As many of you will recall I have reviewed 3 of John Baxter's books on Luftwaffe 46 scenarios. As I am very into this area it has not been a big ask. With each new book the quality of the presentation and story  telling has moved ahead .Even though the last book was much more fact based it certainly had lots of good ideas in there and I personally  loved the realistic manner in which ships wore out/sank/were relegated to training duties in much the same way as planes do.

This book breaks with his previous tradition and looks at an Alternative Australian perspective for the post war years. Now being Australian ( and no for the umpteenth time we do not have kangaroos hopping down the streets of our cities , oh ok occasionally in small country towns when a drought is on, but only then!) you'd think I'd have a fairly good handle on this. Unfortunately the answer is no, I've pretty much concentrated on WW2 and German aircraft mainly so my  knowledge is mostly from attending a few of our local museums and general knowledge.

Having said that what is in this book is not a huge extrapolation from history. It is possible that Cocos Islands could have had an oilfield around it a la the Spratly Islands further north that China, Japan and a few others are squabbling over. The situation in Indonesia is not that far from the truth and frankly at that time given how the Indian's were with Pakistan, taking on a third rate naval power like Australia would not have looked like too much of a stretch.   

From the perspective of trying to stretch history I don't think this book goes too far and having read some Airport novels like FALKLANDS 2 I think at times he's being quite tame. The crucial difference here is the level of aggression. In real life the Indonesians pulled back but given their leadership at the time it could have gone either way. This increased level of aggression gives rise to increased defense spending on Australia's part and we're talking quite a big increase here. If you can accept all this then it's fairly plain sailing (ahem ) through the attack scenarios depicted and John does seem to revel in depicting carrier battles. The obvious parallel is with Midway though being fought by jets and more modern armaments alters some of the attack/defense scenarios and I think this is handled quite well. I enjoy his writing style a lot.

Where this book shines over the previous efforts is the presentation style. There is a nice batch of colour pictures of a whole heap of models in the middle, also included are some colour side views. This is backed up by a kitography at the end.
The layout is different to previous books and as acknowledged is by Lee Bagnall. If you've seen his Padded Cell 46 magazines you'll know what I mean.

The only criticism is that at times I felt the stories as a series were  a bit disjointed, a time line may have helped here. I'm also a little curious what happened in the second and third Indonesian Wars as well  as the eventual washup regarding the Cocos Island . I was left feeling that a second book covering these episodes would be forthcoming but there were no clues in the book. This left me slightly flat.

Having said that if you like Naval battle and especially carrier battles/tactics etc then you will enjoy this book as well as Australian readers and those who like alternate history scenarios. For these people then you will spend quite a few pleasant hours dipping into this book. John tells a darn fine yarn when it comes to aircraft carrier scenarios. 
            
Cost is $36AUD ( approx 22US ) + shipping . Australia's postal rates are comparatively cheap.

More details from John Baxter on jjbaxter@techinfo.com.au
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