SHIPCRAFT No 1 GERMAN POCKET BATTLESHIPS

The "Shipcraft" series provides in-depth information about building and modifying model kits of famous warship types. Lavishly illustrated, each book takes the modeller through a brief history of the subject class, using scale plans to highlight differences between sister ships 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 colour 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. For the first volume in this series, the author has chosen the German "pocket battleships" of World War II, the best-known of which was the "Admiral Graf Spee" of Battle of the River Plate" fame. This innovative and infamous class of surface raiders has long been a popular subject for ship modellers, many manufacturers producing kits of the "Admiral Graf Spee" and the rather different "Admiral Scheer" and "Lutzow".