Warbirds of Wwii

Rating:
Summary: Excellent value, accurate in detail
Review: This DVD is a great value for anyone interested in WWII airplanes and air combat footage.

The single disc contains 3 documentaries covering:

1. Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress - A complete overview of the B-17 from inception to combat usage, with an emphasis on 8th Air Force operations against Germany

2. Consolidated B-24 Liberator - An overview with an emphasis on the famous Ploesti raid of 1942

3. Defenders of the Reich - An overview of Luftwaffe fighters, with an emphasis on daylight air defense

The main reasons I like this video are:

a. Accuracy - Most documentaries get the basics correct but miss out in the details. However writer John Bruning (Crimson Sky: The Air Battle for Korea, etc.) has ensured that the details of model changes, unit deployments, etc. are very accurate. Additionally, the video footage used during the narration is more often than not the correct model of the plane, which is a rarity among video documentaries.

b. More footage than face - Most documentaries spend as much time on the "faces" as they do the combat footage. This one has more combat footage with background narration and less face-to-camera interviews than is usual.

For anyone with an interest in air combat PC games, it should be noted that John Bruning was the official historian for Dynamix when it released the critcally acclaimed Red Baron, Aces Of The Pacific, and Aces Over Europe PC games in the early '90s.

The only negative I can think of is that there is no option to play all three documentaries in succession.