Jang, Kerry British Light Cruisers. Volume 2: Town, Colony and later classes

A volume in the ShipCraft series. The series provides detailed information on building and modifying model kits of famous warships. Generally these are plastic and resin models of 20th century subjects, but like the previous volumes on Nelson's Victory and Captain Bligh's Bounty, this is a radical departure not just from a sailing ship of the period, but also from a ship for which kits are available in many different materials and scales. This calls for some changes from the standard approach, but the key features of the series remain. The USS Constitution, now in Boston harbour, is the oldest commissioned warship afloat. Part of the original 1794 construction programme for the fledgling US Navy, the ship had a distinguished career, beginning with the quasi-war with France and campaigns against the Barbary pirates of North Africa. However, it was the War of 1812 that established the fame of the ship, which became known as Old Ironsides after its victories over two British frigates and a number of smaller warships, and was a powerful symbol of national pride that kept the ship in service until the 1880s. Over the course of that long service, the ship's appearance was significantly altered, and many of the features of the ship as it is commonly modelled are in fact the result of later and historically inconsistent reconstructions. One of the major achievements of this volume is to describe these changes in as much detail as possible and to reconstruct the likely colour schemes used during the major phases of her career. The modelling section discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the available construction kits, lists commercial accessory sets for super-detailing and provides tips for modifying and improving the basic kit, including the complexity of the rigging. This is followed by an extensive photo gallery of selected high-quality models at various scales. The coverage is rounded off with a section on research references books, monographs, large-scale plans and relevant websites. In keeping with the series, this book offers an unprecedented level of visual information colour schemes, models, line art and photographs and is simply the best reference for anyone setting out to model this famous frigate.