Warship Pictorial No. 19 - Kriegsmarine Bismarck

This little booklet was a nice collection of rare photos! There were a few photos of the Bismarck that were a complete surprise and clear in detail!! These were over 70 years old!! A Great piece of History!! I wish there more!!

The shipboard photos do not cover the armament to any degree. Most are of boats, cranes and superstructure. The drawings are only average. More combat shots taken by Lt Schmalenbach would have been a great addition. My only recommendation for this book would be for a ship modeller producing a model in larger scale. The Warship in Profile Book published 30 years ago (which I thought this book was) is superior.

For a book that only contains 72 pages, this has got to be one of the best value references of any out there. This one stands out in the series as one of the best, if not the best. Steve Wiper outdid himself on this one. There are only so many photographs you can include without having to reduce them in size and by doing so taking away their usefulness.Superb, super-sharp photographs, of far better quality than the other hard-bound books on the Bismarck. I own about 10 books on the Bismarck/Tirpitz, none beat this one, in content or value. Most of the photographs show up-close detail, some of them I have never seen before. They show just about every aspect of the ship, from the most foreward position, all the way down to the propellers.Wiper is almost 100% spot on on the captioning, as well he should be, Bismarck being one of the best known topics.To round up the book, you get some very helpful graphics (3-D) of the ship by Tomas Schmid -the same artist who illustrated the excellent pictorial of the HMS Hood by Taylor.Buy this book, you won't be dissapointed. It may stack low on historical perspective but that is not the aim of this book. As a modeler's reference, this is pure gold.