John Baxter

The Alternate Luftwaffe

by  John Baxter

Reviewed By  Jim Pearsall, IPMS# 2209

MSRP $A33 ($29.60 US) ISBN: 978-0-9580233-3-7 Ordering information is available at http://www.luft46.com/johnbook.html . Summary: · 22 short stories of alternate history. · 131 pages of text. · 10 pages of color artworks/photos. · 80 B&W illustrations/photos. · Full color cover. This is the second printing of "Alternate Luftwaffe". John Baxter "self publishes" this book and it's a labor of love. The first edition appeared in 1999, and sold out. The second edition has the same stories, but is improved with the addition of illustrations (model photographs and line drawings). Another useful addition for the modeler is a "kitography", a listing of all aircraft mentioned in the book, real or imagined, Axis or Allies, with the available kits in 1/72 for each type. There are 22 short stories; most of them describe a mission using an aircraft which never made it off the drawing board. The cover picture is of a pair of Blohm & Voss BV 193s attacking a Soviet river convoy on the Volga. The tone of the stories is like reading a "there I was" story from any fighter or bomber pilot of World War 2.

There is none of the "well we certainly showed them who was superior", and the pilot being talked about sometimes fails to survive the mission. Aircraft are damaged or destroyed by enemy action or accidents, and pilots or crew do the wrong thing, just as people in stressful situations usually manage to do. The stories have a feel of reality, which allows the reader to suspend disbelief, which means you can enjoy the story without having to think "yeah, right" every few seconds. Each story starts with a "photo" of the aircraft featured, and concludes with an historical footnote and bibliography. "Alternate Luftwaffe" does follow a set of rules, mostly based on the ideas that: 1. if Hitler had allowed the RLM to produce some of the new aircraft that were put on the back shelf because "the war was won" in 1940; 2. Goering was sent back to Karinhall in disgrace for bungling the Battle of Britain; 3. the SS and Gestapo were not allowed or encouraged to brutalize and terrorize the defeated nations of Europe, things would have been somewhat different. One story includes Vichy French pilots flying Ta-152Cs in defense of French cities and harbors in response to RAF bombing of civilian targets and the sinking of the French fleet in Oran. This also goes with item (3) above, as terror usually leads to a strong resistance movement.

I particularly enjoyed the ending of "Storangriff - Nuisance Raid", where the pilot of the He 343 jet bomber realizes that things are changing when he's intercepted near Naples by a pair of Lockheed P-80 jet fighters. Mr. Baxter has not only allowed the Luftwaffe to move up the timeline for fielding some of these theoretical aircraft, he also allows the Allies to bring on new projects at an accelerated rate. If you think about it, if the Luftwaffe had fielded more jet bombers, the Allies would have put much more effort into bringing their jet fighter projects into combat sooner. I got this book a day after I had finished reading Harry Turtledove's "alternate history" books "Days of Infamy" and "The End of the Beginning". These books deal with the idea of "what if the Japanese had followed up on the Pearl Harbor attack with an invasion?" This genre is very popular in the Speculative/Science Fiction realm, with Winston Churchill's "If Lee Had Not Won the Battle of Gettysburg" and Philip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle", which asks "What if Germany and Japan had won World War 2?" as good examples. I think the ultimate answer to many of these "What if" questions was from my friend Bill Tometich, who would answer these sometimes fantastic thoughts with "And if Sitting Bull had Sherman tanks, we'd all be living in tepees." Overall Assessment If you're a Luftwaffe '46 fan, this book is a "must have". The stories are well written, and give a context to the ideas presented by the hardware which was not used or was never built. If you're not familiar with Luftwaffe '46, but would like an introduction without an obvious background of "Deutschland uber Alles", this book is useful, and an enjoyable read.

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