Featured Book

"Warship Pictorial #30: IJN Takao Class Cruisers"

by Steve Wiper

Softcover, 72 pages
Published by Classic Warship Publishing
ISBN: 0-9745687-9-1

It goes without saying that there was much rejoicing amongst us IJN fans when Classic Warships Publishing released its book on Yamato a couple of years back, as well as the publication of the Myoko class which preceded it. Many of us thought "well if they can dig up new visuals for the Yamato and Myoko class, just think of the potential for future IJN topics". Steve Wiper, the man at the helm of Classic Warships Publishing, never seems to dissapoint. His latest labor of love brings to us an even larger, better composition of information and visual goodness with "Warship Pictorial #30: IJN Takao Class Cruisers". This latest release in his series should more than satisfy the IJN Heavy Cruiser scholar that always craves for more photographic information on this particular class of vessels. There is something about these ships that really piques the curiosity of people. Thier unusual superstructure layout, the undulating Hull lines, the fact that every nook and cranny seems to have some sort of offensive armamaent crammed into it; they seem to be the catalyst for people to really get interested in learning more about heavy cruisers, simply because this class was so different than any other class of warships at the time. And when you do learn more about the various contemporary heavy cuisers of the world in this timeframe, you begin to understand that, at least, in the late 1930's, very early '40's, no other countries' heavy cruisers at the time could really stack-up offensively against the ships of the Takao class. Once again, Classic Warships has gone to great lengths to really make an effort to find for us the kind of images of these warships we may not have seen before in English publications. Post-battle damage images, trial run images, vessels in peace-time settings, it's all in here, which is really quite admirable at this stage since you would think that any and all resources for photos and information would have long been tapped by now. You get full Tabular Records of Movement for Takao, Chokai, Maya and Atago by combinedfleet.com's Bob Hackett and Sander Kingsepp, along with some excellent cross-sectional cutaway interior views, a full 2-page illustration of Takao, several smaller equipment illustrations scattered throughout the book, some excellent illustrations that details out the rigging arrangement of a couple of the vessels, and the back cover has a spot-on color illustration for Atago epicting her Wartime paint tone. .

You can order this book from the following sources: Pacific Front Hobbies, Amazon, White Ensign Models, The Floating Drydock, Christian Schmidt Bookstore, Colpar Hobbies and all books are sold through the dealers listed above as well as at hobby shop / Military Book Stores Worldwide. (QB)