This new Pen & Sword book from Casemate Publishing is about all of the British submarine losses from 1904 – 1971. Starting from the A1 (1904) to the Artemis (1971). Having been a submarine sailor myself for 14 years, I’m always looking for new and informative books on the subject. When I saw that there was a new Casemate book coming out I knew that I had to have it because I have very little on the British side and because of the high quality of Casemates books. Their books are very well bound and have high quality glossy pictures.

The book is divided up into 5 parts and 2 appendices. They are:

Growing up near the beach, I saw plenty of double and triple-hull sailboats. I always thought that they were so cool and fast. So then I saw photos of the triple hull USS Independence, I knew I had to have a model of this ship. It looks so cool and fast, rumors are speed capability of 50+ knots.

The kit is modeled in typical Trumpeter gray and clear and consists of seven sprues (two clear), an upper hull, lower hull and three photo-etched frets. Also included with the kit are typical twelve page Trumpeter instruction booklet, a decal sheet, and a five-view color painting and marking guide.

Looking at each of the sprues, I found that the detail was crisp with no flash. However, I did find some ejector pin markings that need to be addressed, specifically in the hanger bulkheads. If you plan to keep the hanger door closed, as I plan to, you won’t have to deal with these.

I missed out on this book when it was originally published as a hardback a few years ago. Fortunately it has been re-issued as a softbound book. The book is the definitive volume on this submarine. It was the largest submarine to serve in WWII at over 400 feet long with a crew of almost 200 and weighing over 5200 tons.

The first chapter gives us an overview of the Japanese submarine service in WWII. Chapter two covers the specifics of the I-400 class, with chapter three giving us the details and specifications on the aircraft the sub was designed to carry, the Aichi M6A “Seiran” attack-bomber. This chapter includes detailed drawings and pilot memories.

Bottom Line: Excellent 3-D anchors and flattest chrysanthemum bow crests for wide range of Imperial Japanese Navy warships.

Fine Molds Nano Dread 700 Series has been producing a line of very finely detailed and realistically close-to-scale aftermarket equipment sets for 1/350 and 1/700 scale World War 2 Imperial Japanese Navy warships. These sets use advanced molding techniques to produce very small parts with exceptional detail. Historical accuracy and attention to detail makes Fine Molds Nano Dread sets ideal for upgrading WW2 ships. They have an advantage over photoetch metal sets by being three-dimensional, easier to handle, no folding or assembly required (mostly), rigid, stronger and just plain better-looking.

During World War II, one of the most publicized branches of the German armed forces was the U-Boat Command. At the beginning of the war, the submarine service was unprepared for the conflict to come, and as the war began, a rapid expansion took place, with U-boat construction and crew training assuming a rapid pace. The Germans never had enough U-boats, and as the war progressed, the Allies were able to develop countermeasures, such as long range aircraft, convoy escorts, and the decoding of German Enigma traffic, which slowed down and eventually overcame the effectiveness of the U-boats against Allied shipping. Although over 1,100 U-boats were built, over 800 were unsuccessful or never saw action, but nevertheless, only 30 U-boat commanders accounted for about 800 of the total of about 3,000 merchant and naval vessels sunk by U-boats during the course of the war. And tragically, of the 38,000 men that went to sea in U-boats, only 8000 survived the war.