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Book review: US BB Conversion Projects '42-'65


Rusty White

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US BATTLESHIP CONVERSION PROJECTS 1942-1965
An Illustrated Technical Reference
By
Wayne Scarpaci

Wayne
Scarpaci is a talented artist whose work graces many homes and galleries. He is especially well known as a military artist specializing in warships and technical references. His works are found throughout the book as full color renderings as well as many photographs and illustrations in color and halftone. He has added many 1/1200 scale line drawings depicting each conversion project so they can be blown up to assist the modeler in building these unusual vessels.

I bought this book because I am a big fan of conceptual ship designs of the US Navy; especially the battleships and cruisers. The first half of the book gives a pretty good historical evolution of the various modern weapon systems used and considered during the ’42 to ’65 time frame. Lots of neat photos and facts illustrate every system mentioned. I was a
bit befuddled by the way Wayne laid out this book. The text isn’t done in the traditional two columns layout. More a “wrap” text method around the various photos makes the book somewhat “tedious” to read. The captions to the photos also seem to be in inappropriate places, making the book a bit difficult to follow with some captions located in the midst of the text due to the book's unusual layout. It’s more of an annoyance than anything else, but that’s me.

The second half of book (the reason I purchased it) covers the various concepts and concoctions the Navy came up with to expand the use of the Iowa class BBs, Alaska class, South Dakota, and Fleet Carrier Emergency War Programs. Each is complete with a 1/1200 scale illustration that can be blown up to assist the modeler if they wish to build one of these
things. Most are accompanied by a full color painting copy by the author. Lots of pertinent facts accompany each system’s description.

Conclusion:
This is a an excellent addition to anyone’s library that enjoys the “never was” versions of various ships of the US Navy. There were a number of punctuation and spelling errors. Mostly due to I suppose, a program that automatically adds words which I noticed several times in the rather unorthodox layout of the book. These problems can be easily
overlooked when one considers the wealth of information, photos, and scale drawings contained in the book. A great value for the price.

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Guest PetrolGator

Rusty,

 

 

Thanks for the review. I was debating doing a USS Kentucky hybrid missile battleship to help build some scratching skills and didn't know this book existed!

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