Roger Chesneau Books

Originally published: London: Chatham Publishing, 2004.

"This is the foruth volume in a new series providing ship modellers with all they need to know about a famous class of warship and associated model kits. This volume is dedicated to the largest class of submarines ever built, the Type VII, which formed the backbone of the German effort in the Battle of the Atlantic. A pre-war design, the Type VII was developed as the campaign progressed and was still in frontline service in 1945. All the major variants, as well as minor changes to equipment, are covered here."--Back cover

The 'ShipCraft' series provides in-depth information about building and modifying model kits of famous warship types. Lavishly illustrated, each book takes the modeler through a brief history of the subject class, using scale plans to highlight differences between sisterships and changes in their appearance over their careers, then moves to an extensive photographic survey of either a high-quality model or a surviving example of the ship. Hints on building the model, and on modifying and improving the basic kit, are followed by a section on paint schemes and camouflage, featuring numerous color profiles and highly-detailed line drawings. The strengths and weaknesses of available kits of the ships are reviewed, and the book concludes with a section on research references - books, monographs, large-scale plans and relevant websites. For the first volume in this series, the author has chosen the German 'pocket battleships' of WW2, the best-known of which was the Graf Spee of Battle of the River Plate fame. This innovative and infamous class of surface raiders has long been a popular subject for ship modelers, many manufacturers producing kits of the Graf Spee and the rather different Admiral Scheer and Lutzow. This book will show ship modelers how to turn their kits into something really special, but its unparalleled level of visual information will also appeal to the more general warship enthusiast.

"First published in 2005 by Chatham Publishing."

'The Mighty Hood', as she became known, was launched in 1918 to much public acclaim. She was a magnificent ship: 860ft long and displacing 42,100 tons, Hood was one of the fastest capital ships in the world. Hood's peacetime role took her on goodwill visits around the world. When war came in 1939, however, after 21 years without a major refit the Hood was in no shape to face Germany's modern, better armoured battleships. In action with the Bismarck on 24 May 1941, she exploded and sank with the loss of all but three of her crew. Roger Chesneau's book investigates this tragic story, providing a lively mix of technical data and historical narrative.

Thema dieses Buches sind die berühmt-berüchtigten deutschen Westentaschen-Schlachtschiffe aus dem Zweiten Weltkrieg; das bekannteste von ihnen ist mit Sicherheit die „Admiral Graf Spee“, die 1939, nach einem Gefecht vor der La Plata-Mündung, von der eigenen Besatzung versenkt wurde. Diese neuartige und gefürchtete Klasse von Handelsstörern hat bei Schiffsmodellbauern großes Interesse gefunden und viele Hersteller bieten Bausätze der bekannten „Graf Spee“, der „Admiral Scheer“ oder der „Deutschland“ an. Dieses Buch zeigt Ihnen, wie Sie aus Ihrem Modell etwas Besonderes machen können. Gleichzeitig sind die zahlreichen Bilder und Zeichnungen auch für jene von Interesse, die nach zusätzlichem Material über deutsche Kriegsschiffe des Zweiten Weltkriegs suchen. Inhalte des Buches sind unter anderem: - Entwicklungsgeschichte und Werdegang - Bauausführung und Umbauten - Farbangaben und Tarnschemata - Fotogalerie mit Bildern von ausgezeichneten Modellen - Besprechung von Modellbausätzen, Angabe von Bezugs- und Informationsquellen