British Destroyers: J-C and Battle Classes

Book excerpt: “A terrific author . . . invaluable to the modeler wishing to reproduce these classes of destroyers, and also to those interested in naval history.”—IPMS Magazine The ShipCraft series provides in-depth information about building and modifying model kits of famous warship types. Lavishly illustrated, each book takes the modeler through a brief history of the subject class, highlighting differences between sisterships and changes in their appearance over their careers. This includes paint schemes and camouflage, featuring color profiles and highly detailed line drawings and scale plans. The modeling section reviews the strengths and weaknesses of available kits, lists commercial accessory sets for super-detailing of the ships, and provides hints on modifying and improving the basic kit. This is followed by an extensive photographic survey of selected high-quality models in a variety of scales, and the book concludes with a section on research references—books, monographs, large-scale plans and relevant websites. A follow-up to ShipCraft 11 on inter-war destroyers, this new volume deals with the later classes which were the most modern British destroyers of the Second World War. Marked by a common single-funneled silhouette, they were actually very varied, ranging from the large and powerful J to N flotillas, via the austere “War Emergency” classes that were built in large numbers, to the radically different “Battle” class, designed with a powerful AA armament for service in the Pacific. “This book will be of interest to those who want an easy reference book that covers the British and Australian destroyers of this period, especially with regard to camouflage and overall appearance in service.”—Australian Naval Institute