Enemy At The Gates: Panic Fighters of the Second World War

I have hardly finished writing yesterday's blog entry about the 'jockey' fighter concept, when an Amazon courier delivered a copy of ENEMY AT THE GATES: PANIC FIGHTERS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR.

Despite the confusing name which it shares with the 2001 film that tells a highly fictionalised version of the life of Russian sniper Vasily Zaitsev during the Battle for Stalingrad, this book is a detailed survey of the fighter aircraft in service or under development at the outbreak of the various conflicts that we group together under the name 'the Second World War'. The main coverage done country by country, and includes

• Germany
• Czechoslovakia
• Poland
• Denmark
• Norway
• Netherlands
• Belgium
• France
• Great Britain
• Switzerland
• Romania
• Hungary
• Yugoslavia
• Greece
• Russia
• Finland
• Lithuanai
• Estonia
• Latvia
• Sweden
• Japan
• China
• Thailand
• Dutch East Indies
• Australia

The book finishes with a chapter that looks at the aircraft the were captured by the various belligerents and reused by them as front line aircraft or for research purposes.

This is certainly a book for anyone interested in some of the more technical aspects of the aircraft used (and planned to be used) during the Second World War. It will also be of interest to those wargamers who enjoy looking at 'what if ...' scenarios and ORBATs as well as those who want some thing a little exotic in the way of aircraft to grace their tabletops during the later interwar period.

The designs that I found fascinating included:

• The Danish Orlogs Vaerftet OV-J-1, which was designed by the naval shipyard just in case the imported aircraft that Denmark had ordered from overseas were not delivered in time.
• The French Roussel R.30, which was a 'jockey' fighter similar in concept to the designs proposed for use by the RAF.

• The French Payen fighters, which used a canard-delta, tandem-wing design. One of these is featured on the cover of the book!

• The French CAPRA R.300, which was an adapted version of a small racer aircraft designed to complete in the 1939 Coupe Deutsch.
• The British Miles M.20/1 'Munich Fighter' and its later development, the M.20/2. These wre both designed for rapid production if the need for a massive expansion of the RAF's fight force was required.

• The British 'Ramming' Spitfire, which was designed (but never built).
• The Chinese Chu (AFAMF) XP-0, which was built using the tail surfaces of a Curtiss Hawk 75, the centre section and landing gear of a North American NA-6, the tail wheel of a Seversky P-43, the engine and cockpit of a Vultee P-66, and newly-designed plywood wings. A real mongrel aircraft, if ever there was one!

• The Australian Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation CA-12 Boomerang, which was a 'panic fighter' that was designed to use components from the licenced-built North American T-6 trainer aircraft. This proved to be a rugged design, and it did great service supporting the Australian Army during the fighting in Borneo.

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ENEMY AT THE GATES: PANIC FIGHTERS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR was written by Justo Miranda and published in 2019 and published by Fonthill Media (ISBN 978 1 78155 766 2).