Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #98305 in Books
• Published on: 2004-02-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 64 pages

Synopsis
The 'ShipCraft' series provides in-depth information about building and modifying model kits of famous warship types. Lavishly illustrated, each book takes the modeller through a brief history of the subject class, using scale plans to highlight differences between sisterships and changes in their appearance over their careers, then moves to an extensive photographic survey of either a high-quality model or a surviving example of the ship. Hints on building the model, and on modifying and improving the basic kit, are followed by a section on paint schemes and camouflage, featuring numerous colour profiles and highly-detailed line drawings. The strengths and weaknesses of available kits of the ships are reviewed, and the book concludes with a section on research references - books, monographs, large-scale plans and relevant websites. For the first volume in this series, the author has chosen the German 'pocket battleships' of WW2, the best-known of which was the Graf Spee of Battle of the River Plate fame.

This innovative and infamous class of surface raiders has long been a popular subject for ship modellers, many manufacturers producing kits of the Graf Spee and the rather different Admiral Scheer and L tzow.

Customer Reviews

A satisfactory introduction
The 'Shipcraft' series are intended to meet the needs of both modellers and enthusiasts, and aim to do this by combining 'real ship' and model content. From a 'real ship' perspective, this book looks at the design history, service careers, appearance and colour schemes of the ships, whilst the modelling content comprises a review of available kits, a showcase of models and a selection of drawings.

This volume benefits from a comparatively narrow focus - there were only three ships of this class, one of which (GRAF SPEE) was lost early in the war. The colour scheme illustrations are useful, and the plans are drawn to a constant scale. Examples of models range widely in quality, from the superlative to the pretty poor, though most are of high quality.

The main handicap with this book (as with others in the series) is that trying to fit both 'real ship' and model content into just 64 pages is a tall order. It might have been preferable to review the available models more concisely, and to devote less space to showcasing models, thereby freeing up more space for 'real ship' information. The product reviews are heavily biased towards plastic kits, thereby omitting larger 'semi-kit' models of the Fleetscale type, from which the more experienced modeller can build superbly-accurate reproductions with the option of radio control. For me, an over-emphasis on plastic kits is the biggest shortcoming here.

This said, this book provides a useful introduction to this interesting class of ship, and the bibiography provides useful pointers to further reading.