Yamato class battleships

The 'ShipCraft' series provides in-depth information about building and modifying model kits of famous warship types.

Lavishly illustrated, each book takes the modeller through a brief history of the subject class, then moves to an extensive photographic survey of either a high-quality model or a surviving example of the ship.

Hints on building the model, and on modifying and improving the basic kit, are followed by a section on paint schemes and camouflage, featuring numerous colour profiles and highly-detailed line drawings.

The strengths and weaknesses of available kits of the ships are reviewed, and the book concludes with a section on research references - books, monographs, large-scale plans and relevant websites.The Yamato class battleships of the Imperial Japanese Navy were the largest warships of the Second World War and the largest battleships ever constructed, displacing 78,800 tonnes.

They also carried the largest naval artillery ever fitted to a warship - 18in guns.

Neither Yamato nor her sistership Musashi made much impact on the War. Musashi was sunk during the battle of Leyte Gulf while Yamato, deployed in a deliberate suicide attack on Allied forces at the battle of Okinawa, was finally sunk by US carrier-based aircraft; Not 300 of her 3,330 crew survived.