short-range combat, attacking from the front and the rear in tight arrowhead formations. In exceptional circumstances pilots would even ram their enemy. This book chronicles the brief, but violent, career of the Sturmgruppen during the dark days of 1944-45, employing first-hand accounts and rare archival photography.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #778634 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

From the Publisher
Looking at elite fighter and bomber units in action, these books draw on profile artworks, black and white photographs, fully detailed appendices and breathtaking first hand accounts.

About the Author
Osprey's primary Luftwaffe author and artist, John Weal has written, illustrated and/or supplied artwork for several titles in the Aircraft of the Aces series. He owns one of the largest private collections of original German-language literature from World War 2, and his research is firmly based on this huge archive. This is his fifth book in the Aviation Elite Units series. He lives in Berkshire, UK.

Customer Reviews

Sturmgruppen in Action over Germany!
Desperate times brought desperate measures in wartime Germany. In late 1943 the Luftwaffe created special Sturmgruppen designed to inflict crippling losses on 8th and 15th AF formations using heavily armed and armored FW 190s attacking en masse at point-blank range. Should all else fail, the Sturmjager were prepared to ram their opponents. The development and combat history of the Sturmgruppen are the subject of this John Weal/Osprey volume published in 2005.

After an experimental squadron - Sturmstaffel 1 - proved the effectiveness of the concept, various Gruppen within existing Jagdgeschwaders were re-constituted as Sturm units, IV.(Sturm)/JG 3 being the first such unit. Under ideal conditions, the Sturmbock FW 190s could decimate the American bombers, units such as II.(Sturm)/JG 4 and II.(Sturm)/JG 300 claiming 20,30 or even 50 kills during successful intercepts. Experten like Walter Dahl, Oskar Romm, Ernst Schroeder, Klaus Bretschneider, Hans Weik, Walter Loos and Wilhelm Moritz used their FW 190s to deadly effect. Yet, even as the Sturmgruppen enjoyed success, their days were numbered as growing numbers of P-51s made their task difficult and then impossible.

Weal does a fair if uneven job of relating Sturmjager triumphs and tragedies. His Sturmgruppen coverage prematurely tails off after the 14 January 1945 bloodletting over central Germany. Weal then devotes the book's last six pages to the Sonderkommando Elbe ramming operation, which is tangential to the Sturmgruppen story. I would have preferred it if Weal had devoted that space to more details of Sturmgruppen combats.

The book features dozens of wartime photographs of pilots, aircraft and combat scenes along with eight pages of color profiles and unit insignia. The book's cover features a dynamite Mark Postlethwaite scene of a IV.(Sturm)/JG 3 savaging a battered 8th AF B-17.

In sum, LUFTWAFFE STURMGRUPPEN is a good, evenhanded, nicely illustrated account of some of the deadliest Luftwaffe pilots in action. Recommended.

informative and well writen
I found this book provided a good over view of areial combat against Alied bombers during the last years of WWII. I had not been aware of the Sturmgruppen before seeing this title.

Comparlson between 'Ram attack"of fighters on B-17 over Germany and and B-29 over Japan !
In this book,"Elite strumppen" German fighter groups are
heavely armed and armoured fighter group
this special group's main purpose is attacking B-17
daylight bombing group over Germany.Rarely they did volunteerd
"ramming attack"(colliding attack of thier attacking airplane
to enemy object--KAMIKAZE attack)
In Japan,from many reports from Japanese writers,special task forces
(such as Ramming division of 244th Sentai,Japan)involved,multiple,
systemic ramming attacks)collide down many high altitue,daylight flying,
B-29s in tight formations(quated from "B-29 hunters of the JAAF",
Osprey elite units thruough Amazon.)