ModelArt magazine is a Japanese publication that covers all genres of plastic models. Besides its regular journal articles, it also has special books covering a single subject, in this case IJN Battleships between 1913 and 1945.

Be aware that the full book is in Japanese. There are some very limited English captions, however they are very useful as they list the type of weapon, ship name, timeframe, etc.

This book is divided in 3 main sections.

The first section deals with the weapons of the different battleships, from the heavy cannons in twin and triple turrets, to smaller guns and finally anti-aircraft weapons. Each weapon includes some line drawing(s), period pictures and also an assembled plastic replica, typically in 1/700 scale.

The second section includes photographic, step-by-step builds of the Nagato (in the 1927 and 1944 configurations), the Yamato, the Hyuga, the carrier ship Ise, the Kongo and the Fuso, all of them in 1/700 scale.

Developed in the years following World War 2 to fulfill Naval Aviation’s “Heavy Attack” capability, the Douglas Aircraft design team under the legendary Ed Heinemann created the jet powered, swept winged A-3 (originally designated A3D-1) Skywarrior to carry nuclear destruction to the Soviet Union from the decks of the Navy’s new Midway class carriers. Replacing the little loved North American AJ Savage, what started out as a single purpose “heavy” bomber soon became one of the Navy’s most “multi-purpose” aircraft in its inventory. When its nuclear delivery mission was taken over by the A-5 Vigilante, the A-3 found itself with a new mission list that eventually included, “iron” bombing, aerial refueling, photo reconnaissance, electronic jamming and counter-measurers, electronic surveillance, high speed COD and VIP transport, and navigation training.

Thanks to Plus Model for sending this excellent and very unique diorama accessory from the Easy Line product series for review and thank you IPMS Reviewer Corps for letting me review it! I am very appreciative of the chance to contribute back to the scale-modeling community. I had a great time building a very well done “micro” kit that was nothing short of pure fun.