Kongo Class Battlecruisers (ShipCraft Book 9)

This is a good book! The only thing that keeps it from being a great book is I had to pay for it.

I'm a modeler in dire need of references for the Kongo-class of battlecruisers. Honestly I expected more from Steve Wiper, who himself has authored the must-have book on the same class, as part of the Warship Pictorial series (no 13).I was expecting a clear explanation of the main modifications to each ship in this class, listing the armament, placement of such, changes to the upper deck structures as well as photos documenting the differences -something a book for modelers should provide, right? While it is a good attempt at that and I do recognize that information must be hard to come by but why not invest in a good translator service to gleam more precise information from the myriad of japanese publications on the subject? Wiper's book includes excellent, ultra-sharp photos of the class' early configuration although pictures of close-up details are very few, but from the wartime period the photos presented tend to be blurry, and essentially just zooms of existing overall-view photos.The model gallery section, other than the one by one truly gifted Japanese modeler are uninspiring and lacking in detail. Why not, either show more photos of that superb model or show more actual photographs of the real thing.The plans presented, while helpful are not what you would expect from a book in this price range (however modest that may seem to some). I get more valuable plans from a typical Profile Morskie volume than from this book. There is no discussion or diagram of the late war cammo schemes of the surviving members of this class.On the positive -sorry if I sound mostly negative, the quality of the pictures is very good, the narrative of the development is also of Steve's high standard. It makes for very interesting reading and is overall, I think, one of the better volumes in the Shifcraft series.Get it if you need Kongo references, however if you don't mind the japanese text try to find the book on the Kongo from Gakken Publishing, or the Kagero book in the 3D series, which contains english text and provides very detailed computer graphics in 3D.

I think that purchasing this book underlines the importance of reading reviews first.Having purchased, and enjoyed reading, the volume on British battlecruisers in the same series, I bought to learn more about the Kongo, so often cited as such an influential design. Thus my interest is in the earlier period and initial configurations which this book rather dismisses to concentrate on later rebuilds and WW2 service.I would accept the comments of the previous posted review, and add that these comments are even more relevant to the Kongo I am interested in !Nevertheless, I have learned my lesson and decided against investing in the volume on the Queen Elizabeth class.

ok

Very good