Customer Reviews

The Battleship Yamato (Anatomy of the Ship)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Yamato class battleships of the IJN were the largest battleships ever built, and this book examines the Yamato piece by piece. The book was copyrighted in 1988. The author, Janusz Skulski, has obviously put years of detailed research into this book. This is not a story. The different sections of the book (A-L) focus on the different aspects of the ship. For example, section C is "superstructure." The use of the term "scale" shows readers how big components of the ships were. For example, the barbette for the 18" guns is 4" in diameter in the book with a 1/150 scale. A side profile of the ship fills two 9" square pages and the scale marker says 1/600 scale. There are only a few pages of text at the beginning, and a good photo section. The text is entirely factual and deals with the ship rather than the human side of IJN battleship operations. The ship is "taken apart" in a most thorough level of detail. It is just like you have gone back in time and place and are reviewing the construction blueprints for approval! Unfortunately, the author could not obtain much machinery information, but that wasn't his fault. There was no research information available about machinery, but the other areas (general arrangement, superstructure, armament, fittings, rig, aircraft, ship's boats, and condition of the wreck) made up for this. I give the author and the book 5 stars because the level of detail is extremely high. Interlibrary loan is your best bet to read this book, as the title is out of print. This is a must have book for all serious battleship fans.

If you are interested in the Yamato from a historical, engineering or modeling perspective this book is a MUST for your reference materials. While only having a limited number of photos (Very few exist), the bulk of the information here is in line drawings and specifications. A top notch job of reconstructing the engineering of this mighty ship. The author has assembled about as much information as could be expected given the lack of material available.

The Anatomy series will be very familiar with naval history enthusiasts. What makes this special is that all drawings and pictures of these huge ships were ordered destroyed just before the Japanese surrender. Thus the pictorial section is understandably a little briefer than usual, while the drawings section contains many that were painstakingly reverse engineered from the study of photos.

In summary, a notch below the Anatomy of the Dreadnought, but a super effort given the lack of source materials.

Yes, this is back in print. The largest of the Anatomy of the ship series, the detail is mindboggling. The immense vessel truely depicts the stupidity of war, that large brute force will win the day.

The scale of this ship, and the detail in this book is nothing but intimidating. This is almost twice the size of the great US battleships, and to even contemplate building a model, do not even waste your money unless you had this works, and even then, when you see the amount of diagrams in this book, it will either put you off as you may not think you can do it justice, or you will spend at least a year trying to get it close to detail.

Unlike most books on warships, which tend to focus on areas such as it's service history and technical specifications, which this book does cover, here is a fantastic collection of line drawings. I have several books featuring comprehensive line drawings of aircraft, but I had never seen such a book dedicated to a ship before. The author, a Polish modelmaker by the name of Janusz Skulski, has produced a book of such depth it will astound you. The 3-view plans are accompanied by great descriptive keys, and range from the entire hull and superstructure, liteally right down to individual nuts and bolts. The technical specifications are detailed and the photos, while necessarily brief because hardly any were ever taken of the Yamato, are very imformative. I can not stress enough how impressed I was with the level of detail, it was like looking at the original blueprints!

A top read!

This is the best book that I have found on the Battleship Yamato. A must for anyone building a model of the ship.

I rate this book as 5 stars because it delivers exactly what it promises: (a) a full history from inception to sinking, (b) a good selection of photos on a ship where most photos have been lost and (c) an excellent collection of reverse engineered drawings that go into virtually every surface level detail that you could ask for and includes full color 1/600 scale views (side and top) as well as painting details.

This is an excellent work for anyone interested in this historic ship and a particularly good reference for the modeling community.

Almost 5 stars because there is some information that is missing. But that's ok, giving the mystery surrounding this battleship and lack of formal literature from the Japanese imperial Navy. A must have for those putting the Yamato kit together, but don't expect a step by step set of instructions. It's more like a collection of data to support the task of building the kit and avoid common mistakes.

If you are interested in every technical aspect of the Japanese Yamato, then this is the book for you. The narrative gives you just enough background to understand the history of the ship but is mostly focused on specifications or other technical details of the ship. There are plently of excellent B&W photos showing the ship under contstruction, at sea. Line drawings, 3-D cutaways provide insight to this enormous, infamous ship.

The author provides facts regarding how the ship was constructed, obstacles that had to be overcome. Line drawings of the hull, superstructure, guns, turrets, interiror, fire control systems, even the boats and planes on board. As if that weren't enough, there are diagrams of what the ship wreck looks like underwater.

The Yamato may not have seen a lot of action, you can argue Japan did not use its limited resources wisely, but you cannot deny the fascination of this ship, nor the thorough and enjoyable reading of this book. Recommended for all naval buffs, historians and modelers.

For those interested in warships in general, this is a fascinating pictorial of one of the premier capital ships of WWII. For scholars of YAMATO, and particularly those who want to model her, it is simply imperative that you own it. In fact, it is impossible to build a highly detailed model of this ship without this book - don't try to without it.