Intro...

Five ships spread across two sub-classes. One sunk in battle, one worn out at the end of the war, one operational, one in Soviet hands, and one not finished. These are the ships of the Admiral Hipper class.

The ships were built to counter the French Algérie class and Italian Zara Class cruisers. They were plagued by mechanical problems shortages of materials during the war.

The Book...

The book marks the second on the War Camera series for Kagero. The hard cover book is written by Miroslaw Skwiot. It is 120 pages long includes 145 black and white images in varying stages of quality. The book is written in both Polish and English text.

Another useful bit of information is the ISBN number, 978-83-61220-67-1. Oh yeah it costs around $45.00 depending where you find it.

Whats Inside...

The book begins with a run down of the Hipper Class cruisers. Some people want to split the class into two different classes. These are the Hipper class and the Prinz Eugen Class. In reality all of the ships are slightly different, but they are all Hipper class.

Each following chapter is dedicated to each ship, Hipper, Blucher, Eugen, Seydlitz, and finally Lutzow.

Each chapter begins with the ship launching and follows each through its careers during the war.

The pictures included are typical for the period. Some are very nice and clear, others have been edited by wartime censors, and others are not so good. There are some good close-up views of the ships and there are good overall images of them as well.

A couple of the nicer images are those of Hipper sinking HMS Growworm and of Prinz Eugen with her stern repairs after having it shot off by a British submarine.

The demise of the ships is pretty much ignored. There is no picture of the monument the German's erected to Blucher where she sank. There is nothing about Prinz Eugen being used for a target ship. There is a picture of Hipper covered with U-boat sections.

There are copies of prints showing Seydlitz as a carrier, so anyone who wishes to build her as such will have a reference.

On the down side there are no color plates showing the ships in different camouflage patters used during the war.

There are also some nice images of the ships taking part in different operations during the war. It also offers a couple glimpses of other German capital ships as well.

Impressions...

Over all I like the book. This class is one of my favorites so, yes I am slanted.

If you are looking for a decent reference book, I still think will fit the bill. It is not a prefect reference. Naval enthusiasts will want to add one to their library.