Thanks to Casemate Publishing & IPMSUSA for the review copy!

Waldemar Tubus Goralski is a prolific author of illustrated warship books for Kagero Publishing, and has previously authored Super Drawings in 3D book on Kirishima’s sister ships Kongo (in 2015) and Haruna (in 2013, previously reviewed in IPMSUSA). He is still working on the Hiei, the final sister ship in the foursome of battlecruisers-turned-fast battleships. Each book shows improvements and advancements in the quality and clarity of the CG-generated drawings. He also makes exhibitions of his illustrations in Poland where visitors can virtually walk on ships. Waldemar has cooperated with the late Piotr Forkasiewicz for ocean and battle settings, and dedicates this book to Piotr. Wojciech Lizakowski collaborates by running the website warship3d.pl. Waldemar is lucky to turn his passion into a career, igniting passions of many modelers around the world.

Kagero Publishing, from Poland, is one of the major military history publishing houses. Since 1998, when Kagero started publishing in English, over 550 titles have been produced. Topics focus on individual planes, armor and ships, along with a bevy of focused topics, such as a class of warships or an armor type. Kagero caters to ship modelers by turning out books filled with line and 3D computer-generated illustrations, with incomparable accuracy to details. For warships, Kagero has two series: 1) Super Drawings in 3D and 2) Top Drawings, focusing on a single ship per book. The topic of this book review is one of the Super Drawings in 3D series, which are designed for modelers to have a reference for detailed appearances of individual ships at a particular fit (moment in time). Super Drawings consist of color covers with full-color, 3D computer graphic images of the ship, particular features, and equipment, especially armament. As usual, a large-scale (1/350), line drawing B&W foldout shows starboard, port and overhead full-length views, and the other side has nine different close-up line drawings of various portions of the ship.

The latest offering from Kagero Super 3D is the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) battleship Kirishima in 1940 fit. The book is a softbound European A4 size (210 X 296 mm or about 8 ¼ by 11 5/8 inches) in English. There is a short history of the very busy Kirishima, which ends with her famous sinking by the USS Washington in one of the few battleship-battleship gun duels in November 1942 off Guadalcanal.

This book has page after page of beautiful, full-color illustrations in impeccable detail of the entire exterior of the Kirishima. The only things missing are the crew and smell of salt water. The colors are as accurate as possible, although deck wood colors are always open to conjecture. I wish my wood floors at home looked as good as the Kirishima’s!

Models of the Kirishima , especially in 1/700 and 1/350 scale, abound. This book allows accurization to the nth degree for any scale of model. Even better is the visual pleasure of almost being there yourself, walking the decks and bridge levels.

Summary

This book is intensely focused on modeler’s needs for building this ship in any scale. As usual, the B&W drawings and full-color illustrations are clean, simple and appear accurate – one would need authentic blueprints to be this accurate, which Waldemar has in his possession. This book is a necessity for building models of the Kirishima, and would be helpful for building her sister ships (although all but Hiei have Super Drawings in 3D books themselves). Very highly recommended for IJN WW2 warship buffs, battleship buffs, and anyone building the Kirishima.

Images

• Figure 1: Front cover of The Japanese Battleship Kirishima 1940 Super Drawings in 3D from Kagero.
• Figure 2: Back cover of The Japanese Battleship Kirishima 1940 Super Drawings in 3D from Kagero.
• Figure 3: Title page with a frontal aerial view of the Kirishima.
• Figure 4: Close-up of the aircraft deck.
• Figure 5: Close-up of the rear of a twin 127mm AA gun mount.
• Figure 6: Close-up of the Admiral’s motor pinnace and a 12m motor launch.
• Figure 7: Close-up of the rear of the pagoda-style bridge showing signal flags hoisted.