Military Model Scene

Title: Japanese Combined Fleet 1941-42
Author: Mark Stille
Publisher: Osprey Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-4728-5643-2

'The IJN at its zenith, Pearl Harbor to Midway', number 1 in the new Fleet series from Osprey. An 80-page soft-cover book, with illustrations by Jim Laurier.
An opening chapter on The Fleet's Purpose sets the scene, and the history of the IJN back to their victory over a Chinese fleet in the 1890s, then the Russian fleet in 1904. The lessons from these victories lead on to their future plans, strategy and modern warship designs as WW2 approached. Then there is the Fleet Fighting Power, which goes through the various warship types and how they developed, including battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers and submarines along with their technical factors, such as armament, torpedoes etc. In addition to the ships, the IJN had an important air arm, not only those on board the carriers, but land based bombers as well, which famously accounted for Force Z. In How the Fleet Operated it considers Organisation, Command and Control, Doctrine, Intelligence and Deception, Logistics and Facilities. There are in interesting mix of strengths and weaknesses among these. Finally we get to Combat and Analysis. They had considerable success in the opening stages of the war, but suffered badly from losses at the battle of the Coral Sea, leading on to their defeat at the battle of Midway.
A fine start to this new series, one I enjoyed reading, and discovered more background to a number of aspects of the IJN during WW2. The IJN had some modern ships, and their reliance on good torpedo designs are very interesting. There are a number of 'what if' factors raised by the story which are food for thought. As a modeller who has an interest in shops of the IJN in WW2, with archive images and some great artwork, I like this one.
Thanks to Osprey for our review copy.

Robin