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  Dreadnoughts and Super-Dreadnoughts by Chris McNab    In building the Deadnought, the English actually shot themselves in the foot. This o...

Dreadnoughts and Super-Dreadnoughts by Chris McNab Dreadnoughts and Super-Dreadnoughts by Chris McNab

For your Wargamer, Toy soldier collector, MiniFig collector, military history nut. Reviews, interviews, Model Making, AARs and books!

battleship

 



Dreadnoughts and Super-Dreadnoughts


by


Chris McNab





   In building the Deadnought, the English actually shot themselves in the foot. This one ship with its 10 x 12" guns was a radical change from the 'Battleships' that came before it. Overnight it made every other ship in the world obsolete. Until then, the armaments on battleships were a hodge podge of different size calibers, with at most four main guns of roughly 12". The Dreadnought's speed of twenty-one knots also made it much faster than all the other battleships in the world. However, just like any other country, all of England's battleships were also made obsolete by the Dreadnought. This meant that every country was now in a race to build their own Dreadnought. It also started a Cold War of sorts between the German and English Navies. Germany saw her chance for her Navy to become just as strong as the British Navy. While this did not happen (England started a massive program of battleship building), it did give the Germans a chance to become a world naval power. 


 All of the above is shown to the reader by the author. The story of the development of the Dreadnought herself and her contemporaries and then onto the Super-Dreadnoughts is all here. The arguments of the type of boilers (coal or oil), and the amount and placement of the main guns, along with their massive increase in gun size, are all shown.


 This book is about an era of a few short years, roughly 1906 until 1918. In twelve years, the naval builders had gone from the Dreadnought to the Hood and Bayern classes. For anyone who is interested in the First World War at sea, or just these mighty ships themselves, this needs to be in your library. It is filled with facts, figures, and photos of all of the world's different capitol ships of that era. Unlike most books of this kind, it does not show the later battleships built during, before, and after World War II. The author does show us the history of the Battlecruisers but does not go into them in the detail that is shown with the Battleships.


 This is a large book, almost what you would consider a coffee table book. Unlike those books which are mostly eye candy, this book is a naval history connoisseurs' version of meat and potatoes. Thank you, Casemate Publishers for allowing me to review this very good book.


Robert

Book: Dreadnoughts and Super-Dreadnoughts

Author: Chris McNab

Publisher: Casemate Publishers


Heart of Leviathan Wave 1 Expansion by imageStudios  I did a review of the game (link will be at the ...

Heart of Leviathan: Wave 1 Expansion by imageStudios Heart of Leviathan: Wave 1 Expansion by imageStudios

For your Wargamer, Toy soldier collector, MiniFig collector, military history nut. Reviews, interviews, Model Making, AARs and books!

battleship




Heart of Leviathan

Wave 1 Expansion

by

imageStudios







 I did a review of the game (link will be at the bottom), and frankly fell in love with it. It is a miniatures game made relatively simple for dolts like me. I have played naval games where it takes thirty minutes to check to see if any of your fire has hit the other ship. There are times that I want to play at that kind of depth. At other times, I want to play this game. Dice rolls have taken the place of slide rules in Heart of Leviathan. This is not 'dumbing down'; there is enough WWI naval fluff to appeal to any budding admiral. This is a review, more like a paean of praise, about imageStudios first expansion to the game.


This how the ships came in the game

These are the plastic boxes the expansion ships come in


A look at the packaging

 The Wave 1 Expansion gives the tabletop admiral four more battleships to destroy with big guns. The original game I was sent also came with four battleships, two for the German and two for the English:

English
Iron Duke
Benbow

German
Konig
Markgraf


Building Instructions
Captain Cards and Turrets etc.


 This expansion flushes out the two navies, so that you have eight battleships in total to wreak havoc with. In the expansion you get:

English
Marlborough  
Emperor of India

German
Kronprinz
Grosser Kurfurst


The Cardboard Ships and extra game pieces


 One thing you must know is that the miniatures, although beautiful, come unpainted. They also come with the funnels, turrets etc. unattached. The ships also come with some other metal pieces to make them look that much better. These are cranes, boats, and masts. If you are so inclined you can make them look as great as you are able to. I have seen pictures online of people who have added smoke trails from the funnels. I will tell you right off the bat I am not that kind of modeler. Actually, I never paint any models that I make because I am so bad at it. However, for these ships I have made the exception and with the help of my artistic son I am trying to make them look as good as I can. You can also buy small magnets to put underneath the turrets to make them functional. I will have a link for them also below. You also need to know that to play the game you do not even need the miniatures, and that there are two different thick cardboard, extremely well done, ship pieces for each ship in the game. These are from a bird's eye view perspective.




 Unfortunately, my free time has not been anywhere near what I need to have finished my ships. The Iron Duke is the sleeker longer ship and the Kronprinz is the one that looks like it has a BMI problem.



Front and Back of the Ship Command Placard


 So now you will have four battlewagons apiece to glide across your table/ocean. Future expansions will include Cruisers and even submarines. Each battlewagon goes for $28.95. In the world of miniatures this amount is pretty low, especially with the add-ons that come with each ship. Thank you imageStudios for letting me review this excellent expansion to Heart of Leviathan. Now get cracking on the next expansion.

Heart of Leviathan:

Wave 1 Expansion:

My Heart of Leviathan review:

Magnets:

Japanese Battleships 1905-1942 by Miroslaw Skwiot  Japanese battleships; the list of them is a long one: the Mika...

Japanese Battleships 1905-1942 by Miroslaw Skwiot Japanese Battleships 1905-1942 by Miroslaw Skwiot

For your Wargamer, Toy soldier collector, MiniFig collector, military history nut. Reviews, interviews, Model Making, AARs and books!

battleship



by







 Japanese battleships; the list of them is a long one: the Mikasa, Kongo, and the Nagato among others. Notice I didn't mention the Yamato or her sister ship the Musashi. They will appear in due time.

 The first Japanese battleships were built by ship building firms in Britain. For those of you who didn't know it, there was a close connection between Britain and Japan pretty much from the 1860s to the 1920s. Japan was seen by the British as a counterweight to Russia in the far east. Britain and Russia were inveterate enemies for most of the 19th and early 20th centuries. So to the British a strong and well armed Japan was a good thing to have next to the Asian continent. The above is pretty amazing given the fact that the British navy attacked the Japanese port of Kagoshima in 1863.  The British fleet burned it to the ground. This pointed use of a modern fleet was the last part of a wake up call to the Japanese if they didn't want to end up like China. The Japanese would have to join the modern world.

 By the 1870's the world had two undisputed leaders in land and sea warfare, Germany and Britain. The Japanese wisely based their fledgling Army on Germany's and their Navy on Britain's. Japan as an island did have somewhat of a seafaring tradition, but this was mostly of a coastal and fishing nature.



 In the beginning the Japanese had to start her Navy from almost nothing. She had no modern docks or shipbuilding facilities. So again, she naturally turned to Britain. Strangely, the British firms at the time were able to produce better or more battle worthy ships than the British Navy employed at that point.

 The book itself starts with a background history of Japan's sudden awakening to the outside world. It then continues with the birth and setup of the Japanese Navy. The first battleships brought to our attention are the Katori and the Kashima. These two were ordered in Britain from the 1903 Japanese Naval budget. These ships were based on the battleship King Edward VII. Oddly, though the ships were built in Britain, their armor was made by Krupp in Germany.

 The first battleship built in Japan was the Satsuma, although her armament and armor was purchased outside of Japan. The book then goes into how the world's navies were put on their ears by the advent of the British battleship Dreadnought. As a matter of fact, all battleships were then classified as either Dreadnoughts or pre-Dreadnoughts. That is how revolutionary her design was. 

 The book shows you the planning and building of Japan's only battlecruisers the Kongo, Hiei, Haruna, and Kirishima (these were updated in the 1930s to fast battleships). The first Japanese 'super- Dreadnought' to be built was the Fuso. The Battle of Jutland and the naval clashes during World War One caused the Japanese to come up with new designs. The design they came up with were for the Nagato and here sister-ship the Mutsu. They were arguably the 'best battleships' in the world from 1920 until the end of the 1930s. Some will immediately argue that position for the British Hood. However, she was in actuality built as as a battlecruiser and not a battleship. The Hood's lighter armor would be tested in 1941 and was found wanting.



 The book continues with the plans for Japanese battleships before and after the Washington Naval Treaty. This treaty was signed in 1922 by all of the major powers. It was supposed to have stopped the world-wide naval arms race that was happening at the time. It goes on to show the plans for the battleships that were either scrapped or converted to aircraft carriers. The Washington treaty had few clauses about aircraft carriers. Their usefulness in 1922 was not recognized as being worth limiting them.

 The book goes on with the planning of the three largest battleships ever made, the Yamato, Musashi, and the Shinano ( the Shinano was converted to a carrier after the Battle of Midway). It also shows all of the plans for even larger battleships, with the planning going to the year 1950. The year 1941 saw the age of the battleship come to a close. The last titans of the era, the Yamato class battleships and the USA's Iowas, never battled each other. In fact, both of Japan's super-battleships were both sunk by lowly airplanes.

 This is my second Kagero book and I am even more impressed than I was with the first one. The book is jammed with photos and even has double paged 3D computer generated foldouts of some ships. Visually stunning, and filled with all there is to know about Japanese battleships, this book is very easy to endorse.


Robert


Publisher: Kagero
Distributor: Casemate Publishers
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