German Naval Guns 1939-1945 - WWII Battleship Artillery & Warship Weapons for Model Building, History Collectors & Military Enthusiasts

The photographs alone make this book a great buy. Add to that the line drawings, top view, side view cross sections of gun turrets, the feed mechanisms, elevators and 3-D computer generated color views of the guns used by the Kriegsmarine, along with data of weight, dimensions of shells, guns and mounts, you have yourself an excellent book.The book is divided into Heavy, Medium, 105-88mm and light guns. The photos are very clear, contrary to a lot of others I have seen of the German navy. Naturally, the focus is on the weapon, cannon or mount, but there is a lot more to it than just that. I also liked the fact that the author showed how the gun mount looked at time of launch vs. after a retro-fit.A pleasant surprise - guns used on U Boats and Schnellboats (torpedo fast boats) give the reader a range of the smallest to the largest cannon used by Germany during WW2. Not a lot of text here, most of the information is captured in the captions or data tables, which is fine.You don't have to be just a naval buff to enjoy this, since many of the smaller caliber(if you want to call 88mm small) guns were also used by other branches of the German armed forces. This is especially true of the ubiquitous 20mm and 20mm quad mounts. As a modeler, I would absolutely recommend this book for those looking for extreme detail and color to help build & paint. As a navy buff, I absolutely recommend this book for its scope and breadth of the armament found on German ships.I don't rate `must have' books very often, but I think this is one of them.