The 'ShipCraft' series provides in-depth information about building and modifying model kits of famous warship types. Lavishly illustrated, each book takes the modeler 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 color 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. This volume features the King George V class battleships, the most modern Royal Navy battleships of WW2 and a very popular modeling subject. The King George V herself helped sink the Bismarck, and the Prince of Wales was famously sunk by Japanese aircraft in the Far East. Ships of this class served throughout the war in many theatres, and their changes of armament and color scheme during this time offer many opportunities to the ship modeler to modify basic kits to show ships at different periods in their lives.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Sinking into the Digital Imaging Abyss,
By
This review is from: Shipcraft 2 - King George V Class Battleships (Paperback)
Roger Chesneau is an author of no small repute. An expert on military equipment, both naval and aeronautical, his works include the now-classic "Aircraft Carriers of the World" (1984) as well as numerous AEROGUIDE descriptions of post-WWII aircraft. It was therefore with great anticipation that I awaited the publication of the first two offerings of his "Ship Craft" series of monographs. My opinions of Chesneau's "KGV Class Battleships" and "German Pocket Battleships" are, unfortunately, quite mixed.These 64 page, large format (A4 page size) soft-cover offerings from Chatham Publishing are designed especially for modelers. The first third of the books cover the design and history of their subjects, with the final 10-15 pages devoted to their "Appearance" during their careers, both from modifications to equipment and camouflage. Chesneau's text is lucid, lively, and concise. There are pages of color profiles (2 for the KGV battleships, 6 for the various Panzerschiff vessels), and 4 to 6 pages of 1:700 scale line drawings with details. These are very well done. A full page of References include sources for plans, Web sites, and videos, as well as the usual books. Where these "Ship Craft" books depart from other histories, and what makes them particularly attractive to modelers, are the 10 page "Model Products" and 20 page "Modelers Showcase" sections. The "Products" chapter reviews the commercial styrene (but no resin) kits available over the full range of scales, with photos of the kit boxes and unfinished kit parts, with Chesneau's considered opinions of each. Available aftermarket photoetch and resin detail parts are also reviewed. The "Modeler's Showcase" is inspiring, but also fully illustrates the near-fatal flaw in these books. In full color, various modeler's scratch- and kit-built efforts are shown at a wide range of scales. But, on closer inspection, one realizes that nearly every one of these photos is a digital imaging nightmare. Reviewing the black and white photos elsewhere in the book shows that these historic photographs have also been digitally scanned and printed, and show the same problems of "pixelation" and image interpolation. This ruins the resolution in the images. No rigging lines are visible on any b/w images. The digital images also show the annoying Moire interference patterns seen when the pixel size is too large to show repetitive small details in the object (e.g. the deck planking on any of the models, or the hull port holes in the photos on the back cover of the Pocket Battleship book). These b/w photos are the usual, widely-reproduced images, so comparing them to their previous presentations in older publications shows how poorly they have been reproduced here. This is not progress; this is shameful. I am extremely disappointed with the publisher and printer for the presentation of the photographs in these first two "Ship Craft" series books. Indeed, with Squadron/Signal Publication's "In Action" series having also slipped into this digital imaging abyss, things appear quite bleak for the book-buying modeling community. Roger Chesneau's expert text, the skill of the contributing modelers/artisans, and the accuracy of the color camouflage profiles and line drawings is very greatly diminished by the horrid photographs. Lets hope that the publishers get the message that we will not stand for such poor images in our modeling books. Let us also hope that the four further monographs planned for this "Ship Craft" series live up to the potential shown here.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good details from a very British point of view,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Shipcraft 2 - King George V Class Battleships (Paperback)
This is one of several books I have on WWII era warships and compares favorably with the other Shipcraft, Warship Pictorial and Anatomy of a Ship series books (including the quality of the photos despite the comments above - more on that below). The book is organized into essential three sections: (1) the history of the 5 ships of this class, (2) model kits available for the ships in this class, including an excellent showcase of detailed photos of world class models and (3) details on the painting schemes and plans for the ships with notes on the variations between the individual ships over their careers.The book is well written and with the exception of a decidedly British bias on the various battles described (example re the engagement between Hood and PoW at the Denmark Straits Chesneau writes "In truth, the British battleship won the engagement..." - I'm sorry, no matter how you spin it Hood sank and PoW broke off the engagement and retreated under smoke - and a good thing as Prinz Eugen was about to torpedo her! For me this is defeat even if PoW did hit the Bismarck ship with 3 shells (out of 55 rounds fired!) - other readers will have to make up their own minds. None the less, once you get over the Brit POV the careers of all 5 ships are well presented from inception to the conclusion of their service. For the modeler there are plenty of b/w photos of each of the ships with notes on the variations that distinguished the individual ships from each other. And while other reviews have issues with the quality of the photos I have to say that, with the exception of the front cover, which is woeful, the pictures are comparable to others of that era and quite adequate for the modeler to determine what the real ships looked like. The next section does an excellent job of analyzing all of the currently available model kits of the KGV class from 1/1200 through 1/350 plus a review of the aftermarket accessory kits available from several top of the line manufactures with background on the companies and the kits as well as details on the pros and cons of each kit and what the modeler can expect from each. This is followed by gallery of superb photos of some very fine models indeed - some of these are examples of the best work of this type to be found anywhere. For the modeler this shows the art of the possible when it comes to scale model ship making - of the KGV class or any other for that matter. The book concludes with a section that includes detail paint schemes for both KGV and PoW, 4 pages of detail plans and a ship by ship analysis of changes in their appearance over their careers including more b/w pictures highlighting those changes. All in all a very good book and one that I recommend to any modeler interested in the KGV class. I rate it a 4 stars (instead of 5) strictly because the British bias makes some of the historical analysis and commentary inaccurate and misleading. And while the history is interesting, as a modeler the analysis of the various kits and models available plus the excellent photos of award winning examples of finished models was the reason for getting the book in the first place. Add the inclusion of detailed plans and clearly diagramed color paint schemes, including the actual Admiralty color codes makes this an excellent addition to any modeler's reference library.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good for model review,
By
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This review is from: Shipcraft 2 - King George V Class Battleships (Paperback)
This book is better for a general knowledge of this class of ship models and photo-etch review than the ships. If you are looking for real details on the KGV classes this is not the book you want. The in depth PE reviews and models documented made it worthwhile.
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