Military Model Scene

Title: Warships in the Komandorski Islands 1943
Author: Mark Lardas
Publisher: Osprey
ISBN: 978-1-4728-6140-5

The USN and IJN fight the last pure surface battle, number 333 in the New Vanguard series from Osprey, and illustrations by Paul Wright. A 48-page soft-cover book.
This is a story I knew nothing about beforehand, but what a fascinating tale I have discovered. It all took place on the outer limits of the Pacific War, actually in the Arctic, where Japan had successfully invaded the islands of Attu and Kiska, threatening the USA with a potential landing on mainland Alaska. After the Introduction sets the scene, there is coverage of the ships involved from both sides, and it goes on to explore the Technical Factors of the ships used by both US and Japanese ships involved in the battle. These are split into sub-sections comparing Weaponry, Structure, Machinery and Damage Control capabilities. There is then a detailed description of the course of the battle, which lasted for less than 4 hours, involving both heavy and light cruisers, along with destroyers on both sides. Unusually this was a long range dual which took place in daylight, and was limited to gunfire and torpedo attacks but without the involvement of any of the aircraft carriers which played such a major role in the Pacific War. The conclusion does a neat job in looking at the successes and failures of the clash. As you would expect, there are plenty of archive images throughout the book, and the ship profiles and battle scene artwork is excellent as ever.
The casualties were remarkably light, especially considering the volume of ammunition and torpedoes fired by both sides. Some of the results I found rather surprising considering this sort of ship to ship naval dual was what both US and Japanese warships had trained so hard for, for so long. All taking place on the fringe of WW2 in the Pacific theatre, away from the main battle areas I think this will be an interesting read for many. The details given on the ships of both sides make for good references on the impact of the various pre-war treaties that put limitations on the various elements of warship building over that pre-war time period.
Thanks to Osprey for the review copy.

Robin