Jane's Aircraft Recognition Guide

Author: David Rendall
512 pages 2nd Updtd edition (October 1999)
Publisher: HarperCollins (paper)
ISBN: 0004722124
Dimensions (in inches): 1.52 x 4.99 x 7.49

Notes: Book pictures are in black and white. Statistical book, with drawings and picture of aircraft.

Decription:
The essential guide to world aviation,Jane's Aircraft Recognition Guide is the most comprehensive single volume on modern aviation. Over 500 military and civil aircraft are included, providing unrivaled coverage of every major aircraft type flying today. It includes: Three View Recognition Silhouettes Descriptive Text and Technical Data Over 500 Photographs.

Table of Contents:

Ed's Analysis:
The book contains many pictures and is similar in desgin to all previous and future Jane's Recognition guides. It provides the technical data and pictures all in one page. It provides aircraft dimensions, weights, performance, and armament information. Photos and graphic representations assist in aircraft identification. Aircraft are logically grouped making searches for a particular airframe easy. Anyone working the flightline, and/or coordinating airshows will find this information invaluable when trying to establish parking plans. Also in all previous guides, as in this one, there are several still very popular and numerous planes missing. For example, the Piper Comanche has never been listed ( Only the Twin Commanche ) I still see a lot of Comanches around. I would like to see these changes ,ie. more technical data and a more uniform listing of the technical data, in future guides.

Jane's Warship Recognition Guide

Author: Keith Faulkner, Robert Hutchinson (Introduction), Richard Sharpe
512 pages Revised edition (May 1999)
Publisher: Harper Resource
ISBN: 0004722116
Dimensions (in inches): 1.45 x 4.96 x 7.44

Notes: Book pictures are in black and white. Statistical book, with drawings and picture of aircraft.

Decription:
The essential guide to all the world's fighting ships. Jane's Warship Recognition Guide shows you how to identify all the world's fighting ships. Fully updated since the 1996 edition, it is organized in a new way that makes it easier to look up ship types in service with more than one navy. Now you can directly compare how different fleets have armed and equipped warships from the same class. A comprehensive index has been added. Over 200 classes of warship are covered with: Class and ship names. Weapon systems and radars. Full page photographs of every warship. Detailed line diagrams. Key recognition features

Table of Contents:

Ed's Analysis:
Similar in desgin to all previous and future Jane's Recognition guides. The pictures, for the most part are of good quality, but some are of little value as they are bow-on or stern-on shots. Also, the author gets the California and Virginia class vessels of the USN (CGNs) mixed together when they are two distinct classes. However, as all vessels of both classes are (or soon will be) no longer in service it is not a big issue. With the rapid pace of naval events a newer edition is needed; say in 2000-2001. The key recognition features of each class is a good feature, allowing the reader to pick them up from the picture on the opposite page. It has a lot of detailed explainations on how to look for distinguishing features such as what type of mast a ship has, how many funnels, locations of weapon systems, what shape the forecastle is etc. It also gives detailed line drawings of the side view of each ship to make identification easy. So, if all you want to do is to be able to recognise the ships, then this is the guide for you. On the down side, it does lack some details a military buff might be interested in, such as how many missiles of each particular type are carried, range of the various electronic sensors onboard, range of the main armament and things like that. Therefore, if you want to know those kinds of details you will have to find another book. On the whole though, this is a very comprehensive book, which covers MOST of the ships in service today, so it's actually pretty useful.

Jane's Tank & Combat Vehicle Recognition Guide

Author: Christopher F. Foss
510 pages (December 1996)
Publisher: HarperCollins (paper)
ISBN: 0004709950
Dimensions (in inches): 2.62 x 8.49 x 6.18

Notes: Book pictures are in black and white. Statistical book, with drawings and picture of aircraft.

Decription:
Every major battle tank and combat vehicle used in today's armored forces including new vehicles just entering service is identified in this guide by photographs, illustrations that show key recognition points, accurate technical specifications and a brief description written by Christopher F. Foss, the foremost expert on military vehicles. Unrivaled as a military vehicle reference for the general public, it is both an effective recognition manual and an excellent learning tool.

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Ed's Analysis:
The book contains many pictures and is similar in desgin to all previous and future Jane's Recognition guides. All though the book gives a brief look at possibly every military vehicle in service, there needs to be less description of the vehicles in the text, as there are photos accompaning the text, and the numbers of vehicles in service with each country and their costs even if it is just a general estimate. The other information left out, which is possibly the most critical, is the reliability of the vehicles represented by the number of man hours needed per hour of use.

Jane's Gun Recognition Guide

Author: Ian Hogg, Rob Adam
6th edition (April 1996)
Publisher: HarperCollins (paper)
ISBN: 0004709799
Dimensions (in inches): 1.55 x 4.99 x 7.48

Notes: Pictures are in black and white.

Decription:
Jane's Guns Recognition Guide features all the military rifles, pistols, features all the military rifles, pistols, revolvers, machine-guns and sub-machine guns in action today. From the US Army's newest infantry rifle to former Soviet weapons now in terrorist hands, as well as ex-World War II guns still soldiering on, this essential book enables you to identify them all.

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Ed's Analysis:
Well, this book has it all, except for shotguns. If your looking for handguns, this book is for you. 200 out of 500 pages in this book is pistols and revolvers. This book is a statistics book, with a gun on every page. The pages are obviously double sided. With 500 pages, it has over 1000 firearms. I was dissiapointed to find only one photo of the gun, and the photos are in B&W. This book is not for the gun enthusiast who would like to see good color photos and pictures of people in action with them. This is for the research person or for persons in the military, who wishes to gain information on weapons. Still, overall, this book is worth the buy if you just want to know more about guns.