Casemate Publishers presents ShipCraft 27, British Sloops and Frigates of WW2 by Les Brown from Seaforth Publishing. This long-awaited book is a ship modeler’s dream come true as a reference work on the large numbers obscure but important Royal Navy antisubmarine warships that helped turn the tide in the Battle of the Atlantic. This easy-to-digest book details each of the 17 classes of sloops and frigates used by the Royal Navy in WW2. These mostly forgotten, smaller warships focused on convoy escort duties and helped revolutionize antisubmarine warfare tactics. This book lists class history, available model kits, model accessories, many photographs, camouflage examples, line drawings and color plates of finished models – a superb reference for these plentiful ships with many possibilities for modelers.

Historical Background

The MMP/Casemate Single series of publications has developed into a very useful tool for modelers to add authentic details to their models. The books usually take one type of aircraft, and in this case, one particular airplane, and provides extensive detail, including accurate view drawings in two scales, photos of the actual aircraft in service, copies of maintenance manual pages showing specific details of components, photos of details of surviving examples, and colorful four view general arrangement drawings.

The Kit

This one took me by surprise as it was listed as three British trucks. Since it was in 1/35, I assumed that meant it was a kit of a British truck with three configurations to choose from. Imagine my surprise when a rather larger box containing three complete 1/35 British truck kits arrived! They are a 6X6 W.O.T. 8, a W.O.T. 6 and a Leyland Retriever. The parts count is, respectively, 267, 235 and 257. All have GS type bodies, two with the exposed frames for a canvas top and one with the actual top and all have very detailed chassis and engines. The parts are very nicely molded with no flash nor sink or injection pin marks, but there are the usual mold seams to deal with.