The Battleship HMS Rodney (Super Drawings in 3D) Paperback – June 12, 2019

I'm one of those crazy people who actually loves the design of the Nelson-class battleships, so I was definitely curious when I heard that Kagero was doing a book on "Rodney" in their "Super Drawings in 3D" series. I've found the overall quality of these books ranges from "superb" to "meh." Unfortunately, this one falls in the latter category. The model of the ship presented here looks excellent at first glance, but falls apart upon close inspection. My nitpicks follow:1. The underwater hull is completely lacking in detail, except for the torpedo tubes, and seems to be formed of a single giant chunk of fiberglass. No shell plating, inlets, discharges, seacocks, etc. The bilge keels, propeller shafts, and brackets are present, but the angle bars attaching them to the hull are missing.2. Very simplistic depiction of rigging. Braces, halyards slings, and lifts tend to vanish into the yardarms or superstructure or are belayed to very flimsy metal rings. None of the slips, bottle screws, sheaves, insulators and so on visible in pictures of the real ship are present. Signal halyards are depicted as single lines, which would have made them useless in practice.3. Some of the smaller details are rather soft and poorly defined, the Oerlikon magazines and hinges on lockers and doors being two obvious examples.4. The forecastle deck wood decking is oddly presented. There's no waterway, and the planks end abruptly at the edge of the deck. Many of the fittings (such as the breakwater and some of the storage lockers) seem to be resting on top of the deck rather than securely attached to it.5. Many round and curved items, such as portholes, gun barrel liners, handwheels, and anchor hawsepipes, aren't truly "round" and appear to be made up of many short segments instead.6. The English translation is atrocious. "The funnel was well astern of the tower 16." "Rodney's crew consisted of 1.314 sailor-men." The conning tower is referred to as the "cunning tower" throughout.7. The black-painted areas of the superstructure are very hard to interpret without absolutely perfect lighting. I had this same problem with the USS North Carolina "SDIN3D."I waffled between two and three stars for my final rating. The illustrator obvious has a lot of passion for the subject, but the final product feels frustratingly unfinished. I'm not sure what the graphics arts equivalent of "dotting the i's and crossing the t's" is, but this book desperately needs is. My search for a good visual guide to the Nelsons continues...

I do have a fascination for the Nelson class battleships, and I was happy that they did a Super Drawings set on the Rodney. However, I must agree with Daryl Carpenter's review. The English translation just comes off all wrong, and much of the details in the illustrations are off. I give it three stars, but ask they do HMS Nelson as of 1945 with all necessary corrections.

Disappointed it contained some good pictures but they are too dark to see the details, very poor compared with the Antimony of Ships Bismarck.

Tolles Buch ! Für Modellbau genau richtig!

Packed with excellent photo's and as I am currently building the Trumpeter 1/200 Rodney it will be invaluable particularly with the rigging and painting, although I believe the camo colours are not particularly accurate. As stated previously the spelling is a little off, the "cunning tower" mentioned several times. overall a must for any Rodney fan.

Kagero社Super Drawingsシリーズ。今回はHMS Rodney（1942年）です。戦歴などを最初の7ページで簡単に紹介し、以降艦首から艦尾方向へ甲板上および各構造物のクローズアップ3Ｄ画像を約80ページにわたり掲載しています。添付図面は右左舷側面、平面図（1/350）と主砲をはじめとする各種装備品4面図（1/50～1/200）です。各部のディテールがわかりやすく表現されており、このシリーズならではの3Ｄ画像を活用した良い表現方法だと思います。ただ、今までの同シリーズでも色々指摘されていたように多少疑問が残る部分もあり、前回のPRINCE OF WALES同様、今号でもＢ砲塔上の4連ポンポン砲の防循形状など気にかかるところが各所にあるので他の資料などを併用したほうがよいかもしれません。もちろん写真、図面からは得られないビジュアル要素は充分お勧めできるものなので、資料というよりも3Ｄ作品集として楽しむのが妥当ではないでしょうか。

Great book just what you need if Building a model of Rodney

Ich bin Modellbauer und habe mir diesen Band bestellt, weil ich dieses Schiff als Modell nachbauen möchte.Der Band liefert viele Detailansichten die wichtig sind für den Modellnachbau. In einigen Bereichen gehen die Details in den sehr dunklen Farben leider etwas verloren.Trotzdem liefert der Band für Modellbauer viele wichtige Informationen.