(Air Month) The Pros & Cons Of Impulse Purchasing

I've had a change of heart regarding my Airco DH.2 pushers and have decided to transfer them to 14 Squadron in Palestine to support the Aussie 'Brisfits' (it'll also give me an excuse to paint up some Ottoman Air Force planes in due course). Consequently I've been painting coats of Bleached Bone to get a decent Clear Doped Linen look and am a little behind schedule...

The schedule also took a knock when an impulse purchase from the weekend literally thudded through the letterbox...

In the 'old days' of mail order you used to have to write out an order, write a cheque, find an envelope, then a stamp, then post it, offering plenty of time to reconsider the initial impulse to buy. These days, it seems three clicks and your done! Such was the case with a copy of Aircraft of the Russian Civil War by Vyacheslav Kondrat'ev and Marat Khayruln from Military History Books...

On first appearances this does not appear worth the £22 it cost (including postage). It isn't a proper perfect bound printed book. It is a translation of the original Russian volume, thermal bound (ie. what they do to big reports in Staples) with colour copies of the plates from the original book. That said, if you are interested in the air operation during the Russian Civil War I'd say it was indispensable and worth every penny.

It isn't a coffee table book but 237 pages packed with shed loads of information, includes 115 b&w photos and 11 pages of colour plates (typically four or five planes to a plate), basically everything anyone interested in the aerial side of the RCW would want. It is particularly useful for the Soviet side. All too often the Red side of things is anonymous compared to the detailed western data we can access, but here, all the units of the Workers and Peasants Red Air Fleet are listed and many of the photos are of Red machines which is wonderful to see.

Worth £22? Well, when I look at an Osprey Ace's book, 96 pages for £14 and compare any of them to the unique information in this book the answer is a resounding yes! I just need to restraint myself from buying the volume on tanks in the RCW (well for a little while).