Military Model Scene

Title: The Aircraft Carrier HMS Invincible
Author: Witold Koszela
Publisher: Kagero
ISBN: 978-83-66673-26-7

TopDrawings 111 is for a famous Cold-War Royal Navy ship, HMS Invincible. Lead vessel of 3 sister ships, light carriers, and for a time referred to as 'Through Deck Cruisers'. The others of course were Ark Royal and Illustrious. A 28- page soft-cover book, plus with the addition of 2 larger, folded sheets with more plans tucked into the centre of the book. The first 2 pages have the background to the history of Invincible, along with the basic statistics of the ship, and provided in both English and Polish.
The bulk of the book features scale drawings of the many different elements of the carrier, such as the island, the funnel, masts, boats, weapon and radar systems. These are all done in a scale that suits the fit of the page, so they vary between 1/50, 1/100, 1/200, and 1/300, while on the final pages, the various Harrier/Sea Harrier and Sea King variants which served on board Invincible all in 1/144 scale, especially of course embarked during her war cruise to the Falkland Islands in 1982. This leaves us with the 2 larger fold-out pages that are tucked between the main pages, and these hold 1/350 scale plans of Invincible as she appeared in the early, mid and late years of her service. One side of one of these 2 sheets has it shown in full colour, so a great guide for modellers.
HMS Invincible was made famous by her service during the Falklands War of 1982. The many drawings in here may encourage some modellers to make alterations to the 1/350 Airfix kit of HMS Illustrious so it could represent Invincible during her time in the Falklands. Super reference for modellers and warship modellers and great to see a Cold War era RN ship being chosen for the subject matter.
Thanks to Casemate, the UK distributor for Kagero, for our review copy.

Robin