Flying Sorcerer
ACCESS: Confidential
- Joined
- 18 June 2008
- Messages
- 125
- Reaction score
- 84
Anyone know of any books on air to air cannon?
Yes. "Firepower" emerged shortly before my book "Rapid Fire" was published, so I sent off for a copy to check that it didn't make my book redundant. I needn't have worried. I did write a long review of it at the time, but it can be summed up in two words: "don't bother". It did have one good consequence, however: it prompted me to contact Emmanuel Gustin and suggest that we write a proper history of aircraft guns and their installations, which eventually emerged as the "Flying Guns" trilogy: WW1, WW2 and The Modern Era.Whatever you do, do NOT get "Firepower" from Schiffer Publishing. Probably the worst aviation-related book that I ever owned (and not for long!).
Chinn is one of the basic essentials...I gather it is available on CD.
But according to the website still available from the author on CD.That Soviet cannon book is out of print.
Your loss.....Yes, but 65 euros for a computer file is exactly 65 euros too much. Either a real book or nothing.
I would think the big advantage of digital versions would be that the authors could include all of the archival material
upon which they've (almost wholly) relied. And having English language translations of German, Russian, French etc.
archival material would be a huge boon.
I would think the big advantage of digital versions would be that the authors could include all of the archival material
upon which they've (almost wholly) relied. And having English language translations of German, Russian, French etc.
archival material would be a huge boon.
No doubt, but my mind boggles at the thought of including the vast quantities of archival material I've perused over the 20+ years of reading since Rapid Fire was published. Just listing it all would be a mammoth task (a major research project of its own), let alone including the content, let alone getting everything translated into English.
No footnotes, just five pages listing source material. Come to think of it, Chinn doesn't have much either - just a 2.5 page Bibliography in Volume 1 and nothing in the others, although he does include a huge list of patents in Vol 5.I seem to recall 'Rapid Fire' not having much in the way of footnotes or inline citations to begin with.
I would think the big advantage of digital versions would be that the authors could include all of the archival material
upon which they've (almost wholly) relied. And having English language translations of German, Russian, French etc.
archival material would be a huge boon.
No doubt, but my mind boggles at the thought of including the vast quantities of archival material I've perused over the 20+ years of reading since Rapid Fire was published. Just listing it all would be a mammoth task (a major research project of its own), let alone including the content, let alone getting everything translated into English.
Footnotes/endnotes should be there. First, it allows the reader to ponder the veracity of the text. In some books the author states "according to some sources" /"according to other sources" without identifying any of those, thus denying the reader vital information.
Second, it generally shows that the author is confident enough of his research.
Third, I have never understood the claim of "getting in the way of reading". Usually such claims are made by people who really should stick to novels, not serious non-fiction.
No footnotes, just five pages listing source material. Come to think of it, Chinn doesn't have much either - just a 2.5 page Bibliography in Volume 1 and nothing in the others, although he does include a huge list of patents in Vol 5.I seem to recall 'Rapid Fire' not having much in the way of footnotes or inline citations to begin with.
I will probably include even less in the way of sources in my new cannon book - I will focus on listing the really worthwhile texts with a lot more info on specific subjects.
An author has to decide what the Sources are for. In an academic work, every item of information should be sourced, resulting in extensive footnotes, or end-notes, which can get in the way of reading the text. I don't write academic books, my target audience is not professional gun or ammo designers but non-specialists who want to find out more about the subject. Listing a huge number of sources doesn't help much, but pointers to further reading might be useful.