Military Model Scene

Title:  Super Drawings in 3D, The Battleship HMS Rodney 1942

Author: Carlo Cestra

Publisher:  Kagero

ISBN:  978-83-66148-28-4

​

The latest in Kagero's SuperDrawings series of soft-cover books is one on HMS Rodney. A companion to HMS Nelson, it was one of the more unusual looking Royal Navy battleships, for having the three turrets, each mounting 3x 16in guns. It was an unusual arrangement, rather than having main turrets both fore and aft. The first few pages give us the history of the vessel, the pros and cons of her design, along with her busy and interesting service history. Pre-war she had elements of her crew 'strike', she had problems with her rudder and faults that developed and needed fixing as she was a well used warship. The Rodney was involved with the sinking of the Bismark, she undertook various convoy escorts and was amongst the fleet off the coast of Normandy in 1944.

After the history of the ship, the rest of the 89 pages are filled with the beautiful colour images of every external aspect of the ship, with the weapons fit and dazzle camouflage of how she was in 1942. The colour details of the decks, boats, camouflage and fittings are a delightful reference for modellers, including the rigging detail. As well as the hull and superstructure, there is detail for the main gun turrets, the smaller 6in Secondary armament, and the 8-gun Pom Pom AA mountings I particularly like.  Add the ship's boats, radars, gun directors and more, all very neatly done.

Tucked into the book is a larger, fold-out sheet with scale drawings of Rodney in 1/350 scale, with the spare space filled with line drawings in larger scales of searchlights, gun mountings etc. The whole thing is interesting to the historian, and a goldmine for warship modellers. Another excellent addition to this series from Kagero.

​

Distributed by Casemate Books, who kindly provided my review copy and another excellent one for the warship modeller.

​

Robin