"The Austrian army 1805-1809 - - vol. 2:" Topic

Hi
Seen this book for sale on Amazon and it looks quite interesting. there are another two volumes one covering the infantry and another covering the cavalry.

link

Has anyone read any of the volumes. How do they compare to the Osprey and Histoire & Collections titles.

There is one review covering the cavalry volume that suggests it sits somewhere between the above two series. But are they worth the price.

Any thoughts would be welcome.
Regards
Gav

link

If you don't mind a pdf this is all you'd ever need at an awesome price

I have all three volumes. They are quite good, but description of the details of the actual uniforms is lacking; for example, if you wanted to know details of the distinctions for officers, NCO's drummers, etc, you would be hard pressed to find them. On the other hand, *every* one of the 63 regular regiments is illustrated in schematic form, and there are amazing details of the recruitment districts, inhabers, officers and (1809) battle history for all the regiments. The regular plates are pretty much based on Ottenfeld. The 27 (!) different hues used for Austrian facings are all nicely, and it seems, pretty accurately depicted. That said, even though I have Funken, Knoetel, and all the Ospreys, there was still useful information in these books, and I found them helpful. I would say that they are worth the price; the Ospreys, for example fall down hugely on the facing colors of the Line infantry; the exact opposite is the case here.

While I don't own the Austrian volume by Rawkins (yet; planned purchase!), as refefenced by BtS above, as long as you don't mind an electronic format, if it is anything like the ones I do own, it is hard to imagine any uniform or organizational details you would want to know that Rawkins doesn't cover in Depth. If I were only going to own ONE reference, Rawkins would be it… and you can't beat the price. However, if you liken to hold a book, it may not do it for you. Cheap enough to find out, though! :-)

Meanwhile still waiting for the definitive English books on Aspern-Essling and Wagram.

Have you looked at John Gill's 1809 trilogy, I found them superb.

for people interested in the Austrian Army the same author will publish one volume about the Austrian Cavalry 1792-1815 at HELION for the autumn 2020

There is a review of all three volumes on youtube , look for 1809 AUSTRIAN ARMY BOOKS , sorry can't post link

Is this essentially a print version of his online texts?

Cheers,
John

I have Vol 3, covering cavalry, artillery & other forces. They are okay and I gave it a 4 star review on Amazon UK. They are well worth owning and my only disappointment is the price, which I feel is far too high for the number of pages and information offered. However, saying that, should I have the cash to spare I would still seriously consider ordering the other two volumes.