Summary:

Kagero’s latest releases cater to the aficionados of British warships: Topdrawings 17, The Battleship HMS King George V and Super Drawings in 3D #23, The Battle Cruiser HMS Hood. Two completely different styles of reference books, but both guaranteed to get the model builder’s adrenaline flowing.

Topdrawings 17, The Battleship HMS King George V, consists of 24 pages of black and white finely detailed line drawings of several configurations of the King George V, 3 large foldout sheets of black and white drawings, colour details, and a line plan of the ship. Translation is by Piotr Kolasa, colour profiles and scale drawings are by Witold Koszela. The ISBN number is: 978-83-62878-80-2.

Super Drawings in 3D 23, The Battle Cruiser HMS Hood. is in the familiar 73 page format containing gorgeous colour renderings of the “Mighty Hood”. Also included is a huge fold out sheet of black and white detail drawings along with a general plan of the ship. Text and 3D illustrations and captions are by Stefan Draminski, the translation is by Piotr Kolasa. The ISBN number is: 978-83-62878-78-9

Contents:

As stated before, this is a very interesting set of books. One concerning a ship that came to a sudden and shocking end under the guns of the Bismarck, the other concerning a ship that, just a few days after the sinking of the Hood, took part in battering the Bismarck into submission. The books are totally different in their approach to their subjects but both are equally valuable to any one setting out to build a model of these ships.

The Topdrawings book provides a very concise service history and general characteristics summary of the warship. Drawings of the King George V at several stages of her service life can be found mapping out the results of the frequent refits. Of special interest is the removal of the space for the Walrus reconnaissance aircraft so that space could be created for more anti-aircraft artillery. Various cross section drawings and details of the superstructure, cranes, masts, boats, and armament provide a magnificent reference work for a build of this ship. Kagero have added some colour references to this latest addition to the Topdrawings series of reference books.

The Super Drawings in 3D HMS Hood is a book that a lot of modellers have been waiting for. The book contains an extensive service history and specification section giving insight into the use of the Hood before WWII to project British sea power across the Globe, and also pointing out that at her 1939 refit the all-important armoured deck improvement was not carried out. Her shockingly sudden end was caused by a hit from the Bismarck, causing a fire in the 4 inch ammunition magazine. This magazine exploded causing a sympathetic detonation of the main ammunition magazines in the stern of the ship, which effectively ripped her in two. Out of a crew of 1418 men, only three survived.
The magnificent drawings portray the mixture of classic British warship lines combined with very state of the art looking gun directors and projectile launchers. Equally unusual are the quad Vickers 0.5 inch anti-aircraft guns and the octuplet 2 pounder pom-poms with their huge and complicated ammunition bins.

The black and white fold out sheet provides a very large scale general arrangement drawing of the HMS Hood on the one side and details of the rigging, armament, and launches on the other.

Conclusion:

Once again Kagero have published two very desirable reference works that will provide the entire backup you need for a build of either one of the two vessels portrayed here. Superb drawings that have been well researched, huge fold outs in black and white and colour, and magnificent renderings that let you explore one of the more enigmatic warships of WW II.

Thank you to the gentlemen in Poland for providing these books for review.