An illustrated account of the challenge posed to RAF Fighter Command by the Luftwaffe's Fw 190, and the ways in which Spitfire crews adapted to this deadly new threat.

The introduction of Focke-Wulf’s Fw 190 to Luftwaffe service presented RAF Spitfire VB and VA pilots with a formidable new foe that could quite literally run rings around them. First encountered over France in September 1941, the Fw 190 – or ‘Butcher Bird’ – soon demonstrated its startling capabilities, wrong-footing RAF Fighter Command and forcing the swift development of new tactics and methods. The actions that ensued were some of the most fiercely contested of the air war in northwest Europe and would lead to the production and eventual fielding of the Spitfire IX.

In this new study, air war expert Andy Saunders details how the RAF – having perhaps become complacent about the superiority of the Spitfire – found itself left behind with an inferior fighter. Covering the introduction to service of both the Spitfire V and the Fw 190, the fighters’ first encounters and the battles that shaped subsequent tactics and design, it combines combat reports and first-hand accounts with archive photographs and newly commissioned artwork and formation diagrams to convey what it was like to be a fighter pilot in both aircraft from 1941 to 1943.

Andy Saunders is a well-known aviation historian. He founded Tangmere Military Aviation Museum and has written numerous books, including several for Osprey. He is a former editor of Britain at War magazine and the German military history magazine Iron Cross. He also contributes to TV documentaries and acts as a TV and film consultant.

Gareth Hector produced the cover and battlescene artworks for this book.

Jim Laurier created the cockpit and armament views for this book.