Books and Plans

Yet another In Action book by Squadron Signal Publications. This one, Warships Number 26 and it covers Japanese Heavy Cruisers of World War Two. The book is intended to give the modeler a source of reference to detail some of the many Japanese cruiser models on the market. The book gives an overview of the Japanese Navy and their cruisers and then covers each class.

This book provides a variety of photo's showing Japanese CA's at various times in their careers. The photos are pretty good and help illustrate the differences in the classes. The line drawings are helpful, especially those with notes showing the various design features and the side by side profiles of the various classes. My favorite feature is the centerfold with colored profile renderings of various ships.

This book is a good overview of IJN ships. It is not intended to be a single source reference book. But it will give you a good ideal of the typical fit Japanese cruisers used over the lifetimes. I have been somewhat critical of earlier In-Action books in the past, but this one is an improvement over earlier works.

This book is available from Pacific Front Hobbies for $14.00 US. A fair price for a handy overall guide on IJN CA's. Be sure to check out their extensive line of Naval Book subjects from a variety of publishers covering all kinds of Naval subjects.