British and Commonwealth Warship Camouflage of WWII Volume 2 Battleships and Aircraft Carriers
By Malcolm Wright
Published by Seaforth Publishing 2015
ISBN 978 1 84832 253 0
Copyright © Malcolm Wright 2015
MRSP - $36.70 US / £ 24.00
One of the most recent releases from our friends at
Pen and Sword Books is Malcolm Wright's book titled
British and Commonwealth Warship Camouflage of WWII Volume 2 Battleships and Aircraft Carriers. Malcolm Wright, and accomplished artist and author, presents us with a second part in a short series on warship camouflage; his first being
Volume 1,
British and Commonwealth Warship Camouflage of WWII Destroyers, Frigates, Sloops, Escorts, Minesweepers, Submarines, Coastal Forces and Auxiliaries. This time the author gives us a hardcover, 191 page detailed look at the various color schemes used by the British on their capital ships during WWII.
Contents
Introduction
Reference Sources
Paint Types & Schemes
Symbols
WWI Era Battleships and Battlecruisers
Modern Battleships
Monitors
Aircraft Carriers
Escort Carriers
Index
Malcolm Wright has brought together several years of research on the subject of naval camouflage together and continues his series presenting these color schemes, more or less, to the modelling community. The author mentions the fact there will always be debate on what colors where used when and the quandaries of tonal variations of the color themselves, he has made every effort to compile an amazing collection of the schemes used by the British and Commonwealth naval forces during the Second World War. The vast majority of information compiled is to the credit of several veterans he had befriended over many years and to which had contributed, in no small part, to help create an accurate representation of what these ships looked like under these camouflage schemes. The first few sections of the book give a brief description of Paint Types and Schemes, a color table showing all of the colors used, a one-page overview of Aircraft Symbols showing colors and marking of the various naval aircraft and a one-page guide to symbols covering weapons and electronics features seen on these ships.
As part of what is listed above under
Contents, there are four chapters to this book;
WWI Era Battleships and Battlecruisers, Modern Battleships, Monitors, Aircraft Carriers and Escort Carriers. Each of these chapters begin with painted reliefs created by the author. The chapter names themselves are self-explanatory, making the look for color schemes of these particular types of as easy as turning to the appropriate chapter or by turning to the index to locate a specific ship and the page it resides on. Each profile plate of these ships, is supported with a brief description pointing out key features covered under the camouflage design. All of the reliefs are printed in full color as well as showing the color scheme profile of any aircraft that were deployed on these ships. Within the supported text of each of these schemes, the author mentions what type of camouflage measures were used which then can be cross referenced through the descriptions defined at the beginning of the book. From there, the color reference chart can be used to obtain the basic colors used in the scheme.
Conclusion
Malcolm Wright has made an exhaustive effort to accurately represent all color schemes shown in this book. Through his in-depth research from archival records as well as from speaking with the men who served on these ships the representation of camouflage schemes shown is as close as it gets to date. This book is certainly geared to the model shipwright, however, any British Naval history enthusiast will more than benefit from the information contained within. There are seventy-six ships covered in this book which constitutes the bulk of the capitol ships afloat for the British and Commonwealth. In many cases, the author has listed alternatives to the camouflage schemes covering different time periods of the ship's service. There are some missing carriers excluded from the book, however, unless you were looking specifically for these, you should have everything one might need for referencing WWII British and Commonwealth naval subjects in modelling.
I
Highly Recommend Malcolm Wrights
British and Commonwealth Warship Camouflage of WWII Volume 2 Battleships and Aircraft Carriers to anyone looking for specific camouflage schemes for their model building purposes as this is a valuable resource for any modelers library!!
Model Shipwrights would like to thank Pen and Sword Books for providing this review copy of British and Commonwealth Warship Camouflage of WWII Volume 2 Battleships and Aircraft Carriers.
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