Tuesday, July 18, 2023

Ronny Bar Profiles: German Fighters of the Great War, Volume I


By Ronny Bar
Tempest Books, 2023
Peter L. Belmonte, Reviewer




This is Ronny Bar’s second volume of profile paintings of World War I aircraft. In this volume, Bar, an aviation artist and enthusiast, covers German aircraft of the 1915–1917 period. The aircraft covered include various models of Fokker, Albatros, Pfalz, Halberstadt, and Siemens-Schuckert aircraft. To maximize the size of each illustration upon the page, Bar purposely kept the captions brief, typically one or two sentences. As a result, there is no technical, performance, or historical information about these airplanes, but the illustrations are the better for it.

Bar’s illustrations are left and right profiles, and many are depicted in top and bottom views. Each caption typically contains the aircraft identification, serial number, pilot, and location and date of its appearance as depicted. Some captions briefly discuss any unusual aspects of the illustration, such as the appearance of an external compass, an unusual modification or paint scheme, or, in one example, the existence of a teddy bear lucky charm mounted on cabane struts.

The author used photographs and documentary research to determine the colors of each aircraft. In some cases, Bar “had no choice but to resort to a somehow educated guess” (p. 9) as to colors. Readers, presumably aviation historians and enthusiasts, will enjoy poring over this book. Although there are hundreds of illustrations in this volume, they are by no means repetitive or boring. The paint schemes, to include individualized adornment in many cases, are fascinating and give readers a wonderful idea of what must have been the most colorful aspect of an otherwise dreary, drab, and dreadful war.

There is not much more to say about this book. It is highly recommended to anyone who is even mildly interested in these flying machines of long ago. The book leaves us looking forward to more volumes; it is to be hoped that Bar will execute a volume covering each of the warring nations.

Peter L. Belmonte

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