Kagero Publishing
The Battleship USS Arizona
The Battleship HMS Dreadnought
The Japanese Destroyer Akizuki

3D Super Drawings Series

Reviewed by Rob Baumgartner

HyperScale is proudly supported by Squadron

Three more warships join Kagero’s “Super Drawings in 3D” family. All publications are in the familiar A4 format with regulation soft card covers, and an insert full of scale drawings.

The CAD drawings are the hallmark of the series. These are superbly done and concentrate on the exterior of each chosen subject. The large size of the images allows a maximum of information to be passed onto the reader.

They also carry associated captions but unfortunately many of these are quite brief due to a lack of space.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

• 

Thumbnail panels:

16018 - The Battleship USS Arizona

Of the three, this book is the largest with a total of 90 pages. An introduction describes the Arizona’s history, and specifications, as well as providing an analysis of the ship’s demise at Pearl Harbour.

The 1:350 scale plans are found on an unattached fold-out sheet of paper which also features some isometric line drawings of various superstructure parts.

The last 18 pages are where one makes use of the supplied 3D glasses. When viewing the images the results are quite impressive. But if you really want to study each item in detail, it’s easier on the eyes to revert back to the earlier “2D” renderings.

Note the colour of the turret tops which will be contentious for some aficionados. And the use of the metric system for this ship also seems inappropriate.

16021 - The Battleship HMS Dreadnought

There are 68 pages in this issue. Six of them are devoted to text which again covers the history, construction, and specifications of the warship.

This time the included set of 5-view drawings are in both 1:350 and 1:700 scales. On the reverse of this sheet, one finds additional illustrations in 1:100 and 1:50 scales. These cater for the main and secondary guns as well as the assortment of ancillary boats.

One of the highlights of this issue is the depiction of the torpedo nets. These can be seen in the extended and stored locations.

16022 - The Japanese destroyer Akizuki

At 62 pages, this is the smallest book of the group, with the first 6 pages covering the characteristics of the Akizuki class destroyers, and of course the design’s origin and operational history.

It does however have two of the foldout 680mm x 475mm sheets (a size that applies to all of the books here). The drawings are to 1:200 scale with additional views of the 100mm main artillery turret and quadruple 610mm torpedo launcher in 1:50 scale.

There are also a multitude of superstructure details in the form of isometric drawings.

 

These publications are an excellent source of detailed information. It’s full of stuff that isn’t always visible to the reader via photographs.

Where data has not been available, it’s been gleaned from informed descriptions, or extrapolated from similar designs. Cross sectional data is not included in the book so potential scratch-builders will need to find that kind of information elsewhere.

It would have been nice to have more detailed captions. One can only assume that the increase in pages would have been prohibitive.

If you have a passion for detail, then these publications could be just the thing you’re looking for.

Highly recommended.

Thanks to Casemate UK for the sample.

Review Copyright © 2014 by Rob Baumgartner
This Page Created on 10 February, 2014
Last updated 11 February, 2014

Back to HyperScale Main Page

Back to Reviews Page