County Class Cruisers

Author: Les Brown
Published by Seaforth Publishing: ShipCraft Modelling Series No.19
ISBN: 9781848321274
Pages: 64
Paperback A4 size
Price around £14.99 GBP (December 2013)
Review by Les Venus

Our thanks to Seaforth Publishing for supplying our review sample – get this excellent book here now.

I have been a huge fan of the ShipCraft books since I started modelling ships. I love them because they offer a unique blend of reference, model and accessories products knowledge and reviews and finally painting guides and built model examples from notable modellers in the field; in short, Inspiration.

No matter what the subject or the Author, every book follows the same format, reference photos, data and text, models and accessories available, actual builds, more reference and painting guides.
Les Brown focuses predominately on Royal Navy ships and I used his book on Queen Elizabeth Class Battleships when I was working on a model of HMS Warspite. His style is informative, crisp clean and easy to read. His choice of photographs in such a limited format is excellent and he clearly has the modeller in mind when he makes his selections. The accessories and range of models include mainstream and limited run plastic and resin kits, in a multitude of scales, as well as a list of accessories in resin and photo etch. In short all you need to know.

The model photography is stunning and uses models from Ian Ruscoe (you’ll find several of his models here in Finished Now – Maritime area), Jim Baumann and Kostas Katseas to name but a few.

We’ve also reviewed Steve Backer’s book on the Scharnhorst and Gneisnau is a real beauty that again follows the same theme as before. I love Steve’s work which alongside this one includes Bismarck and Tirpitz, Grand Fleet Battle Cruisers, British battleships and many more. I have all of his books and cannot recommend his, Les’s or indeed any one of the range highly enough. They are a must have for every ship modeller.

Les V.