This is part of a series of books by Kagero on warships and I have a few of these and are truly indispensable when building a model of the subject matter.

This book goings into great detail via illustrations of the Royal navy light Aircraft Carrier HMS Invincible –entering service in 1977. It served in the Falkland war in 1972. After the Falklands war it was to be sold to the Australian Navy but that was cancelled and remained in Royal Navy service until 2005. Before this HMS Invincible also served in the Gulf War in 1991 and 1993

The book is lavishly illustrated and shows every aspect of the ship in great detail. The book also comes with two large scale fold out poster size ship outline drawings in 1/400 scale

The illustrations give so much details as one could wish for as a modeler or history buff.

I cannot recommend this book enough. Thank you to IPMS/USA and Kagero for allowing me to review this great book.

Originally published in 2007, the revised edition was recently issued in 2026. The book's content is well sequenced, beginning with the battlecruiser's design history, the careers of the 3 famous battlecruisers HMS Renown, HMS Repulse and HMS Hood, a comprehensive review of all the well known scale models of these famous ships produced to date, a well photographed model showcase in various scales, five WW2 camouflage schemes for the 3 ships, a summary of modifications and refits for each ship documented by photos, line drawings and a selected reference.

Thanks to War Dog Modeling (WDM) for the Ship Stand to review, and the IPMS staff for their courageous work! WDM stands are available on their website, also reachable via Facebook.

There are 4 stands available:

1. Model Airplane Stand ($35.00)
2. Model Armor Stand ($38.00)
3. Model Car Stand ($30.00)
4. Model Ship Stand ($35.00)

I have never used jigs or stands for building 1/700 scale ships models, but after one look at War Dog Model Ship Stand, I had a Where-Have-You-Been-All-My-Life moment. I'm not letting this one go anywhere! Here's why...

The stand arrived in a small box with all the parts mixed together. No instructions, which is not a problem. The contents make one stand with a light gray color. Looking at the finished stands on War Dog' online page made assembly easy.

For a hobbyist like me, there’s nothing more exciting than opening the box from a new manufacturer. The anticipation of learning what they did differently, how the plastic cuts, what level of detail did they achieve and myriad others questions we all banter back and forth are answered when you open the box. The new Beacon Hobby multimedia ship kit of the Jack H. Lucas and their associated upgrade kit is the subject of these very questions. This appears to be Beacon Hobby’s first ship kit as far as I could see. They came out swinging with this release by not only launching the Arleigh Burke flight III ship, but an upgrade kit designed and produced by the manufacturer. This was really exciting for me because I expected everything to fit and be designed to mate up exactly. I can tell you that they did not disappoint me! All the detail is done crisp and clean and, with the upgrade kit, it adds an element of scale to a lot of the fine detailed parts that they opted to include.

Helion is a UK-based company that produces books on many aspects of Military History from the Late Medieval period through the present day. Helion was established in 1996 by University of Warwick graduate Duncan Rogers. Since then, they have published over 1,200 books, with 100 or more new titles coming out every year for readers around the world.

Dmitry Zubkov from Russia, a banker with 25 years of experience, has a lifelong interest in the subject of military history and has written several books and articles in Russian on a variety of related subjects. His area of interest is the little-studied issue of Soviet arms exports during the Cold War, especially warships. His studies of little-known details of the warships’ careers, the warships’ influence on the buildup of the recipient navies, and the experiences of their crews.