German Pocket Battleships

Rating:
Summary: Slipping into the Digital Imaging Abyss
Review: Roger Chesneau is an author of no small repute. An expert on military equipment, both naval and aeronautical, his works include the now-classic "Aircraft Carriers of the World" (1984) as well as numerous AEROGUIDE descriptions of post-WWII aircraft. It was therefore with great anticipation that I awaited the publication of the first two offerings of his "Ship Craft" series of monographs. My opinions of Chesneau's "KGV Class Battleships" and "German Pocket Battleships" are, unfortunately, quite mixed.

These 64 page, large format (A4 page size) soft-cover offerings from Chatham Publishing are designed especially for modelers. The first third of the books cover the design and history of their subjects, with the final 10-15 pages devoted to their "Appearance" during their careers, both from modifications to equipment and camouflage. Chesneau's text is lucid, lively, and concise. There are pages of color profiles (2 for the KGV battleships, 6 for the various Panzerschiff vessels), and 4 to 6 pages of 1:700 scale line drawings with details. These are very well done. A full page of References include sources for plans, Web sites, and videos, as well as the usual books. Where these "Ship Craft" books depart from other histories, and what makes them particularly attractive to modelers, are the 10 page "Model Products" and 20 page "Modelers Showcase" sections. The "Products" chapter reviews the commercial styrene (but no resin) kits available over the full range of scales, with photos of the kit boxes and unfinished kit parts, with Chesneau's considered opinions of each. Available aftermarket photoetch and resin detail parts are also reviewed.

The "Modeler's Showcase" is inspiring, but also fully illustrates the near-fatal flaw in these books. In full color, various modeler's scratch- and kit-built efforts are shown at a wide range of scales. But, on closer inspection, one realizes that nearly every one of these photos is a digital imaging nightmare. Reviewing the black and white photos elsewhere in the book shows that these historic photographs have also been digitally scanned and printed, and show the same problems of "pixelation" and image interpolation. This ruins the resolution in the images. No rigging lines are visible on any b/w images. The digital images also show the annoying Moire interference patterns seen when the pixel size is too large to show repetitive small details in the object (e.g. the deck planking on any of the models, or the hull port holes in the photos on the back cover of the Pocket Battleship book). These b/w photos are the usual, widely-reproduced images, so comparing them to their previous presentations in older publications shows how poorly they have been reproduced here. This is not progress; this is shameful.

I am extremely disappointed with the publisher and printer for the presentation of the photographs in these first two "Ship Craft" series books. Indeed, with Squadron/Signal Publication's "In Action" series having also slipped into this digital imaging abyss, things appear quite bleak for the book-buying modeling community. Roger Chesneau's expert text, the skill of the contributing modelers/artisans, and the accuracy of the color camouflage profiles and line drawings is very greatly diminished by the horrid photographs. Lets hope that the publishers get the message that we will not stand for such poor images in our modeling books. Let us also hope that the four further monographs planned for this "Ship Craft" series live up to the potential shown here.