Africa@War & Middle East@War Series

[Tom Cooper]

I would like to announce several new books about to be released by Helion Publishing Co within the next few months, all of them - I hope - of special interest for modellers.

About to emerge in August this year are two further titles from Africa@War series, both of which 'air power' related:

- Wings over Ogaden

Some might get a grin at the first look, because 'African wars' don't sound like much. Ogaden War was fought between Ethiopia and Somalia in 1977-1978 period. Nowadays a largely forgotten affair, it was a major conventional conflict that not only saw intensive tank warfare, but was actually decided in the air - in the course of pitched air battles between Ethiopian F-5s and Somali MiG-21s.

- Libyan Air Wars, Part 1.

While most people tend to recall the US-Libyan confrontations in form of 'F-14s shot down two Su-22s in 1981 two MiG-23s in 1989', there was much, much more to say alone about US Navy ops off Libya in the 1980s, not to talk about all the possible Libyan and French expeditions into Chad. We've met and interviewed plenty of participants, and got true loads of exclusive photographs. So, 'Part 1' is to become the first in three installments of this mini-series, detailiing 'everything you ever wanted to know' about air wars involving Libya, USA, France, Italy, Tunisia... from late 1960s until the late 1980s.

Except for Africa@War titles, later this year (second half of October), we're launching a new series titled 'Middle East@War'. The first few titles will be especially interesting for aviation enthusiasts, for example:

- Syrian Conflagration, with plenty of details (including ORBAT, details on ops, colour profiles, descriptions of markings, armament etc. of Syrian Arab Air Force aircraft and helicopters).

That said, this book is going to bring quite a lot of reference for armour-modellers too, as can be seen from various 'sneak previews' posted here.

- Iranian Tigers at War, which is a true blow-by-blow account on F-5s in Iranian service.

Given the recent appearance of some fantastic F-5A and F-5E/F kits, I hope the fans of that prolific type are going to find themselves served with extensive reference to best possible satistfaction.

Edited May 24, 2014 by Tom Cooper