The Author

David Doyle’s earliest published works appeared in periodicals aimed at the hobby of historic military vehicle restoration. By 1999 this included regular features in leading hobby publications, appearing regularly in US, English and Polish magazines. Since 2003, over 100 of his books have been published. Broadening his horizons from his initial efforts concerning vehicles, he soon added aircraft and warships to his research objectives.

Contents

The book is divided into four chapters all covering the beginning construction to the final day of the Hornet. I’ve included a brief description of what is contained in each chapter.

OKB Grigorov has provided very nice and unusual submarine in this German Type 201. This was the first post war German submarine. They only built three type 201’s U-1, U-2 and U-3 and they first entered service in 1961. The had issues with the Amagnitic steel material which lead to cracks in the structure, so all were scrapped.

Included is:

• Two Photo Etch Sheets
• One resin submarine
• Two small resin parts

The detail quality is great; The parts are very delicate parts that need careful removal from the resin bases.

There was no instruction sheet in the box I received to review, this was not a problem as it was a simple build although there was not much reference materials online due to this being a very short lived program.

The ssembly is quick and easy.

I would like to have seen some small decals.

The final part is painting.

Developed following the concept of a titanium-hulled design first seen in K-162, Project 705, or the Lira class, was a small, streamlined double hull design which was built to operate at depths in excess of 2200 feet, and allegedly deeper than 3600 feet. The submarines of this class (seven in all) were 265 feet-9inches in length, 31 feet at the beam, and had a draught of 26 feet-3inches. The liquid metal reactor and two steam turbines could propel the boat at a speed of 20 knots surfaced, or 42 knots submerged. The weapon options included a loading of up to 18 torpedoes or 21 missiles or 36 mines, and the crew compliment was a mere 31 sailors. In addition to the main screw for propulsion, two small propellers were also present for emergency operations as well as slow, quiet maneuvering.

In the final months of the Pacific War, the U.S. Navy unleashed its full fury on the Home Islands of Japan. Beginning with airstrikes to cover the amphibious landings on Iwo Jima in February, 1945 until the day of the Japanese surrender on August 15, aircraft and naval vessels of the American navy (soon joined by the British Pacific Fleet) ranged up and down the length of the Japanese Islands attacking industrial targets, sweeping aside Japanese air power and, with particular relish, devastating the last remnants of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Thanks to Casemate Publishing & IPMSUSA for the review copy!

Kagero Publishing continues to illustrate obscure ships in exacting CG 3D detail with their characteristic dark blue background. This time the first German Imperial Navy battleships – the Brandenberg class – is the subject. This book is a softbound European A4 size (8 ¼ by 1111/16 inches) with only English language (instead of English and Polish) –probably because the author was Greek. Tassos Katsikas is a 3D Content Designer, Image Editor for Radnet and graduated from the Anotati Scholi Kalon Technon, a higher education institution in Athens, Greece.