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Armoured Cruiser Georgios Averof Super Drawings in 3D


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Greek Armoured Cruiser Georgios Averof  

Kagero Super Drawings in 3D

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Georgios Averof  is a modified Pisa-class armoured cruiser built in Italy for the Royal Hellenic Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. The ship served as the Greek flagship during most of the first half of the century. Although popularly known as a battleship in Greek, she is in fact an armoured cruiser the only ship of this type still in existence.

The ship was initially ordered by the Italian Regia Marina, but budgetary constraints led Italy to offer it for sale to international customers. With the bequest of the wealthy benefactor George Averof as down payment, Greece acquired the ship in 1909. Launched in 1910, Averof arrived in Greece in September 1911. The most modern warship in the Aegean at the time, she served as the flagship of admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis in the First Balkan War, and played a major role in the establishment of Greek predominance over the Ottoman Navy and the incorporation of many Aegean islands to Greece.

 

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The ship continued to serve in World War I, the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922, and the interwar period, receiving a modernization in France in 1925 to 1927. Following the German invasion of Greece in April 1941, Averof participated in the exodus of the Greek fleet to Egypt. Hopelessly obsolete and prone to mechanical breakdowns, she nevertheless spent the next three years as a convoy escort and guard ship in the Indian Ocean and at the Suez Canal. In October 1944, she carried the Greek government in exile back to liberated Athens, after the withdrawal of the German army.

 

In 1952, she was decommissioned, before being moved to Poros, where she was berthed from 1956 to 1983. From 1984 until the present day, she has been reinstated on active duty as museum ship in the Naval Tradition Park in Faliro. After maintenance in late 2017, she achieved seaworthiness state once again, allowing the ship to sail (towed) accompanied by Greek frigate Kountouriotis (F-462) to Thessaloniki Greece where she received more than 130,000 visitors over her 53-day stay.

 

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This is one of the few books in this burgeoning series where you can actually go and visit the ship in question. Some might question the fact that she is called the oldest armoured cruiser in existence, and point to the USS Olympia, but the Olympia is actually classed as a protected cruiser rather than armoured.  As with the other books in the series there is a potted history of the ship, covering six pages including the following sections:-

 

  • Overview
  • Design
  • Ships
  • Propulsion
  • Protection
  • Armament
  • Career

 

The rest of the fifty nine pages are filled with the beautifully rendered 3D drawings we have got know so well in this series, covering every part of the ships structure, weapons, boats and sundry equipment. The drawings are really clear and perfect for the maritime modeller to see all the useful details that could help make that masterpiece that we all strive for. This release does include drawings for below the waterline, unlike a lot of other books in the series, so perfect for those of us who build full hull. An A1 folded sheet of line drawings is also included and this contains 3 views of the ship overall, in 1:300 scale, while on the reverse there are bow and stern drawings in 1:300, plus  numerous detail drawings of equipment in various scales between 1:50 and 1:100, giving more detail to the information hungry modeller. Of particular interest are the distinctive radio aerials with their spreaders

 

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Conclusion

Following the now tried and tested formula that Kagero have made their own, this book is superbly produced and with the subject matter being one of the most good looking battleships, it  will become a must have for any maritime modellers. It will be interesting to see if anyone will release a kit of this interesting and long lived ship, surely a company like Combrig will give it a go at some point.

 

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Review sample courtesy of
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