Kagero The Japanese Battleship Hyuga - Kagero Super Drawings in 3D No.71 - Casemate UK

[Julien]

The Japanese Battleship Hyuga

Kagero Super Drawings in 3D No.71
 

 

The Hyuga was the second and last Ise-class battleship built for the Imperial Japanese Navy. This class of vessel was an improvement of the previous Fuso class.  The hull was extended by 3m and the armour  of the magazines and central command areas was changed. The layout of the turrets was changed to allow the boilers to be placed closer to the bow and the funnels to be moved closer to each other. Even though ordered in 1912 the ship was not completed until 1918 so she took no part in WWI. She did support Japanese forces during the Siberian Intervention in the Russian Civil war. Then in the late 1920s and again in the 1930 she was partially modernised with improvements being made in the armour and armour and propulsion before playing a small art in the Second Sino Japaneses War. By the start of WWII the ship was considered obsolete, however following the loss of the IJN's aircraft carriers during the battle of Midway she was partially converted to a sea plane carrier by removing the aft turrets and installing a flight deck. She continued to serve in WWII until being sunk by American airstrikes in July 1945. Post war the wreck was raised and scrapped. 

 

 

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

 

• Overview
• Design / Structure
• Propulsion
• Armament
• Armour
• Service
• Conclusion

 

The rest of the 79 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 turrets, ships boats, funnels, Kawasaki 37K2 seaplanes, 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 B2 fold out sheet with a three view on one side, unusually in 1:350, with additional drawings of the ships fixtures, such as casemates, main directors, torpedo tubes, 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, however this one does have a 3 fold A-4 colour pull out as well at the centre. 

 

 

Conclusion

If you love Japaneses battleships and like to model them as accurately as possible then this book is most definitely for you.  Highly recommended, 

 

 

Review sample courtesy of