Military Model Scene

Title:  British Warship Recognition, Vol 4...

Author: Richard Perkins

Publisher:  Seaforth Publishing

ISBN:  978-1-4738-9149-4

...The Perkins Identification Albums: IV. Cruisers 1865-1939

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Another large new hardback book from Seaforth Publishing, the fourth part of a joint project between Seaforth Publishing and the National Maritime Museum.  This is the fourth of 8 volumes of these and is a set of high quality images that capture the original pages of a series of profiles and sketches, along with the hand written notes done over many years by Richard Perkins, who donated his collection to the National Maritime Museum, along with many original photographs, before his death in 1985.

This is the second volume to tackle the topic of Cruisers.  It covers sections on Light Cruisers (9 classes), Scout Cruisers (7 classes), Protected Cruisers (16 classes), Despatch Vessels (1 class) and Corvettes and Iron Frigates (16 classes).  The sheer number of classes and the individual vessels within each one is a fascinating view of the Royal Navy in a period when it was the most powerful Navy in the world.

The pages are high quality reproductions of the original pages of the Perkins albums and the highly information it contains is amazing.  Not just a single profile of individual ships, but many have extra notes and a series of pictures illustrating detail such as the mast arrangements, shape of the bridge etc as they varied between ships in the class and as they were changed during their service life.  Even the neatly written text notes show changes as the author added or updated notes over time.  What you have is very much a 'bible' of help to identify not only individual ships in archive photos, but also to indicate what year it shows the vessel.  Individually the book is a delight to see by itself and as the growing set a magnificent reference.

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Robin