Super Drawings In 3D
Russian Protected Cruiser
Varyag

by Stefan Draminski

Kagero Publishing

Reviewed by Glen Porter

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The Varyag was a Russian Protectered Cruiser ordered in 1898, launched in 1900 and commissioned in January 1901, built in the US by William Cramp & Sons of Philadelphia with a full load displacement of 7,100 t and a maximun speed of 24.6 knots. The other two ships of the class, Askold and Bogatyr, were built in Germany. She had a reasonable amount of armour, decks (38.1mm), sloping armour (76.2mm) and conning tower (152.4mm) with 12 X 6 inch guns and 12 X 3 inch guns and by British WWII standards would have been considered a Heavy Cruiser. She was design for trade protection and commerse raiding duties.

Arriving at Port Arthur in Febuary 1902, Varyag was in Chemulpo Bay (Incheon Korea) in mid December 1902 when the Japanese attacked, beginning the Japanese Russian Conflict. Being out-gunned by the many Japanese Protectered and Armoured Cruisers facing her, she was hit many times and aventually was scuttled.

The book begins with 12 pages of text plus art-work of the full ship from various angles. The text covers Genesis, The Naming of the Ship, Construction and Commission, Hull Structure, Armament, Machinery, Additional Equipment, Beginning of the Service, Battle of Chemulpo Bay and finally, Further Fate of the Ship. The art-work has got to be seen to be believed. There are seven pictures in all, in the early white upper hull and superstructure with green lower hull and no boot topping, buff lower funnels and black upper. Port & Starboard, High & low angle, bow & stern and big enough to see all of the detail.

The next 37 pages are taken up with close-up shots of all parts of the ship from all angles and all but the last two pages are in the White and Green scheme with those last two in mid to dark grey upper hull, superstructure and funnels with red below the water-line. Again the detail has got to be seen, with shadow represented but not enough to mask detail within it and even a small amount of weathering.

Conclusion

This is a very handy title for anyone building a model of this ship and on the last page is mention of some of the other titles. North Carolina (Out of stock), Aoba, Kongo, HMS Repulse and Scharnhorst with Takao and U-Boot type VIIC coming soon. The only one I've actually seen, other than this one, is the one on Scharnhorst and it looked equally as good as this.

Thanks to Casemate UK for the samples.