Kagero The Battleship HMS Rodney - Kagero Super Drawings in 3D No.70

[Julien]

The Battleship HMS Rodney

Kagero Super Drawings in 3D No.70
 

 

HMS Rodney was the only other ship aside from HMS Nelson in the Nelson Class of Royal Navy Battleships. This class stood out from other ships of the day as they had all of their main armament forward of the main superstructure, and that armament was nine 16" guns. The design of the vessel was due to the limitations set out by the Washington Treaty of 1922 and the maximum displacement of 35,000 tons. By placing all three turrets in one place the armour could be concentrated there and not ship wide. The Rodney was to be named for Admiral George Brydges Rodney, 1st Baron Rodney. Rodney was famous for defeating the French at the Battle of the Saintes in 1782, and the Spanish at Cape St Vincent in 1780.  The Rodney was laid down at Cammell Lairds in Birkenhead in December 1922 and launched in 1925. She was commissioned into the Royal Navy in in 1927.  The Rodney was plagued by problems throughout her careers and had numerous refits to try and correct these issues, and heavy use she was paid off in 1946 and scrapped in 1948. During WWII she earned battle honours for Norway, The Atlantic, The Bismark (she made history here by being the only Battleship to torpedo another) while firing 340 16" shells!, Malta Convoys, The Invasion of North Africa, the Sicily & Salerno, followed by the English Channel, Normandy and finally the Arctic,

 

 

This is the latest book in Kagero Publishing’s superb series of Super Drawings in 3D. This book looks at the ship as she was after the 1942 refit. As with the previous books it has a brief history and the ships specifications at the beginning. This includes the following:-

 

• Overview
• Design
• Propulsion
• Armaments and fire control
• Armour
• Service
• Conclusion

 

The rest of the 89 pages are filled with the now well known style of beautifully drawn 3D renderings of every part of the ship.  It is obvious that a lot of time has been taken to get the drawings this good and accurate, and there is a wealthy of information for the modeller to use during their build. Every area of the upper hull and superstructure is dealt with plus the lower hull including the propellers and rudder.  There are a lot of close up renders of most of the equipment fitted, such as the PomPom & mounts, 16", 6" & 4.7” turrets, ships boats, funnels, Walrus seaplane and main turrets, as well as the longer view, showing how this design differed from all other battleships.

 

As is the norm with this series, Kagero have included a double sided A2 fold out sheet with a three view on one side, unusually in 1:350, with additional drawings of the ships fixtures, such as turrets, main directors, torpedo tubes, AA turrets, ships boats and radar, in either 1:50, 1:100, 1:150 or 1:350 scales. It would be a nice extra if these books had a pull out profile of the whole vessel in colour.

 

 

Conclusion

If you love British battleships and like to model them as accurately as possible then this book is most definitely for you. I have always had a personal like of the Ship as she was built at the shipyard where I served my apprenticeship, and when I helped doing some work in the archive I was able to look at original drawings for the ship.  Highly recommended, 

 

 

Review sample courtesy of