E-Boat vs MTB: The English Channel 1941–45 (Duel)

All of the weapons data and descriptions were incorrect, mg 38? Many of the rates of fire were impossible. Lots of typo errors.

I enjoyed this book. A good touch of theE-boats, and British MTB. I sing a few bad reviews of this book. And I feel that they are wrong it was definitely worth it a very good read.

I rate this about .7 (Value=Perceived Quality/Cost where value is line-ball at .9). The graphics in this book are dreadful. CGIs that fall dreadfully short of reality. These graphics are also posted with dark colour backgrounds that make them particularly nauseating to look at.The book does however, deliver some interesting tables and statistics.If this book was for sale in a book shop, I doubt if I would buy it.

Used in my research of German Schnellboots. Helpful, but nothing new.

GOOD READING

As a merchant seaman who travelled the U.K. east coast regularly I think the writer did a very good job of describing the action in this area.

Well-researched, well-written and entertaining book on the development and combat effectiveness of both the British MTB's (PT's) and the corresponing German E-Boats (and sister types). A definate 'Buy' recommendation.

Excellent

It was a disappointing read, not only because it turned out to be a basic introduction to the subject, but also because it was written with a jingoistic interpretation of events. Equally unsatisfying was the book's graphic content; the inside cover proudly introduces two graphic artists who contributed to the book, but their rudimentary drawings are nothing much to look at. Even worse, the drawings of the weapon systems are so lacking in detail that they look to have been copied from a 1980s video game. The photos - most of which seem to have come from the same source - are mostly of MTBs. There are very few photos of S-Boats, which was my main reason for buying the book. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, unless you're okay with content that is slightly better than what Wikipedia offers, albeit with far better writing. I'm digging back into Amazon's library and will hopefully find a more comprehensive source of information on S-Boats.

Excellent read! Provides great detail into one of the the lesser known naval fronts of WWII

realy worthwhile

Fine

I cannot recommend avoiding this book strongly enough and I am deeply disturbed by the fact that it has managed to acquire 4 out of 5 stars on average (doubtless owing to the one sentence reviews made previously).Let's start with the concept. Osprey's Duel and Battle series are a seemingly sensible enough idea, but run the risk of pigeon holing combatants and classifying them as direct opponents when that may not have been the case. That is quite true here, as torpedo boats were not looking for fights with enemy torpedo boats; they were attacking merchant vessels. This wouldn't be so bad if the book looked at a wider range of Coastal Forces vessels, but unfortunately they are largely sidelined and, when briefly described near the start of the book, undue emphasis is given to Fairmile Motor Launches at the expense of 'short' Motor Gun Boats (MGBs) (more on this below). The result is that, as the history of these duels is described in the body of the book, it becomes clear that it is in fact merely a summary of MTB and E-boat operations in the Channel, not direct engagements between the two. When engagements do take place they are, not surprisingly, between E-boats and MGBs.This is a shame, but perhaps it wouldn't be too bad if it wasn't for the horrendous numbers of errors in the book. Another reviewer has already pointed out the 6 pounder gun error - it's also worth noting that although the author claims it was only fitted on MTBs later in the war, a picture is included in a chapter in 1941 and is erroneously labelled as a pom-pom gun. This sort of inconsistency is rife in the book. In the chronology near the start it is stated that on June 14th 1944 an RAF bombing raid was made on the E-boat pens in Le Harve. Numerous maps include Le Harve, labelled as an E-boat base but, when we reach the chapter on 1944 we are told that Le Harve "was not a formal E-boat base and had no protective bunkers." In point of fact it did have concrete bunkers for E-boats (but not for U-boats) and was a base for German coastal forces. Similarly the author tells us that on D-Day, the 5th and 9th E-boat flotillas ventured out of Cherbourg on patrol "but encountered no enemy shipping". He then tells us immediately afterwards "However, 5 flotilla ran into the defensive destroyer screen protecting the Allied convoy lanes and managed to sink the Norwegian destroyer Svenner." If 5 flotilla didn't encounter any enemy shipping, how did it sink it? Leaving aside this contradiction, the Svenner was actually sunk by German Torpedo Boats (much larger than E-boats and comparable with British destroyers) operating out of Le Harve, on the other side of the invasion from Cherbourg.In the chapters on strategies and tactics there is little information beyond how to attack a ship with a torpedo. There is nothing (unless I missed it as my eyes fogged over whilst reading this) about the evolution of Coastal Forces' overarching strategies for defeating E-boat attacks on coastal convoys or, for instance, the employment of Command Frigates off Normandy. Similarly I can find no reference to the decision to convert large number of MGBs to MTBs (essentially abolishing short MGBs) in 1943.The copy editing is poor; on p.65 the final paragraph deals with an action by the 6th E-boat flotilla against an Allied coastal convoy on the 30th July. The paragraph concludes with a completely irrelevant sentence (being about MTB and E-boat susceptibility to enemy fire, not something that is explained as relevant to the attack, if it was at all). The first paragraph of the next page then describes exactly the same action, on the same date with boats of the same flotilla, as if it was a different event. It's hard to tell if the author has accidentally described the same action twice, or if he has miss-typed a date or flotilla number (fortunately there are enough clues in both descriptions to confirm that the author has included two summaries of the same action - in one he names the ships sunk, in the other the E-boats that attacked - a quick bit of research confirms that they were both involved in one single action).Towards the start of the book we are told that "The most important of the gun boat types built for the Royal Navy were the Fairmile designs." There follows a description of Fairmile Bs and Ds and whilst Fairmile Ds were significant in roles as both MTBs and MGBs, no Fairmile B was ever designated as an MGB. The statement that "these larger boats were better placed to withstand combat with E-boats than lighter MTBs" is pure rubbish as this was not their function - they were slower, less heavily armed and more susceptible to damage. The incredibly important 'short' MGBs, largely produced by British Power Boat are reduced to a solitary illustration and are not mentioned again.In fact, from the illustrations, one might assume that Vosper were the only company making MTBs in the war, as all of the images of Allied craft come from the Vosper Thornycroft collection. This limits the images to these craft almost entirely to Vosper boats. Again it wouldn't be so bad if the text made amends, but it doesn't and concentrates almost exclusively on Vosper designs in the technical chapters.Perhaps the book's one saving grace is that it does effectively present both the British and German perspectives. There are an equal number of commander biographies from both nations and the design, technical and tactical chapters all cover both MTBs and E-boats equally. Unfortunately the longer 'Combat' chapter, dealing with the overall history of operations from 39 to 45, goes slightly too far and reads more as an account of German operations and British responses to them, instead of a balanced narrative.This is just a summary with some choice examples of the errors with this publication, but overall the book is shocking in it's inaccuracy. The sad fact is however, that it takes someone knowledgeable on the subject to realise this. For the great number of readers who pick this book up to learn about Coastal Forces in the first place, half of these errors will not be spotted because the reader won't know that they are so badly wrong and will just take the 'facts' presented at face value. In truth, the publishers should feel embarrassed by this publication.Anyone who does read this review and does want to learn about Coastal Forces would do better to buy 'Home Waters MTBs and MGBs' by Leonard Reynolds, who served in Coastal Forces during the war and was commissioned by the Imperial War Museum to write their history. It's a different sort of book, but far superior.