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I am seeking advice from others on a course of study. Alternatively, I would like to know from others whether the books from Osprey publishing is a good place to start. I was thinking of purchasing books from the "Essential Histories" series and then drilling down to more detailed books from their "Order of Battle" and "Campaigns" series. From there, I would check the cites and purchase the individual books that they cite to for their authority.

Osprey books are beautiful, well illustrated books but they have a couple of drawbacks. Firstly the are very expensive and second they can be patchy on how well they cover some subjects.

The reason they are expensive is they have limited print runs. How many people are going to buy a book on Jagdgeschwader 51. A high price in this case is understandable. However, even there campaign histories are expensive, at £15 or $30 for 100 pages and these books have a wider audience.

How well their books cover each subject varies from book to book. Generally they do OK but as they are so short so,me titles inevitably miss out some relatively important stuff. I would say if you want to get some Osprey books just choose the ones for battles you are really interested in, else it will get expansive very quickly.

As a general source for reading on the ETO other better books are avaliable. Try the classics such as Beevor's Crete and Stalingrad, Ryan's 'A Bridge to Far', Alan Clarke's 'Barbarossa', etc. They give good overviews of there various subjects as well as being great reads.